New catechism of electricity; a practical treatise

Front matter

Class I K*S|

Book

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Preface

What can the autnor of this treatise say in sending it forth to be added to the much more extensive works already published relating to the same subject. He can say this.

There are a thousand spoken languages in the world, each mode of speech is more or less perfect, and easily understood.

But, outside those born to a particular tribe or nation, al) other tongues save their own are a babel of sound — a literal gibberish.

Thus, the Chinaman cannot understand the Italian, nor the Frenchman the German, and so on through the hundreds of dialects; a man who knows six languages is rare, although Elihu Burritt the learned blacksmith was said to be familiar with forty or more.

It is the same with the writing of books ; each author must use his own native " lingo " addressed to those born to the same tribe as himself.

xii Preface,

Now, for many years, a large number of the patrons of the author's other books have signified a desire for him to write a work on Electricity, and the time being ripe, he now sends it forth addressed (only) to those familiar with a common language and animated by a common tie of association and life with himself.

Hence, this work is addressed; not to the experimenter or to the toy-maker, nor to the scholar in school or college, but to those who have to deal with Electricity as a part of their life work ; to those who hold it in check, like a powerful horse and render serviceable this mysterious force — the rein to hold and guide it is knowledge.

Back of the desire for a considerable circulation of the printed book lies the earnest wish that it may be thoroughly useful to that class of men who must perforce use electricity as their bondsman or serve it as an inexorable master.

And this is the true office of a book relating to the arts or sciences ; to explain the unvarying laws upon which all true progress is based; to classify and arrange for ready reference this information so that it may be readily available; to furnish hints and suggestions leading to further and thorough research in all lines leading from the subjects discussed ; in short to reduce the every-day practice of a thousand skilled workers to an unvarying science; science being defined as the "orderly arrangement of knowledge."

Preface. xiii

It is also the heartfelt wish of the author that this work may be found to be an introduction of the reader and student to a wide acquaintance with what may be termed electrical literature.

In a science which has occupied the whole of very many lives in the investigation of its laws and an immense expenditure of money in experimental tests, it were vain to expect from a single book much more than a limited view of some one part of the subject, or better yet, a work giving the clue to further research and study in many directions.

So, in this work the author trusts the student will at least find " the end of the rope " which drawn out will make him master of the principles and practice relating to practical Electricity. And, in the abridgement and selection of the ever-widening subjectmatter, so present it, that it can at the pleasure or profit of the student, be run out to infinitude in any useful direction.

With these few introductory words and added good wishes for the progress and prosperity of the reader, the author thus apologizes (for a preface is usually an apology) for issuing a New Catechism of Electricity.