Abstract
THE idea of propelling a boat through water by the motive power of electricity is no new one. The invention of the electromagnet showed the power of an electric current to produce a mechanical force. It was no very difficult matter, therefore, for the electricians of fifty years ago to utilise the force of the electromagnet to drive small electromagnetic engines; and from the small beginnings of Dal Negro, Henry, Ritchie, and Page, grew up a group of electric motors which only awaited a cheap production of electric currents to become valuable labour-saving appliances. Nor was it a very long stride to fore see that if a sufficiently powerful battery could be accommodated on board a boat, it might be possible to propel a vessel with electromagnetic engines drawing their supply of currents from the batteries. This suggestionone of the earliest, indeed, of the many applications of the electromagnet—was made by Prof. Jacobi of St. Petersburg, who, in 1838, constructed an electric boat. Fig. 1, which we here reproduce from Hessler's “Lehrbuch der Technischen Physik,” represents the rude electro-magnetic motor or engine, which Jacobi devised for the driving of his boat. Two series of electro-magnets of horse-shoe form were fixed upon substantial wooden frames, and between them, centred upon a shaft which was connected to the paddle-wheels, rotated a third frame, carrying a set of straight electro-magnets. By means of a commutator made of notched copper wheels, owhich changed the direction of the current at appropriate intervals, the moving electro-magnets were first attracted towards the opposing poles, and then, as they neared them, were caused to be repelled past, so providing a means of keeping up a continuous rotation. This machine was worked at first by a Daniell's battery of 320 couples, containing plates of zinc and copper, 36 square inches each, and excited by a charge of sulphuric acid and sulphate of copper. The speed attained with this battery did not reach so much as miles per hour. But in the following year, 1839, tne improvement was made of substituting 64 Grove's cells, in each of which the platinum plates were 36 square inches in area. The boat, which was about 28 feet long, 7½ broad, and not quite 3 feet in depth, was propelled, with a convoy of fourteen persons, along the River Neva, at a speed of 21/4 (English) miles per hour.
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THOMPSON, S. Electric Navigation . Nature 26, 554–556 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026554a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026554a0