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In the experiments such as performed this evening, we operate the coil either from a specially constructed alternator capable of giving many thousands of reversals of current per second, or, by disruptively discharging a condenser through the primary, we set up a vibration in the secondary circuit of a frequency of many hundred thousand or millions per second, if we so desire; and in using either of these means we enter a field as yet unexplored.

If the gas be strongly compressed, the displacement due to the force is made smaller, and the losses are reduced. In most of the succeeding experiments I prefer, chiefly on account of the regular and positive action, to employ the alternator before referred to. This is one of the several machines constructed by me for the purposes of these investigations.

A small alternator of 200 watts and 100 volts is coupled direct to the aeroplane motor, a new clutch coupler being employed for this purpose. By means of a small transformer the voltage is raised to 30,000 volts, at which the condenser is charged. In this instance the musical spark method is employed.

With the aid of Jupe, the gas bag was inflated to a point where only a slight additional quantity of gas would cause the craft to shoot upward to the sky. When all was ready a test of the instruments was made and they were found to be working perfectly. The powerful alternator on the Wondership was, of course, worked by the same motor that drove the big propellers.

Bedded down upon solid rock there was a high-tension alternator capable of absorbing the entire output of the mighty turbine. This turbo-alternator was connected to a set of converters from which the energy would flow along three great copper cables the receptors of the lifeboats being altogether too small to carry the load to the now completely exhausted accumulators of the "Forlorn Hope."

An electrode lasts much longer when kept at incandescence by currents, or impulses, obtained from a high-frequency alternator, which rise and fall more or less harmonically, than by impulses obtained from a disruptive discharge coil. In the latter case there is no doubt that most of the damage is done by the fundamental sudden discharges.

One consideration of importance is worth inquiring into, and this has relation to the largest turbo-generators supplied for power-station and like purposes. Obviously, the testing of, say, a 7000-kilowatt alternator by any standard electrical-testing method must entail considerable expense, if such a test is to be carried out in the maker's works.