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2026-10-08 — Internet Archive (archive.org): Journal of the Franklin Institute, Scientific American, biographies

Investigator (Step I), project Morton-Wall. Access: scripted (archive.org advancedsearch API + _djvu.txt OCR downloads), located from Google searches made in Chrome. Copies saved in research/files/ (OCR text, not page images; equations/figures not checked).

Searches

  • advancedsearch: title:(journal franklin institute) AND year:1876, ... year:1867, ... (year:1871 OR year:1872)
  • advancedsearch: identifier:sim_scientific-american_1871-06*
  • advancedsearch: title:(history central high school philadelphia)
  • advancedsearch: title:(electrician) AND year:1922 (no hits); fortschritte physik 27 (no 1871 volume found)
  • grep of downloaded texts for: Houston, Thomson, induction coil, etheric, Ritchie, Morton, secondary condenser, tin still

Findings

1. Houston, "Phenomena of Induction", J. Franklin Inst. vol. 101 (3rd ser. vol. 71), Jan. 1876, pp. 59-63, dated "Central High School, Philadelphia, Dec. 11th, 1875" [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-franklin-institute_1876-01_71_1 (file: files/JFI-1876-01-vol101-Houston-Phenomena-of-Induction_djvu.txt)

The inventor's own later restatement of the 1871 note, written in reply to Edison's "etheric force" announcement (Nov.-Dec. 1875). - He re-describes 1871: one pole to a gas pipe, the other "either with a large insulated conductor or with a semi-insulated conductor, as for example, by allowing the wire to rest on a dry lecture table", giving "the characteristic whitening of the condensed spark". His 1871 explanation, in his words: "a condensation of the spark by connection with extended surfaces, similar to the condensation produced by the introduction of a Leyden battery into the circuit." - Adds 1871 observations not in the 1871 note (or more detail): sparks "in adjoining rooms ... from a large pneumatic trough, in connection by soldered joints with the water-pipes"; "from a half-horse power engine, also in metallic connection with the water-pipes, and from the steam boiler in the chemical laboratory on the floor below"; "A person standing on the floor could draw sparks from any of the gas pipes in the adjoining rooms by holding a knife blade to the pipes or burners." - Dec. 1875 repetition "in connection with my friend, Professor Elihu Thomson": the same 6-inch coil "worked by means of an electro-poion battery of ten cells coupled for an intensity of ten" (zinc between two carbons, about 3 x 6 in. per cell). The text says "One pole of the battery was placed in metallic connection with a gas pipe and the other ... with a large insulated conductor" — from context this almost certainly means the coil's secondary poles, as in 1871 (my reading; the OCR text says "battery"). - Contact with the pipes was "unnecessary, as distinct sparks were afforded by a stove in the same room, and from another in an adjoining room." - Tests on the sparks (Edison's own tests): gold-leaf electroscope did not diverge; astatic galvanometer not deflected; cotton shred not attracted; "retro-action" spark seen on a wire looped back on itself. Also reproduced Edison's arrangement (electromagnet + interrupter, no coil) and got sparks "having all the properties described by Mr. Edison." - His explanation: "an instantaneous outgoing current, immediately followed by an incoming one", with "the enormous velocity of electrical currents ... probably some hundred thousand miles per second", so no net deflection of electroscope or galvanometer. - Editor's note (unsigned; the journal's editors had a stake in the Institute member's priority): "whatever there may be remarkable in the phenomena of so-called Etheric Force, was described by Prof. Houston, previous to the discovery of Mr. Edison." It also reads the 1871 reference to a cylinder or plate machine as showing that in Houston's view the source "whether magneto-electric, frictional, or derived from a battery, was ... immaterial." Bears on: claims 1-4 (the 1871 observations and Houston's "rapid discharge"/condensation explanation); fills the "no battery given" gap only for the 1875 repetition, not for 1871.

2. Houston and Thomson, "The Alleged Etheric Force. Test experiments as to its identity with induced electricity", J. Franklin Inst. vol. 101, April 1876, pp. 270 ff. [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-franklin-institute_1876-04_71_4 (file: files/JFI-1876-04-vol101-Houston-Thomson-Electrical-Phenomena_djvu.txt)

  • Explains Edison's spark as induction from the "extra current" (self-induced spark at the break) charging the magnet winding, which induces "a flow or charge in one direction ... followed instantaneously by a flow or charge in the reverse direction" in the core and connected metal, "the wire and the cores of the magnets bearing the same relations to each other as the inner and the outer coatings of a Leyden jar."
  • Balanced-circuit test: battery split into two halves with the magnet in the electrical middle gives no spark in the dark box; any unbalance (a mass of metal, the experimenter's body, even approaching a person) brings the sparks back.
  • Polarity test with two matched magnets M and M': either core alone gives sparks; both together cancel — offered as "unquestioned evidence of that polarity which has apparently been wanting".
  • The same sparks from a metal-coated test tube (a capacitor) and from acidulated-water "coatings", without any coil or core. Bears on: claim 4 (Houston's mechanism language: large conductor = condenser coating, rapid discharge). These are the inventor's own later and fuller statements of the principle.

3. Henry Morton, "An Important Adjunct to the Induction Coil", J. Franklin Inst. vol. 83 (3rd ser. LIII), April 1867, pp. 256-260 [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-franklin-institute_1867-04_53_4 (file: files/JFI-1867-04-vol83-Morton-Important-Adjunct-Induction-Coil_djvu.txt)

This is the "secondary condenser" paper that Wahl cites (claims.md lists it as missing). Morton's points: - A Leyden jar in the secondary circuit "shortens the spark and increases greatly its brightness", because of "the concentration of the entire discharge into a single and instantaneous spark of intense temperature" (citing Plücker's spectra). - A break in the circuit besides the vacuum tube is needed so "the fluid would ... accumulate in the jar". - With his 8-inch coil a single jar gives 1 in. sparks; six jars "for cascade" (series, after Franklin; Boggs credited with noting the longer spark) give 4 in. - His practical condenser: 8 glass plates 8 x 10 in. with 6 x 8 in. tinfoil each side, in a photographic negative box, plates joined in cascade; gives sparks of about 5 1/2 in. "characterized by the white light and loud report peculiar to the Leyden jar discharge". - Notes Professors Robert E. Rogers and John F. Frazer of Philadelphia had used jars with the coil; found nothing in Du Moncel's or Noad's books. Bears on: claims 3, 5, 6 — the same spark-length versus "quantity" trade-off; Houston's large conductors play the role of Morton's plates (Houston 1876 says so in his own words).

4. Journal of the Franklin Institute, July 1871 - June 1872 (12 issues) [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-franklin-institute_1871-07_62_1 (and following ids)

Searched for Wahl's promised later account of experiments with the Morton coil and for any further Houston note on the coil connection. Queries (grep): "induction coil", "Houston", "Ritchie", "Morton's coil", "large coil". Result: nothing found on either (OCR text; a misread title cannot be excluded). Houston's 1871-72 items in these issues are on other topics (sound transmission through deal rods, etc.). Silence here is recorded, not interpreted.

5. Scientific American, vol. 24 no. 24 (dated June 10, 1871 on the SciAm site; archive id says 06-11) [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_scientific-american_1871-06-11_24_24 (file: files/SciAm-1871-06-10-vol24-no24-Houston-reprint_djvu.txt)

Full reprint "By Prof. Edwin J. Houston, in the Journal of the Franklin Institute", text matching the JFI note (including "in a room underneath the adjoining room"). Shows the 1871 note reached a national readership the same month.

6. David O. Woodbury, Beloved Scientist: Elihu Thomson, a Guiding Spirit of the Electrical Age (1944) [web] https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.177396 (file: files/Woodbury-1944-Beloved-Scientist-Elihu-Thomson_djvu.txt, pp. 63-68, and a later chapter on wireless, OCR line 11322; page number not checked)

A biography written from the Thomson side (stake: Thomson's priority and credit). Its account: - In 1871, "eighteen-year-old Elihu Thomson" had been using Leyden jars ("the coffin") across the gap of a 6-inch Ruhmkorff coil; he and Houston were "speculating as to why the jars shortened and fattened the sparks and turned them a vivid blue" (Houston wrote "silvery white"). - "One day Elihu disconnected the 'coffin' from the spark coil and substituted a water pipe and metallic table top as the condenser plates." Sparks were drawn "from the frame of a steam engine fully 30 feet away" and a gas burner lit with a knife. - It says Houston "took sole credit for the observations" in the 1871 paper, and that in 1875 "The discovery was made almost wholly by Elihu Thomson, with Houston only looking on". - 1875 set-up per Woodbury: coil terminal to a water pipe, the other "to a large tin still mounted on a glass jar"; bichromate battery; receiver a dark box with two graphite pencil points, one with "a large brass knob"; sparks obtained in other rooms, the cellar, and in the rooftop observatory where Prof. Monroe B. Snyder (astronomy) witnessed them from the doorknob and the telescope eyepiece, "90 feet below" the coil; Thomson then used two "resonators" adjusted in or out of phase to make the sparks appear or vanish. - Later: "In 1871 and again in 1875 Elihu Thomson actually did transmit and receive wireless impulses through a hundred feet of masonry and air"; with William Greene he agreed messages could be spelled out "probably for distances of several city blocks". Woodbury's reading (electromagnetic waves, tuned resonators) is his characterization, written in 1944 with hindsight; Houston's own 1876 explanation is induced inverse currents. The two descriptions of the 1875 "two resonators" test and the April 1876 paper's "two matched magnets / balanced battery" test may describe the same experiment in different words (my reading; needs checking against Thomson's notebooks). Bears on: authorship of claim 1-3 observations (Houston vs Thomson); witness (Snyder); the radiated-wave interpretation as related work.

7. Franklin Spencer Edmonds, History of the Central High School of Philadelphia (1902) [web] https://archive.org/details/historyofcentral00edmorich (file: files/Edmonds-1902-History-of-Central-High-School_djvu.txt)

  • "Dr. William H. Wahl, Secretary of Franklin Institute, ... substituted most successfully for Professor Houston in 1872-73, during the latter's study in Germany." This is a direct personal link between the two authors in the project file (Wahl and Houston), which the deep read did not find in the 1871 volume.
  • Monroe B. Snyder joined the staff in 1873 (astronomy) — consistent with Woodbury placing him as the 1875 witness, and not 1871.
  • Thomson's own 1902 recollection, quoted at length, lists lecture apparatus, dynamos, telephones and the 1877-78 dynamo tests with Houston, but does not mention the 1871 coil connection or the 1875 etheric-force experiments (silence noted, not interpreted).