Morton-Wall: Investigator sites log

Run 2026-10-08 (first run)

Web time used: 9.6 minutes wall clock (timer 1791498921 to 1791499494; cap 10 min). Chrome used for all searching and browsing; curl used only to fetch archive.org OCR text, the Atherton PDF and the forum page once located. No logins, no CAPTCHAs; one Cloudflare check (APS) cleared by itself; PhilSci-Archive returned a bot-check page.

Project scope as read: Edwin J. Houston, "On a New Connection for the Induction Coil" (JFI June 1871) and W. H. Wahl, "A Large Induction Coil" (JFI March-April 1871, on Henry Morton's Ritchie coil). "The inventor" here is chiefly Houston (the 1871 connection), with Morton (the coil and the secondary condenser).

Principles as the authors state them (for keyword building): one secondary pole earthed (gas or water pipe), the other on a large, imperfectly insulated conductor; the conductor acts like a Leyden jar coating ("condensation of the spark by connection with extended surfaces", Houston 1876) and allows "rapid discharge of the secondary wire" (Houston 1871); trade-off of spark length against "quantity"; sparks drawable from distant metal connected (or not connected) to the building's pipes. Related terms in other words: ground plus antenna (capacitive top load), extra current / self-induction, condensed spark, etheric force, Hertzian waves, radiant energy (free-energy literature).

Keywords tried

1. "Houston" "new connection for the induction coil"
2. Coulson 1957 "Some prominent members of the Franklin Institute" Houston Thomson
3. Elihu Thomson Houston 1871 induction coil gas pipe spark Central High School wireless 1875
4. Thomson Houston "etheric force" 1875 Franklin Institute induction coil earth "gas pipe" sparks distant
5. sciencedirect "Journal of the Franklin Institute" 1876 Houston Thomson "induction" "so-called" OR "phenomena of induction"
6. "In 1872, Elihu Thomson took a large"
7. Ritchie induction coil "Henry Morton" Stevens Institute 21 inch spark 1870
8. "Very large induction coils" Brenni Ritchie Morton Spottiswoode Apps
9. Elihu Thomson 1875 Ruhmkorff coil "tin" OR "gas pipe" sparks "doorknob" OR "brass knob" Central High School electromagnetic waves before Hertz
10. Susskind 1964 Isis "Observations of Electromagnetic-Wave Radiation before Hertz" Thomson Houston 1871 tin still
11. edison.rutgers.edu "etheric force" Houston Thomson 1876
12. "Houston" "Thomson" 1871 "Central High School" wireless priority "Electrical World" OR "Electrical Engineer" 1899 sparks coil "water pipe"
13. site:as.amphilsoc.org Elihu Thomson Papers Houston notebook 1871 OR 1875 "etheric"
14. "Thomson discovered electric waves fifty years ago" OR "A short story in wireless" Elihu Thomson 1922
15. "Ritchie" "induction coil" "Stevens Institute" Morton coil museum OR collection OR "Scientific American" 1871 "21 inches"
16. "Elihu Thomson" "cold-water pipe" "metal table top" Lindemann OR Vassilatos OR Kelly radiant energy Tesla
17. Houston 1871 Inductionsapparat "Fortschritte der Physik" OR "Inductorium" Gasleitung Funken Erde (page did not render)
18. "Fortschritte der Physik" 1871 Houston "Journal of the Franklin Institute" Inductionsrolle OR Inductionsapparat
19. "Houston" "induction coil" 1871 "gas pipe" "lecture table" earth connection spark quantity
20. "Monroe B. Snyder" Elihu Thomson sparks observatory Central High School 1875 waves
21. "Elihu Thomson" 1922 Electrician "short story in wireless" 1875 Houston tin still pencil points
22. "Houston" "Thomson" "tin still" 1871 OR 1875 sparks "Central High" radio history Susskind
23. Edison reply Houston Thomson "etheric force" 1876 "Scientific American" OR "Journal of the Franklin Institute" Edison response induction
24. "Elihu Thomson of Philadelphia had detected a spark"
25. HathiTrust full text: "new connection for the induction coil"
26. archive.org advancedsearch: journal franklin institute 1867 / 1871-72 / 1876; sim_scientific-american_1871-06; history central high school philadelphia; electrician 1922; fortschritte physik 27 Not yet tried (for next run): "Houston" + "Ritchie" 1871; E. S. Ritchie company records (Boston); "Morton" "secondary condenser" later citations; Stevens Institute archives Morton coil; Pepper (Royal Polytechnic) Apps coil 1869 Daily Telegraph; Dolbear; Beard "apolic force"; German "Houston" "Erdleitung" "Inductionsapparat"; Houston's later books (e.g. Electricity One Hundred Years Ago and To-day*); Thomson notebooks (APS) digitised?; Franklin Institute archives (meeting minutes, Houston 1871); Central High School archives.

Leads for review

1. The inventor's own work

• Houston, "Phenomena of Induction", JFI vol. 101, Jan 1876, pp. 59-63 (dated 11 Dec 1875) [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-franklin-institute_1876-01_71_1 — Houston's own restatement of the 1871 connection and of its explanation ("a condensation of the spark by connection with extended surfaces, similar to ... a Leyden battery"); adds 1871 observations not in the note (sparks from a pneumatic trough soldered to the water pipes in an adjoining room, a half-horsepower engine, the steam boiler in the laboratory on the floor below, gas pipes and burners in adjoining rooms by a knife blade); gives the Dec 1875 repetition with Elihu Thomson using a ten-cell "electro-poion" battery; reports electroscope, galvanometer and cotton-wool tests negative and "retro-action" positive; explains all by direct-plus-inverse induced currents. Bears on claims 1-4 (and fills part of the "no battery" gap, for 1875 only).
• Houston and Thomson, "The Alleged Etheric Force. Test experiments as to its identity with induced electricity", JFI vol. 101, April 1876, pp. 270 ff. [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-franklin-institute_1876-04_71_4 — balanced-battery and paired-magnet tests making the sparks vanish and reappear; spark from a coated test tube with no coil. Bears on claim 4 (mechanism in the authors' own words: Leyden-jar coatings, extra current).
• Henry Morton, "An Important Adjunct to the Induction Coil", JFI 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 — the missing secondary-condenser paper: jar shortens and brightens the spark; jars "for cascade" lengthen it (1 in. single jar, 4 in. with six); 8-plate tinfoil cascade condenser in a negative box gives 5 1/2 in. white, loud sparks. Bears on claims 3, 5, 6 (the length-versus-quantity trade-off).
• Scientific American, vol. 24 no. 24 (10 June 1871): full reprint of Houston's note [web] https://archive.org/details/sim_scientific-american_1871-06-11_24_24 — wider circulation in 1871. Bears on claim 1-3 (same text).
• Thomson's own later accounts (not read): APS Thomson Papers, "Experiments with Ruhmkorff coil and spark" (Jan 1876), "Thomson discovered electric waves fifty years ago" (Jul 1922), "A Short Story in Wireless" (The Electrician vol. 89 pp. 242-243, 1 Sept 1922), Notebooks 1865-1936 [web] https://as.amphilsoc.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/919813. If Thomson made the 1871 observations (see below), these are the "inventor's own work" for him.

2. Supporting information by others

• Witness: Prof. Monroe B. Snyder (Central High astronomy, on staff from 1873) is named by Woodbury (1944) as having drawn sparks himself in the rooftop observatory, "90 feet" above the coil, in 1875, and to have said "Electric energy transmitted through space!" [web] https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.177396 . Single published source so far (a Thomson-side biography); Thomson's 1932 "Tribute to Dr. Monroe B. Snyder" (APS) may hold his own account. Bears on claim 2 (distance of the effect) for the 1875 repetition.
• Editor's note to Houston 1876 (JFI editors; stake: the Institute's 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." Bears on claim 2.
• German abstracting: Houston's note appears in Die Fortschritte der Physik im Jahre 1871 and Repertorium der technischen Journal-Literatur 1869-1873 (HathiTrust full-text hits; text not read). Bears on reception of claims 1-4.
• Brenni (2015), Bull. Sci. Instr. Soc. 125, "Very large induction coils", figure of Ritchie's coil for Morton [web] https://www.academia.edu/13825373/Very_large_induction_coils — an instrument historian's treatment of the Morton coil and the Apps coils. Bears on claims 5-6.

3. Closely related work

• Edison's "etheric force" (Nov 1875): sparks from metal near an interrupted electromagnet, no electroscope or galvanometer response; Edison called it a new force; Beard later "apolic force". Houston and Thomson replied that it was induction (above); Edison ran further tests 24 July 1876 [web] https://edison.rutgers.edu/life-of-edison/chronology/1871-1880 . Houston claimed his 1871 note already described the same effects. Bears on claims 1-2, 4.
• Radiated-wave reading by historians: Susskind (Isis 1964) lists Thomson's 1871 observation and the tin still among pre-Hertz observations of electromagnetic radiation [web] https://www.jstor.org/stable/227753 (snippets); Atherton (1984) says the grounded coil and insulated tin still "(intentionally or not) acted as an antenna", with sparks "up to at least 30 m" [web] worldradiohistory PDF; Woodbury (1944) says "wireless signaling actually going on at the Central High School in 1871". These are the authors' characterizations; Houston's own explanation (1871, 1876) is condensation plus induced currents, not waves. Bears on claim 4.
• Free-energy / radiant-energy reading: Energetic Forum thread 5299 (2009-) and the widely copied passage "In 1872, Elihu Thomson took a large Ruhmkorrf Spark Coil, attached one pole of the coil to a cold-water pipe and the other pole to a metal table top..." (Patrick J. Kelly, ch. 5; AboveUnity; Scribd "Cold Electricity") read the connection as Tesla-style "radiant energy", a "scalar or radiant wave transmitter" with the table top as antenna and building pipework in resonance [web] https://www.energeticforum.com/forum/energetic-forum-discussion/renewable-energy/5299-1872-elihu-thomson-anyone-got-this-document-in-scientific-american-1872 . The forum appears to be where the project's PDF came from. Note the date (1872) and the attribution (Thomson) differ from the June 1871 Houston note. Bears on claims 1-4.
• Morton 1867 (above) as the condenser side of the same principle; Houston 1876 explicitly equates his extended surfaces with a Leyden battery.

4. Historical record

• Authorship dispute: Woodbury (1944) says the 1871 observations were Thomson's ("One day Elihu disconnected the 'coffin' from the spark coil and substituted a water pipe and metallic table top as the condenser plates") and that Houston "took sole credit"; Atherton and Susskind also credit Thomson. Houston's 1871 note names no assistant; his 1876 note names Thomson only for the 1875 repetition. Thomson's own 1902 recollection in Edmonds's school history does not mention the coil experiments. Record that would decide: Thomson's 1871 notebooks and correspondence (APS Mss.Ms.Coll.74, Series VIII and I). Bears on who made claims 1-3.
• Detail differences to weigh: Woodbury says the Leyden-jar sparks turned "vivid blue", Houston "silvery white"; Woodbury's 1875 battery is bichromate, Houston's is "electro-poion" (both are chromic-acid cells, so possibly the same thing named two ways — my reading). Woodbury's two "resonators" in or out of phase versus the April 1876 paper's balanced battery halves and paired magnets: possibly the same test described in different words (my reading).
• Wahl–Houston link: Edmonds (1902) says William H. Wahl, Secretary of the Franklin Institute, substituted for Houston at Central High in 1872-73 while Houston studied in Germany [web] https://archive.org/details/historyofcentral00edmorich . The two authors in the project file were close colleagues (the deep read found no link inside the 1871 volume).
• Absence of evidence: no later JFI item (July 1871 - June 1872) gives Wahl's promised account of experiments with the Morton coil, and no further Houston note on the connection appears until Dec 1875, when Edison's claim prompted one. Possible explanations: the coil experiments were done but not written up (editorial workload; Morton's move to the Stevens presidency 1870); published elsewhere (Stevens or American Journal of Science, not searched); or not done. Record to decide: JFI July 1872 onward, Morton's papers at Stevens Institute, American Journal of Science 1871-72.
• Coil survival: no museum or collection record of Ritchie's Morton coil found (one query); Stevens Institute archives not yet searched.

Corrections to earlier documents

• deep/...47c675.md and claims.md say Houston's article gives no battery. That is right for the 1871 note itself; Houston's Jan 1876 paper gives the battery for the Dec 1875 repetition with the same coil (ten-cell electro-poion battery, zinc between two carbons, about 3 x 6 in.). It does not say this was the 1871 battery. Suggest claims.md note this.
• claims.md lists Morton's secondary-condenser paper (JFI Vol. LIII p.256) as missing; it is now found: Morton, "An Important Adjunct to the Induction Coil", JFI April 1867, pp. 256-260 (archive.org; OCR copy in research/files/).
• The deep read says the only connection between the Houston and Wahl articles is the maker and the volume. Edmonds (1902) shows a personal link: Wahl substituted for Houston at Central High in 1872-73.