The spirals as a whole were attached to a soft iron armature
that had the effect of closing up the lines of forces and forming a
shell, so to speak.
Like Bessolo, Kravogl never thought of making anything but a motor,
and did not perceive that his machine was reversible. It results from
some correspondence between Dr. A. Von Waltenhofen and Mr. L.
Pfaundler at this epoch that the latter clearly saw the possibility of
utilizing this motor as a current generator. Under date of November 9,
1867, he wrote, in speaking of the Kravogl motor, which had just been
taken to Innsbruck in order to send it to Paris. "I regret that I
shall not be able to see it any more, for I should have liked to try
to make it act in an opposite direction, that is to say, to produce a
current or an electric light by means of mechanical work." A little
more than two years later these experiments were carried out on a
larger motor constructed by Kravogl in 1869, and Mr. Pfaundler was
enabled to write as follows: "Upon running the machine by hand we
obtain a current whose energy is that of one Bunsen element." This
letter is dated February 11, 1870, that is to say, it is a year
anterior to the note of Gramme.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
In the presence of the historic interest that attaches to the
question, we do not think it will be out of place to reproduce here
the considerations that guided Prof.
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