Science Art: Modern Electrical Construction, Fig. 58, 1905

2 March 2026 grant Featured, Science Art 0

Scientific illustration of a commercially available electric switch from 1905, a lever that creates a connection which turns an arc light on or off, indicating if the circuit is live. It's designed for the mains of a house, I think, or at least for wiring entering a building.
Scientific illustration of a commercially available electric switch from 1905, a lever that creates a connection which turns an arc light on or off, indicating if the circuit is live. It's designed for the mains of a house, I think, or at least for wiring entering a building.

This is a switch for “constant current” electricity to go into a building, a “A modern commercial form of this switch,” is what the book calls it.

The book in question being Horstmann and Tousley’s Modern electrical construction; a reliable, practical guide for the beginner in electrical construction, showing the latest approved methods of installing work of all kinds according to the safety rules of the National Board of Fire Underwriters. You can peruse it over on archive.org.