Success of the Brooks insulator in France

[Trade Journal]

Publication: The Telegrapher

New York, NY, United States
vol. IV, no. 28, p. 226, col. 1


SUCCESS OF THE BROOKS INSULATOR IN FRANCE. - The following, which is a translation, in substance, from an article in the Paris La Semaine Financiere of January 25th, will show that an invention of one of our own citizens, designed to perfect the Insulation of Electric Telegraph lines, has been declared superior to all its competitors by a French Commission, which had before it insulators from nearly every State in Europe:

"Electric Telegraphing. - M. DE VOUGY, the Director General of Telegraphs, who is anxiously engaged in improving our Telegraphic material, some time ago named a commission, specially charged with examining the various kinds of superior insulators, with the view of the adaptation of the best of these to the French Telegraphs. This commission, furnished with instruments of great delicacy, for the purpose of measuring the amount of waste (or leakage of electricity) from these insulators, has established the great superiority of the insulators of MR. DAVID BROOKS, of Philadelphia, over all other competitors, and has ordered a considerable quantity of them, in order to make an extensive trial of them throughout our Telegraphic lines."

The Brooks Insulator is composed of an iron hook, intended to hold the telegraph wire. This hook is cemented in a glass vase, of elongated form, contracted at the neck. The glass itself is cemented in a hollow-cast cylinder, and all parts of the apparatus, which are susceptible of absorbing paraffine, are saturated with it. The glass vase has also very decided qualities of repelling moisture, and contributes to render the insulator perfect.

Mr. Brooks, who is constantly occupied with the electric telegraph, and whose Insulator is well known in America, only arrived at the present form of it that we are now describing, after many experiments. It is to that employment of paraffine, now known as the first of insulating bodies, that Mr. Brooks owes the success that he has obtained.

The French Government has sent to Mr. Brooks a beautiful and sensitively delicate differential galvanometer (made by Ruhmkorff), of 40,000 involutions, to test the insulators he is making for the French telegraph, and specimens of all the insulators from every part of Europe offered in competition before the French Commission. - Phila. Ledger.

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Keywords:David Brooks
Researcher notes: 
Supplemental information: 
Researcher:Bob Stahr
Date completed:September 5, 2005 by: Elton Gish;