The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

[This note covers all of the notebooks in Groups 5-8: Cell and Tube Books.]

These forty-seven notebooks are arranged in four groups: Group 5: Battery Record Books, Nos. 1-30; Group 6: Long Tube Books, Nos. 1-7; Group 7: Long Tube Record Books, Nos. 1-6; Group 8: Battery Works Tube Books, Nos. 1-4 [not selected]. The entries, which cover the period February 1907-July 1914, are by Edison, Walter E. Holland, and other experimenters. Labels on the front covers of some of the books contain notations by Edison regarding the importance of the data contained therein.

The thirty Battery Record Books contain logs of cell endurance tests that detail the performance of cells using various preparations of metal flake (primarily nickel, but also some cobalt). Many of the tests involve standard nickel and iron compounds prepared by Ralph Arbogast, Jonas Walter Aylsworth, Charles Dally, Ignacy Goldstein, Thomas D. Greenley, Otto Groethe, O. A. Rogers, and others. These compounds are indicated by a number, often preceded by the name of the experimenter or by a designation such as "R A," "J W A," or "Dr G" [Groethe]. Three sets of Long Tube Books contain entries pertaining to the preparation of the tubes used in the cells. All three sets relate to the same cells, and the numbers assigned to the tubes correspond to those assigned to the cells in the endurance tests.