Houston Edwin J. A Dictionary of Electrical Words, Terms and Phrases

Second edition, rewritten and greatly enlarged. — New York: The W.J. Johnston Company, 1892. — 562 p.The first edition of the "Dictionary of Electrical Words, Terms and Phrases" met with so favorable a reception that the entire issue was soon exhausted. Although but a comparatively short time has elapsed since its publication, electrical progress has been so marked, and so many new words, terms and phrases have been introduced into the electrical nomenclature, that the preparation of a new edition has been determined on rather than a mere reprint from the old plates. The wonderful growth of electrical science may be judged from the fact that the present work contains more than double the matter and about twice the number of definitions that appeared in the earlier work. Although some of this increase has been due to words which should have been in the first edition, yet in greater part it has resulted -from an actual multiplication of the words used in electrical literature. To a certain extent this increase has been warranted either by new applications of electricity or by the discovery of new principles of the science. In some cases, however, new words, terms or phrases have been introduced notwithstanding the fact that other words, terms or phrases were already in general use to express the same ideas. The character of the work is necessarily encyclopedic. The definitions are given in the most concise language. In order, however, to render these definitions intelligible, considerable explanatory matter has been added. The Dictionary has been practically rewritten, and is now, in reality, a new book based on the general lines of the old book, but considerably changed as to order of arrangement and, to some extent, as to method of treatment. As expressed in its preface, the author appreciates the fact that the earlier book was tentative and incomplete. Though the wide scope of the second edition, the vast number of details included therein, and the continued growth of the electrical vocabulary must also necessarily make this edition incomplete, yet the author ventures to hope that it is less incomplete than the first edition. He again asks kindly criticisms to aid him in making any subsequent edition more nearly what a dictionary of so important a science should be.