THE MATTHEWS RAY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4709, 9 June 1924, Page 1

THE MATTHEWS RAY.

CARRYING OUT TESTS. BOUNDLESS POSSIBILITIES. A London Star reporter recently carried put some actual experiments with the new Grindell-Matthews ray. He writes: — "The experiments were naturally limited in their scope. The apparatus is in Mr Matthews’ laboratory in his West End flat. To have used even a quarter of the power which he might generate there would be highly dangerous, but the experiments are more than sufficient to prove that the possibilities of this invention are practically boundless. “On. a table specially built to be a non-conductor of electricity a largo glass ash-tray was placed. On th.s was placed a l.a'rge tube, in the top of which was put a little loose gunpowdei. The ray was directed from a distance of 18ft to the top of the tube, the dynamo was started, Mr switched over the lever, and immediately there was a blinding flash. “The powder disappeared in a puff of smoke. Flashes of. ‘lightning’ filled the room, ran down the iron tube, passed through the glass ash-tray, and scorched the table teneath m 'zig-zag lines, despite the fact that the glass is an insulator and that only a little of the available power had been used.

••I watched the points in the apparatus from which' the ray had been directed. No change was visible there. The gunpowder and the iron tube were struck by an invisible force.

••At a far end of the laboratory, on a bench, a petrol motor was fixed, driving a wheel and throbbing loudly and regularly. '• ‘When you want me to turn on the ray,’ .said Mr Grindell-Matthews, ■raise your hand.’ I raised my hand, and the engine stopped dead. No ray of light had come from the room where'Mr Matthews was standing. He had just pulled over the lever, that was aE. “Again, only the smallest possible power had been turned on. But from these experiments to one which would blow up an ammunition dump, or utterb destroy an engine, is but a step. ~ "For a third experiment an ordinary commercial 200-volt electric lamp was used, to which two pieces of flax were attached. I held the end of one wire, a colleague of, Mr Matthewss held the end of the other. The lamp hung mid-way between us. Mr Matthews operated the power (taking out -of it its death-dealing properties) and distributed it into the room. , “Our bodies acted as ‘capacities, or collectors of the current, which passed through us and lit the lamp. When I held out my'hand on a metal wheel close by (another capacity) the lamp nurned more brightly still. “For yet another experiment an accumulator was connected up and used. The experiment was done twice once with a visible ray, once with the invisible ray.

“The ray was shot at the accumulator and other apparatus on the 'bench and focussed to a pin point. p owei __that power which had previously been distributed down the rppm —was directed up- the ray. An immediate short circuit was the result.

“With a reticence which is rare in inventors Mr Grindell-Matthews shows great hesitation in prophesying what he could do if he dare use even the power he has in his laboratory. What be could do were he to be out m the open, where he could use the maximum power he could generate he has no idea. Yet he does not think he is more than on , the fringe of the discovery of the full uses of his ray. “It may be stated that his power can be used and directed up a ray either visible or invisible, and he believes that,each, ray has its own uses. “More will be known shortly,' perhaps, for Mr Matthews intends as soon as possible to experiment on a large scale with his new ray in open country or at sea, where theie wil be no danger to life generally. “This is not his first venture into the realms of inventions. He already has the boat steered by light to his credit, and the speaking film. “During the war, he told me, many people learned to control boats or torpedoes by wireless. .But there was this difficulty. The object to be controlled might become ‘jambed’ when the object at which it was aimed put fort.i its full wireless power. Thus, those people whom he least wished to be able to control our torpedoes secured control over them and were able to divert them from their course. “Mr Matthews was thus led to try to control by a light ray a boat which should be uncontrollable by anyone else, and by long inquiry and experiment. he at length invented The Dawn, controlled by a ray unknown to anyone but himself. A silver model of that boat is now on his mantelpiece The British Government paid him 5-25,000 for the invention. “The speaking film, in which he re-pr-..di:ced aS light the vibrations of sound and then retransposed them, was his next invention. Now comes this magic ray. “ ‘Each one has followed from the other,' he said to me, ‘and each has been made possible only by the discovery of the former. I have been an inventor (more or less) since I was 10, but Nikola Tesla has helped me more tn an anyone else. • He is the King of electrical inventors. I have long promised myself the pleasure of meeting him.’ ”