100 MILES AN HOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 16 November 1907, Page 3

100 MILES AN HOUR.

lll'CE SPEED PROMISED FOR WARSHIPS. j Tlie British Admiralty has now under ci Usideration a new form oi' marine engine and propeller which, the inventor claims, will revolutionise not only naval warfare, but the navigation of the whole world. The invention is the fruit of much ingenuity, labor and expenditure on the 1 alt of Mr F . M altinan, of ltedburu street. Chelsea, who has devoted to it ye..in of study and experiment. At lirst •tight ilie engine resembles a turbine, but closer inspection reveals important differences. Steam from any type of boiler is brought to bear on a shaft fitted with twelve chambers, divided into two sets of six each. Shaft and chambers are al» of steel, cast in one piece,.and of great strength. Exactly what the arrangement of these chambers is the inventor deems it imprudent at present to disclose, but it is such that the admission of steam through the orifices at t'.eir ends causes the shaft to revolve at a tremendous speed. So great is the power of the new form of engine, indeed, that the inventor considers it useless to apply it to the ordinany screw propeller lest the terrific pace should result in tlie formation of a complete or partial vacuum in which th; strew would "race" without exerting its propulsive force. lie has accordingly devised a modification ol" the screw propeller which will make a return in speed for all the power that can be applied to

The screw has three blades, each of the shape already familiar, but instead of being attached to one small hub, they are fixed at intervals of a couple of feet fr m one another to a log shaft. The result," of course, is that each blade works in its own water, instead of in that which its fellow has cut hut a moment before. The shaft is lilted with three of these dissected screws, each of them with a larger orbit than the one immediately in front of it, so that when slowly i'l motion it presents to the eye the of a huge corkscrew worming i'.s wav forward.

Tin' sliaft bearing the three screws is fixed immediately beneath the keel of the boat, and runs parallel with it ami with the driving shaft and its twelve chambers. This occupies so little space that practically the only machinery in the body of the lToat will be the furnace and boiler, and the inventor, therefore, believes that in the ease of cargo vessels the device will have the advantage 01 adding to the carrying capacity as well as of increasing the speed, it. is, however, in naval warfare that he expects for the invention the greatest immediate utility. Up to now, the now system has been tried only on models upon the Serpentine and the Thames, but the speeds attained in the largest of these leads Mr Mailman to believe that on a vessel with the size and steam power of a present-day torpedo-boat it would yield a velocity of 100 miles an hour. That, however, can only be determined l<y experiments upon a larger scale than has yet been possible, and be has accordingly applied to the .Admiralty for Hie loan of a hull and boilers to which (lie new engine and propeller could be fixed at a comparatively slight cost, so that their utility may be determined erce for all.