CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 312, 27 May 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS .

CHEAP GAS. The New Plymouth householder who pays 7a per thousand feet for coal gas will he interested to hear that other people in some parts of the world do not pay quite so much. In Moncton, K.B. (Canada), tho price of gas is 7V 2 d per thousand feet. Some forty years have elapsed since artesian bores in the neighborhood of Pittsburg, the centre of the United- States steel industry, tapped subterranean reservoirs of natural gas. A few experiments showed that the gas burned freely, and by means of pipe lines it was led to factories, forges and homes, there to be used as fuel. Since that time the supply has shown no signs of approaching exhaustion, and many thousands of new bores have been put down with almost unfailing success. Recently a similar store of potential wealth has been discovered in New Brunswick, close < to the town.of Moncton. A pipe well was sunk in the course of a search for oil, and at a deptli of about 2000 feet natural gas was found. The pressure was enormous, the discharge producing a noise like a steam siren, and the quality proved to be very good. Already the gas is being used to produce all the power and light required in the neigh-, borhood of the well, and arrangements are being made for a pipe line to Moncton. In the meantime several additional bores have been driven and each has readied gas. A correspondent of the London Times who visited the scene remarks that he paid a visit this year to the town of Morgantown, in Western Virginia, where the lighting and heating of the houses and the cooking in the kitchens have been done with natural gas for the last twenty years. When one well begins to fail another is bored. In the homes of Moncton there are no fires to be kindled, no wood and coal to be carried, and no ashes to be removed. The gas is supplied to the consumers at fifteen cents (7'/ad) per thousand cubic feet. Petroleum also has been found in the New Brunswick field, which lies within a few miles of the Atlantic coast. The quality of the oil is exceptionally high, resembling more that of the Taranaki product than that of the other oils won in America.

AEROPLANES AT £6O APIECE. Yes; aeroplanes at £ GO apiece. Cheaper than motor cars, speedier und safer. This is what we are promised shortly. The advance of the art of flying during the past few years has been nothing short of phenomenal. Who a few years ago would have thought it possible to travel in the air hours at a time, cover hundreds and hundreds of miles, and travel at a rate quicker than the most powerful locomotive? Yet this is now being done every day. Imagine an aeroplane so safe and steady that the pilot of it could lash his rudder and take off his goggles and sit back and go to sleep! An aeroplane safe against windgusts, that could go up in any storm, and carry mails or passengers, or petrol enough for a thousand-mile non-stop run! All this, says the man who probably knows more about it than anyone else in the world, is within easy reach of us. The man is Mr. Lawrence liargrave, of Sydney, whose name is known to Aeronautical authorities all over the world, but especially outside his own country, Australia. Without him, neither Mr. Hammond's biplane nor any of the othur biplanes could ever have come into existence, for they are all built on the principle of Mr. Hargrave's box kites, the same that were used in the South African war. In Mr. Hargrave's workshop the half-built model of a half-size aeroplane staiuls now. When the full copy of that is finished, the aeroplanist's troubles will be practically over, for it is self-adjusting, and safe against capsize. "What is wanted," says Mr. Hargrove, "is a fool-proof machine, and this should supply the want." The safct" of all existing aeroplanes depends on the vigilance of the pilot. He must be continually alert to guard against upset by a gust of wind. In Mr. Hargrave's machine there are'two devices by which the aeroplane will automatically adju,st itself, whatever eddies or air currents may strike. One device is the curving of its wings down in front up behind, like a flat letter S. This keeps the macnine from dipping . Only a couple of existing machines have this double curve, and in them it has not been adopted long. The second device is the attachment of the wings of the aeroplane—the box Kite, •with its double cells—to the machine by a flexible rope, instead of unyielding stays. "It is fool-proof/' said lie. "The

pilot may bi; drank or asleep; that will make no difference. The machine will sail steadily ahead until the petrol runs out. He lias nothing to do when lie wakes but pick a level place to descend on." ' How could such a machine conic to grief "Holes ill the air" would not affect it, because it would automatically right itself. Compass and rudder might be connected, -Mr. Hargrave explained, with an electrical appliance, which would automatically keep the aeroplane to i'ts planed course. And the margin of safety, will be, in the machine being built, four—that is, the part will be four times as strong as Hhould be needed. The only danger woti... lie in coming t.o the ground. ■"Anil, frrm Hammond's skill, you can see that may he done. Such machines, safe in any pale, will cost, Mr. Hargrave says, £OO, Mr. Hargrave does not care to prophesy what the flying machine will be able to do. "M)ok here," he said to a newspaper reporter. "Four years ago. when Wright went up—yon may say it. began then —the great majority of people laughed at the whole thing. They don't now." But he goes this far: "That a 1000-mile non-stop run is well within the probabilities, and the carrying of mails, or even as many as 20 passengers." "A Frenchman has carried eight at one time already," said he. Aeroplanes, like warships, will have a much greater radius at half than at full speed, Balloons have no chance against the aeroplane; that is becoming more evident every day. And aeroplanes will be absolutely safe. "A sleeping pilot," says Mr. Hargrave, "would be awakened only by the stoppage of the machine."