INVENTIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 125, 14 October 1912, Page 8

INVENTIONS.

THE GERM OF PROGRESS. EDISON'S INFLUENCE. The influence of inventions on human progress was t.ie subject of Professor Mil s remarks at the Adelphi Theatre, Y\ ellmgton, on Sunday evening The titie of the address wa's -An Hour vSh . Of' , and 0,1 the aspect of that great inventors work and influence the professor spoke eloquently and effectively. The professor referred to the personal life of the great wizard, and briefly outlined his career till he arrived at the point where he himself met him. "A little more than two years ago," said the speaker, "I was commissioned by Milwaukee city to call upon Mr. Edison and make enquiries concerning his investigations in regard to building cement houses. I found him in his private office-a room as big as this (the Adelphi Theatre).—(Laughter).— lt had galleries running round it piled with experiment and outfit. He himself sat in a swivel chair between two roller-top desks reading the Scientific American. The first thing he said was: 'I am deaf; you will need to speak plainly.' I told him what I wanted. He was a mighty good listener. When I was through he jumped up like a boy, and said, 'Let me show you what I am doing here,' and so for an hour I had the great experience of hearing Edison explain how he had tackled the°great problem of houses for everybody.

THE CEMENT HOUSE. On the table stood a model of a cement house. Every room had two windows, I noticed—he had thought out every detail—and provided specially for cross ventilation. He showed me a pile of the finished stone—beautiful as marble. He took m,e out where the men were making doors and fenders and frames and sinks—all the details. Everything cast at once, and when the house is finished it is a stone house and there is only one stone in it. Jl e has adopted styles and moulds capable of setting up finv kind of house. When the moulds are m place he takes his big machine to the front of the house and pumps the cement in from the roof, leaves it four days, and then slips in the doors. Then'it will be dirt proof, sound proof, and vermin proof, and can be shifted only by dynamite. Thirt}-seven thousands "pounds is invested' in the machine, but thirtyseven men with it can turn out 250 houses in a year, and the house itself in New York would be worth £ISOO, but could be produced by this process for £175. (Applause). FREE TO THE WORLD.

When Edison explained this, he added that he was sure these homes could be built to last for ever without any defects. Men could pay in instalments one-fourth of their present rents, and at the end of ten years own their own homes. He was trying to solve the problem of housing, and when he had finished it the machinery would be available for Milwaukee without the intervention of private companies. More than that—it was free to all." ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.

Inventions do mush; ignoring inventions damage much, was the line next taken by the speaker. A great modern power was that of the gas engine. Germany had forty-five per cent, of all the machinery of the world in her gas engines; the United States had thirty-six pei cent.; Great Britain had two per cent! The waste that was going on in Great Britain in connection with her industry as compared with the economy going on in Germany constituted a margin of advantage to the one country as against the other that was far more serious to the British Empire than the building of German Dreadnoughts. Germany with its freedom of scholarship and its rewards for achievement made tremendous discoveries in chemistry and science. She had found a new mineral which gave three times the candle power the same current as Edison's invention, and now Edison himself studied by a German ■ ; bull>;' and his firm in England acted merely as agents for Germany.

j THE SOCIAL MACHINE. ) 'H'*-' greatest of all the machinery ©f the world was the machinery of social j organisation. Great Britain led the j world 1000 years ago in establishing democratic institutions, but her supremacy I then was no compensation for lier i neglect now. Omit Britain had become j the victim of arrested development, and J the ordinary Englishman was satisfied to i do things as they always had been done. | If humanity had always done that we I would still be hanging by our tails in the , tree-tops. (Laughter). He wanted to see the social machine brought to perfection in New Zealand. Here was the greatest opportunity in the world, and our advertisement to tho ends of the world should not be purchased space in foreign publications, but the splendid product of out own institutions. (Applause).