THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURFDAY, APRIL, 18, 1908. A WONDERFUL INVENTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9068, 18 April 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURFDAY, APRIL, 18, 1908. A WONDERFUL INVENTION.

I In the domain of electrical science as applied to arts and industries, and mutters that are not strictly classed with either, so rapid ha« been the progress during recent yearj that. the world has scarcely time to be astonished at some new electrical appliance of globe-round utility than something more surprising takes its place in public attention for the moment, though leaving the mind open for the recaption of something yet more startling. Within somewhere about thirty years thj world has witnessed the establishment of electricity as an illununant, as a motive power, and as a means of conveying vocal sounds; and later still it has been applied in multitudinous other useful ways; but piSjibly no one dreamed until the other clay, as it were it would he utilisablo as a means of effectively preventing that great cur-.ij of all railway travellers--- jolliaions. Yet it would appear that we are upon the verge of utilising electricity to that end. We learn from a late An erieun exchange that an electric signal is about to be put into operatic!! which will put a stop for all time to collisions on railway linen. The device is credited to the American tSig-ial Company of Kansas City, am! we ate j told that thi* new equipment is to be placed in each train, and that it does j its work quietly and automatically j witli seeming human intci'igence. "Every moment it is on watch, without the aid of the human eye--every moment it holds the throttle without the help of the human hand," /

says the "Daily Drovers Telegram." Head collisions, it is .averred, are impossible, because the instant two trains approach each other within a certain distance, even though the engineers be fast asleep, this little device will shut of! the power and stop the trains." A dozen trains may be following each other on the same track, and yet none can overtake another, because the moment the required distance between them is lessened, this powerful little signal device will shut off the power and the giant engine is paralysed. It guards against the open switch, and holds back the train until a clear track is assured. In fact, it so thoroughly protects the travellers against mistakes or misunderstandings, that in the near future no cause for railroad accidents can be found, except faulty construction of train or rail-bed." This reads very like a fairy tale, but who, to-day, in view of all that has boon accomplished through the medium of electricity, need be sceptical of anything proposed for it. The paper from which we quote is an important journal published in Kansas City, the headquarters of the American Signal Company, who have the matter in hand. Some five years ago," says the "Telegram," "Colonel M. H. Luudon began the work of assembling the various patent rights and combining the independent features of this signal device so that its manufacture and application to railroad requirements might be undertaken. This was 1:0 small task. Opposition seemed mountain high. Disaopcintments came thick and fast. Men who had the capital needed to bring the matter to a successful i:.sue thought it was the idle dream of an impractical enthusiast, and woul.l have none of it." Then Dr C. H. Carson, a well-known humanitarian, was induced to enter into the scheme, and having succeeded in financing it, the company, of which he is a member, is i:ow engaged in installing the device on five miles of the Chesapeake railway, in the suburb.* of Washington City. If the final practical experiment proves what is claimed for the new electric signal, it is easy to imagine, as the journal hopes, that it will bring to Kansas City millions of dollars. It will also entitle Colonel Loudon to a place in the history of the great inventors of the present age.