AN IMPENDING REVOLUTION IN MOTIVE POWER.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1102, 17 July 1879, Page 3

AN IMPENDING REVOLUTION IN MOTIVE POWER.

The (approaching exhaustion of the accessible portion of the coal measures of Great Britain (says the Sydney ' Mail ') and some other European countries, has long directed the thoughts of scientists, towards the possibility of utilising other sources of heat and its equivalent mechanioal powers. It happened that Edison, the inventor of the phonograph, was struck, while on a tour m California, with the scant supply of mechanical powor at the command of the miners to assist them m the laborious work of boring, although a practically unlimited amount of water pressure was running to- waste m all directions. Suddenly the idea arose m his mind, whether it would not he possible to " tap " these sources of force by means of electric wires, and conduct the resulting electric energy to any required spot, where it could be utilised for driving any description of machinery. On his communicating this still vague notion to a fellow traveller, Professor Bunker, of the University of Tennsylvania, the latter informed him that a practical engineer, 'William Wallace, of Ansonia, Connecticut, had for years past been working at the resolution of the very same thery. On returning irom Calitomia, Edison at once sought out the genius who had forestalled him m what would otherwise have ranked as the grandest of his own many discoveries. A machine named "Telcmachon" .was found to have been m the meantime completed, as the first fruits of "Wallace's labors m this untried field, and although laboring under some of the imperfections inctdent to almost all new inventions, it already showed results which gave presage of a complete revolution m the domain of mechanical industry. The machine, so far as can be ascertained from the nor very lucid description given by out authority, the 'Philadelphia Democrat,' consists of two distinct portions. One is placed near the original source of power ; m the present instance the powerful current of- the river Ngangatuck, where the force engendered is transformed into its electro-magnetic equivalent. The second portion of the machine, or " telemachon" proper, which may be distant eather a hundred yards or a hundred miles from the first, receives by means of an ordinary telegraph wire the current thus created, which it re-transforms into mechanical force and transmits through belting, &c, to whatever machinery requires to be driven. In Mr Wallace's case the Jpower thus obtained from the river, a quarter of a mile distant; not only sufficed to keep m motion the whole of his extensive engine and agricultural implement works, employing nearly 300 men. but kept them brilliantly illuminated with electric lights, equal m lighting power to 4000 candles. Edison at once recognised the enormous importance of an invention by means of which the force derived from a great body of fallingwater, like Niagara, or from the ebb and flow of the tide, can be transmitted, unimpaired, over a whole continent, and distributed like gas or water, to meet the requirements of whoever may wish to use it. He has undertaken, at Mr Wallace's request, the congenial task of simplifying and perfecting an invention which cannot fail to rank among the highest triumphs of human science, and the future effect of which on the world of industry, and even oa the social policy of nations, can. at present be but dimly imagined. According to Professor C. W. Simens, F.R.S., who saw the machine at work on the premises of the inventor it is destined to supersede all i other agencies for imparting motion to machinory, lifting heavy weights, (Stein short, will speedly take its place as the willing slave that shall henceforth perform all the hard work on earth's surface. In a lecture recently delivered at Glasgow he gave some illustrations— taking for his text the Falls of Niagra— of the i vast amount of mechanical force ' now running to waste m that one stupendous waterfall. Its volume of water, falling through a descent of 150 ft., amounts to 100,000,000 tons per hour. To lift that same volume 15 Oft. would require annually the steam power generated by the combustion of 260,000,000 tons of coal, or more than is consumed throughout the word m the year. Hence, assuming the force j generated by Niagara to be transmitted J through Wallace and Edison's discovery to the various industrial centres throughout the United States, the mechanical power thus gained would exceed that of all i,he steam machinery now m motion on. the surface of the globe. Calculasions like these, viewed m relation to tho details previously given, are adapted to expand and enoble our conception of the status of man on the globe assigned to him at his home. To say that he has made the elements tributary to Mm is no longer a figure of speech ; and with an universal supply of mechanical power perpetually under their control, our descendants may yet realise tho possession of the Vril staff of BulwerLytton, m his fanciful romance of " The Coming Race."