The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-02-25 00:00:00

MAGNETIC MOTIVE POWER.

Te fon-swing account of a tersest( al tttemot to Wills. Usk
MATVenOIIII power, Is frho the Nese York Telegraph
Journal:—

If we mistake not, we are in the dawn of anew and
economic motive poser. We have long had an
instinctive expectation of its approach. Now, by the
sclentific exposition of the poasibility of an infinitive
development of magnetic power by an appv ently
inadequate, mitial force, as argued by Mr. ilighton,
and already publi,hed, and the apparent production of
it before our senses, seemingly verifying the argument,
we are etron:gly induced to hail magnetism as the
coming worker for milions of men and for purposes
innumerable. Seine will smile at this. It is right
they should. The idea has been discouraged by electric
writers as visionary and impracticable. They have
asserted the impossibility of any such econom c use of
material for the production of magnetic power as
could ever justify the hope of its substitution for
steam. They were 'Wit so long as the battery was
regarded as the source of power instead of a mere
such as results now stem to prove it to be.
Our tin ori, s of electromiotive force may m quire to be
resexamining, and perhaps changed.
The axiom that a given magnetic force is the exact
product of a given consumption of z:nc or chemicals,
must now be challenged and put to the proof. We
confront now the proposition that, although the electro-
motive force may be in the battery, yet that the
magnetic power which follows its application is capahle
of indefinitive enlargement without increase of the
ivi iative agent. We are brought face to face also with
the fast that, wh. us magnet is performing its maximum
work, the battery, which started the magnetic power
is most at rest. In otheewords that the magnetic power
is not proportioced t r the size or consumption of the
: elements of a battoye, although dependent upon it as
1 an initial force.

We eo not pretend to explain this problem, but we
um tell what a e have seen. It seems to corroborate
the recent pok.ition ta'ren by Mr. Ilighton, of Eogland,
another of whose articles we reproduce today from
that excellent paper the London Glimmer/ News and
t prove that we are on the borderrland of a new and
wond rful series of developments of an ecom mc, safe,
and efficient motive power. It may prove that our
agaututql dat lag to the power resident In our battery
materially has been underrated, and their proiu,:-
tivity miumderstood. Let us nsw state what we
have seen. . _ .

A few days ago we accompanied, on invitation,
several gentlemen to the works of Mr. 11. M Payne,
of News k, N.Y. (The editor here gives a descrip-
tion of a powerful magnetic sawmill which he saw
in action.] This rapid and effective action has
been watched nine consecutive hours by investigating
parties, without any pe•ceptible decline of power, and
with a consumption of lees than half a pound of zinc—
a coat of less than 3. an hour. The power developed
was rated at two-horse, and can be maintained for 24
holm without intermission at a maximum cost of ten
crate. Such, at least, is the etatement, n ade to US by
Mr. Payne, and confirmed by well known gentlemen.,
who thoroughly examined it. By increase of etameter
and width, or by multiplication of wheels and the
number of magnete, the power can be largely increased,
Pa we were secured, by the same number of cells.
This was proved by the fact that by the addition of
wire in the circuit of sufficient length to surround
another set of magnets, no diminution of power was
apparent, although the action of the battery was
neeeseardy If as ; thus another wheel of similar power
could have been &del.]. The four cells we saw were
stated ac capable of inalntaining the speed and power
pro limed in our presence for sixty hours without re-
newal, at the cost of about a single stace fare on Broad-
way per day. In this machine, E 0 utterly simple as to
chalien„e the scrutiny of the most ordinary mind, we
see the dawn of a new power, capable of endless appli-
cation at a minimum cost, and destitute of the usual
element of danger. . . . . .

It occurs to no as very strange that what is just
Wm: proposed as a possible status of fact by a learned
divine in England should prove the self-same theory
which an American eitOszoa has been privately and
persistently developing in actual practice for years.
To what it may give rise, we have no prophet's ken
to tell. If the premises demanded are proved to be
correct, its application is infinite. We my yet see
the Atlantic crossed by huge versels, propelled without
an ounce of coal, by a power the initiative of which
the captain may piece beside loin writing desk in
his cabin, which a culd can apply, and the littleet
finger nosy stop. The begrimed furnaceman may
then come out from there lower hells, and wk the
deck as clean as the passenger, and the blazing fires be
put out. And it may be in the myrterious workings of
the Almighty, that these electric forces, which are on
every band developing themselves as the life of the
world, quickening its pulses from pole to pole, the
cause of growth, and the cardinal element of a power
the limit of which is yet unknown, may be ordained to
remove from man part of the curse of tool, unbending
the labourer's back, and making him to stand erect as
at the first.