The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1875-07-08
Sd. HARRIS, EDITOR AND PRorH1EroR.
rERMs:
lf- i4sE t=is s91
4 NEW MOTOR.

ANEW MOTOR
An ingenious gentleman ofPhiladel-
phia is said TO have in vented q new
motive power which, in his judgment,
will supersede the use OF steam. He
is backed up by a number of hard
headed, unimasinativec capitalists, who.
after sufficient Investigation, have put
their money. ints the enterprise, and it
therefore calls for more attention than
would be likely to be accorded ito Il
discovery which had nothing more
substantial than the confidence of the
discoverer 10 rest upon. The motive
power is said TO be generated from air
and water without the application. of
heat or chemical agents, and is said
readily to produce the eincredibie pres
ure of 10000 pounds to the square
inch. A good deal less force than this
would suffice to drive a good many
useful machines. The world is too
old and wary to accept without ques-
ton the assurance of inventors or cap
italists in regard to an invention so
momentous which is yet practically
untested. On the other hand it is too
wise to reject with entire incrcdulity
an announcement of the discovery and
application of any new form of force,
however marvellous and bewildering.
The discovery of the mode of trans
mitting messages by electricity put
human credulity to test SO severe
that it may be confidently expected to
stand any similar strain with consid-
erable fort1tude.
If the invention turns out to be
equal to the claims which are set up
for it, it will snpersede and put out of
use an amount of costly machinery
which it would be almost ridiculous
to think of were it not that such a
world Of human toll and long-medi-
tated experiment, and wrestling. rest
less, undismayed and unbaffied inge-
nuity, had been absorbed in it. TO
have all the steam-boilers and coke
furnaces, the patent air-blasts and in
genious cut-Offs, with steam-chests,
boxes, condensers, governors and the
like suddenly made useless all over the
world, struck motionless, the fires fall
len in dead ashes, and the potent va.
por released to wander the air, still,
impotent, frayed by the lightest winds,
NO more the driving, all-cOmpelling
force, but the driven, melting into
cloud racks and rain at the single sor-
cerer's touch of an Inventive hand,
were marvel enough in sober earnest.
Merlin's entertainments were mere vul-
gar jugglery compared to it. But it is
An invariable mark Of economic and
mechanical progress that the most
labored and costly works ef man, into
which the toll of generations had
wrought itself, have eventually been
touched into nothingr ess, waved into
air by a similar gesture of enchant-
ment. Nothing is more impressive
than the gray weather-smitten towers
of old castles, crOwning old hills,
built to ward and guard forever; but
potency of warding and guarding,
though their walls were never SO
thick and their battlements never SO
high, died out with the arbalest and
the arrow, and so the fortresses ef
Vauban andCothurn and their fellows,
scattered over Europe, their walls
built to outlast the Judgment Day,
practically went down in dust as with
the blast OF rams horns when the first
piece Of the modern sort of artillery
was forged. England had q gigantic
navy all built and manned, ,tripie-deck-
e / and hiyh-masted, and all agrin with
muzzles before Fulton set his kettle Of
steam amid-ship, but from that hour
they withered until they became but
phantoms, and in spite Of their bulk,
mere wraiths and visions Of battle-
ships, that could guard the sacred isle
no more, win no more Aboukirs or
Trafalyars, blockade no more Teulens,
lombard no more COpenhagens. The
work of stout hearts and hands, as
well as tough oak and iron, was
wrought in them, generation after
generation they grew, indeed, out of
the strong heart of Britain, for there
was no peasant who followed his fur
row, or hill shepard who drove his
hecks afield and never; saw tho sea,
but his toll was somehow, by iDcreas-
cd tax or diminished wage, woven in
to their fabric but solid and proud as
they seemed, with port of high mem
ance to the foes of England and grim
protection Of her children, they all
turned into shadows one day, so to
speak, when the first black iron-clad,
with its armored sides, is few gigantic
far-ranging guns, and its inward forces
of steel and steam, first cut with its
keel the Clyde or the Nedway waters.
The old tars, too, that could run up
| ropes like monkeys, and furl the sky
scf2pofS OeIOfc tnc onset OF blScay
gale, turned in magic hour, geodly
share of them at least, into ghosts of
tars, or were translated into grimy
stokers and coal-passers. In a hum
dred ways and in matters of more or
less magnitude the devices of the elder
yield place to the devices of the young
er day. The earth is numbered with
obsolete, outgrown instruments and
structures, and the immensest quanti-
ties of stubborn continuing human la
Dor seem to our ken to be as good as
thrown away. But happily We may
regard them as the skeletons of old
forms of endeayor, from which, while
they were vital, the new were begot-
ten and born. If the ingenious Phila-
deiphian's discovery renders unless
all existing steam machinery, we shall
have to take from this unregarded law
of political economy some such com.
fort to our bosoms or stand heart
stricken and aghast at such Titanic
waste of the labors of mems hands
| World.