The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-01-13
New Motors.

Is the time really coming when steam will
be superseded as Il motive power? Such en-
p%erience as the public has had with the Keely
motor will lead many to answer the question
in the negative. Yet things are going on in
the world a knowledge of which must needs
give pause even to the most iEcredulous.
There is, for example, at Lille, in France, a
quiet mechanic named Duplez. He is to-
day, after working at it for Years, exhibiting il
model of his new motor. In the approaching
Scientific Exhibition of the Palais de llndus-
trle at Paris he will have, it is positively as
serted, a little train of cars propelled by a
battery Of twelve Bunsen cells. NJ. Duprez
hopes. it is said, to be able to do what our
American aronaut, Mr.. Lowe, failed to do
with a calOric engine-to control, that is. and
propel a flying machine. This last statement
may throw doubt over the reality of NJ. Du-
PREF other achievement, but of that some at
least of the leading European scientific
journals seem to think there need be no ques-
ton.
But, while it is notew orthy that the mag
netic motor about which Miss IIosncr and
Mr.. Chapman We're disputing SO vigorously in
the Eceting Post SOM time az, does not
figure in the latest list of inventions to
cheaper the cost of travel, there are other
new motors that have emerged, us Is alleged
from hypothetical into actual success. 1t is
~S'~ ~ ciNto t'ittC 90 iiti vi ~ llLll
engineers have positively constructed an cleo
trio railroad with three carriages. capable of
carrying twenty persons, and a line OF rails
Two hundred and twenty yards long. The
train moves at the rate OF ten miles an hour.
Thu power is derived from Il dynamrclectIic
machine, the current from which is trans
mltteu to another machine which works the
train. But one doubt arises on reading the
account of this interesting piece of work.,
which is suggested by the discovery that the
dynamO-electric machine is itself worked by
a steam engine. Perhaps, however, this
incentive to skepticism is plausible rather
than sound, and that the invention of Messrs.
Sienlens Il Halske, Of Berlin, actually con-
tains the germ of what We have been so long
looking for.
If such should prove to be the fact it would
lower the price Of iron, greatly modify for
Great Britain her difficult problem about the
gradual exhaustion of her coal fields, remove
some serious objections to elevated railroads,
influence in a potential manner the economy
of all other railroads, probably exert an i'm
portant bearing upon many if not all of the
manufactures, and perhaps change many of
the now most inf1exible conditions of freights
and ocean travel. Such stupendous results
will not be believed until they are seen and
astonishing inventions have so often been
prematurely announced that it is little wonder
ii the world regards such prophecies with
more of doubt than of hope. For all this
there was a Robert Fulton before there was a
keely, and it is pretty safe to assume that
just as amazing things as have been done be-
fore will be done again. Effort is ceaseless,
modern science works fast, and if steam as a
motor can be superseded at all the time is
probably not tar distant when the feat will be
accomplished.-N. Y. Post.