Morning journal and courier., 1881-04-09
saturaay Morning. April 3. 1881.
PROFESSOR GAMGEE,s zERO-MoTOI

PROFESSOR GAMGEE'S ZERO-MOTOR. l It is calculated that all the coal in the world will be exhausted in about eight hundred
 years, but this prospect is not very alarm
 ing one in view of what has been done and
 what it already seems possible to do in the
 way of producing motive power without the
 aid of coal. .--#
 One of the new motors is the invention of | Professor Gamgee, and the Secretary of the
 Navy has received report from Chief Engi-
 neer B. F. Isherwood concerning it which l unfolds a prospect at least equal in interest l and extent to anything which has been prom ised mankind since the invention of the ! steam engine. We are plainly told that the possibility of new motor is established which dispenses with the intense heat pro- | duced by coal or the active combustion of fuel. It depends upon the genial warmth of the earth's atmosphere or the more available store in ocean and river waters. The banks
 of rivers may soon be crowded with factories drawing from the swift currents, even beneath their winter ice, steady supply of energy made available by 8 wonderful invention. Chief Engineer Isherwood says: s'The plan
 proposed is far from chimerical. It is based
 on we'll thermo dynamical prin- ciples. The whole is definite and precise,
 both in theory and in mechanical detail" He
 points to the likelihood of propelling ships
 unprovided with coal and coal-bunkers, and
 says the steam engine may, 'in the near fu-
 ture, be certainly superseded by the zero motor.n "The enormous importance of motor capable of superseding the steam gine," he continues, land furnishing power without the combustion of coal, can be esti- mated from the fact that it would produce an industrial and consequently social and polit- ical revolution equal to what was effected by the introduction of the steam engine"
 This report throws light on an open letter addressed to Senator Blaine last September on the revival of American shipping. Refer ring to the wastefulness of the steam engine, which amounts to ninety or ninety-five per cent. of the heat units generated by the com bustion of coal in the boiler furnace, Professor Gamgee declares that his zero motor 'tper- mits us to dispense with water as 8 heat-car- rier, and, under an entirely new system of work, the wasted heat units will be reduced to fifty and probably to twenty-five per cent. of the amount engendered. This engine leaves the ship free to be filled with merchan- disc, instead of coal, and the wooden ship, of modern dimensions, may then compete with metal ones of larger size. That engine is in- dependent of high temperature heat and, with high pressures at low temperatures ap- breaches much more closely than the steam engine to the animal mechanism which de- velops motion and unlimited horsepower be- low blood heat. It will not kill the stokers, and in warm attitudes, as also in arctic or antarctic seas, the wooden sides will facilitate the maintenance of moderate temperature within the ship. In short, wooden vessels can be built to cross the ocean at an expense for navigation little if at all exceeding sailing ships, driven as effectually by steam, en- during longer than metal ships, and affording at least equal chances for comfort and safe ty." Professor Gamgee believes that steam banished the wooden ships of America from the ocean, but that there is prospect of their revival with the zero-motor.