San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-08-31

where 1t was cooler, and then in less
than three minutes the entire surface
covered by the focus was literally melt
ing, drop by drop. To melt zinc re.
quires temperature of over 700 deg.
Fahrenheit.
The most wonderful feature about
the whole thing is the brilliancy of the
light. The forty mirrors produced
light more brilliant than any ordinary
electric light. A hand, held SO as to
intercept the focus, becomes as white
as driven snow. A white handkerchief
deties ordinary sight, and conveys but
an impression of beautiful, impossible
Wilderness. 1t is as hard to look at as
the sun itself. The possibilities of Mr..
Calver's invention are boundless. With
combined square surface of twenty
feet OF mirrors, lead melts quicker than
thought, wood bursts into flame and
Is gone into ashes, and iron melts in
less than twenty minutes. Each mirror
adds SO much to the heat and light, and
MIR. Calver has found by actual expert
ment that comparatively small collec-
ton of mirrors, each one foot square,
will
MELT ALL KNOWN METALS
In a very few moments. He has pro.
duced over 1000 degrees of heat with
his mirrors. By calculation it is shown
that LOCO mirrors, each foot square,
will melt iron and steel with the rapid
ity almost of thought. There are pro.
cesses, too, by which even this enor-
nous quantity of heat can be condensed
and made to perform incredible feats.
A concave mirror placed at the focus of
the large mirror will throw pin point
OF heat back toward the mirrors, should
their numbers be increased by several
thousands, capable of eating through
solid mass of steel ten feet thick like a
flash, and as easily as a needle goes
through a cheese. The immense prac-
tical value of the invention can be read
lily understood. Mr.. Calver's forty
mirrors boil water in less than no time.
An egg placed in the water is done hard
quicker than by fire. Meat and vege-
tables are cooked in ten or fifteen min
utes. A half hours sunshine any time
between 8 a. m. and p. m. in the sum-
mer will do the cooking for an ordinary
sized family for week if necessary.
By the mirrors engines can be run,
wells dug, mines worked, ore melted
and refined, every kind of cooking per-
formed, and, in short, there is no vari-
ETY. of industry in which they cannot
successfully compete with mule power,
steam or electricity. There are
4, MANY CURIOUS THINGS
In connection with Mr.. Calver's discov-
cry. More heat can be gotten from the
mirrors in winter than in summer,
strange as it may appear, for the earth
is then 100000 miles nearer the sun.
Three thousand degrees Fahrenheit
decomposes water, and this heat can be
readily produced with the large mirrors,
100000 of which, one foot square, will
run the largest engine in the world.
In the west the process of concen-
trating the suns rays will be of i'm
mense benefit. Statistics show that
there are over million square miles of
territory in the United States where
there is, on an average, but one cloudy
day in month for eight months in the
year. All the rest are clear. The heat
produced by the thousand foot square
mirrors will do more work in fifteen
minutes than can ordinarily be done in
day, and days steady work will out
strip weeks progress by other meth
DDS.
The heat mirrors will make ice as
easily as they will melt steel. A few
large sized ones will operate machine
large enough to usher into existence
100 tons of ice day. 1t is the inten-
ton of the inventor to vigorously pro-
tect his patent and to shortly begin the
manufacture of his mirror furnace.
Probably be will make a lot of the
smaller kind convenient for tourists,
which can be packed away in a trunk |
and yet be large enough to do all the |
cooking for the party in few minutes.