The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1888-12-29

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useful. economic thing. But it has not
been discovered yet. Electricity as mo.
tive power is gain of eighty-fve per cent,
and when the means Of educing or produc-
ing electricity from coal without interven-
ing combustion and consequent waste OF
energy is brought about, three hundred
tons of coal will do the work of fifteen hum
dred now when it is burned and steam en-
ployed as the motive power. But this can't
be done with large trains now economical
~. am giving q good deal of attention to
this subject. have accomplished this re-
suit under laboratory conditions, but these
will not do to make the process available
from commercial point OF view.'
sDo you suppose the nature Of electricity
will ever be discovered" was asked him
next.
eyes. l think it can and will be some day.
There are thousands working at these
things, and from all the different data that
is collected on the subject ofs electricity
somebody will strike great law that will
be revelation. A great many of the great
est things are discovered, they are not III
vented. Bel discovered the telephone, ne
did not invent it. He was making expert
n1ents on telegraphy by sound and found
cut about the transmission of the voice by a
wire"
SWAT do you think of the Keely motor!''
II don't think much Of it. The bigges t
work it has done 80 far has been to enable
Keely to wear diamond studs and drive
good horses. Men that invent thing OF
discover thing don't act about it as he
does about this motor. { don't put any
faith IN it, and doubt if any thing ever comes
out CT it,
elias any thing been done in this matter
of telegrapning from O moving, train2'
eyes. That is perfected now. The Lee
high Valley road has twelve trains equipped
for transmitting messages in this way 'Yhe
sound-waves strike the telegraph wires by
the side Of the track and through induction
o current is produced and the message gath.
cred by an instrument from the severa!
wires and read 1t doesn't make any differ.
ence whether the wires are up or down.
The sound-1vaves hit them in either case.
stDu2lng the blizzard, when the Morse
system was Of no use, the Lehigh Valley
road ran its trains and regulated things
along the line entirely by this system. All
the wreclzlng trains are equipped with the
means to transmit messages by this sys.
tenn
"What do you think of the application OF
electricity for the purpose of executing
criminals who have to suffer the death
penaltys"
s'That is good idea, The man will bs
killed with a current Of the proper number
of volts in the tenth Of second. There
won't be time for the sense-bearirg nerv
to telegraph the news that he is hart to his
brain before he will be dead from the
shock. And IL will be so lightning like
quick that the criminal can't sN!fer much.
did quite a lot Of experimenting with cur
rents On dogs. It was fanny. AT first, we
used continuous currents. After the e:eS.
tr,city charged the dog he stood still With
out the slightest change III his appearance
He did not move, and his eyes retained the
same expression they usually Wore. Then
after minata, CT minute and half, he
would collapse ana tumble over, dead.
Finally, we tried alternate currents. These
are shot out in one direction and then II the
other, in shocks of infnitesimal duration
Then it was found that this shock Of one
tenth of q second killed the dog.
tsAfter that the men who were handling
the wires were tlrconlmonly careful" said
Mr.. Edison, with grin. "They wear RIB.
Der gloves, and somebody told ME that ne
saw the foreman put them ON 10 make {:
note in his memorandum book
ave had one dog that received current
Of 1860 volts, and the Old fellow survived it,
We concluded to let him live after that anG
he is walking round today rs good as even
after his shock We call him Ajax, because
he played with the thundexbolts."
s'What else have you been doing of late?'
"Too many things to tell you. I've beer
experimenting g. good deal with microbes
trying to understand the beasts and see hoy
they work. What I wanted was to get ar
idea of the germs Of the yellow fever.
Something OF the micrcbo order is probably
at the bottom OF that, and if we could know
how to catch them and take their fangs ou:
they would be less harmful But you'll
have to excuse NE DOW, as my carriage ha:
been waiting half an hour."--John j.
A'gechct, i,s Philadelphia Press.