The Press., 1890-06-12
(Hartford Conrant., A DISCOVERY THAT PROMISES GREAT THINGS.

For fifty years electricians have been trying to discover a method of converting heat directly into electricity. Until recent ly no results of commercial value have been obtained. Such method seems now to have been discovered or invented by a young man from Maine, H. B. Cox. If MT. Cox's claims are just-and capital ists have confidence enough in them to have formed a company with capital of $1 ,O00, ,000-the whole system of power and lighting will be revolutionized and steam will be regarded as too expensive for ordinary uses. It is impossible to es- innate in advance the immense value of MT. Cox's invention, but it is certain that he expects almost incredible results from it, and that he has inspired with his confi- dence some Of the shrewdest business men of Hartford and Boston.
 As has been said, company has been organized and incorporated in Maine, where MT. Cox was when some Hartford men met him. Since then the business has all been brought to Hartford, and all that has been done since has been done at the factory of the Pratt & Cady company. The capital stock is $1 ,O0O, ,OOO, and none of it is now for sale. Francis A. Pratt, of the Pratt & Whitney Company, is the president; R. N. Pratt, of the Pratt & Ga. dy Company, is vice president, and Ernest Cady, of the same company, is the treas- is stockholder, one of the directors and legal adviser of the new company. All the patents asked for by MT. Cox have been allowed, and they will be issued in few days. Both foreign and domestic patents have been applied for.
 The apparatus used for converting the heat into electricity is so simple that the company does not dignify it by the name of machine. By MT. Cox's method heat is changed to electricity as simply as water is changed to steam. His furnace is all that may be seen. From glowing coals comes the subtle current, without the aid of boiler, engine or dynamo. A jet of gas can be made to run dental machine, @ sewing machine, and anything which re- quires no more power than these. No power has ever been discovered that is half so cheap as will be electricity obtain ed by this new process. This has been the dream-apparently impossible of re- alization-of all electricians, and even the wizard of Menlo Park has almost despair ed of its ever being brought about. Yet young man, only 2S years of age, seems to have solved the puzzling problem.
 Before the company was formed MT. | So0 ran many electric lights. This furnace was injured in being transferred to Hart ford, and new one of the same size has not yet been completed. Experiments and private exhibitions have been conducted here on smaller scale, but in short time the company intends to show to the world that with the power thus obtained any thing that steam or electricity now does may be done. Several members of the company saw what could be done with the furnace of MT. Cox before any attempt was made to remove it. The one now being built will be an improvement on the old one, and the results from it are expected to be correspondingly better.
 Most of the stock of the company is owned in Hartford. Some of it is held i'll Boston. The whole affair has been kept secret until the company should be ready to make it public. Even now the officers of the company are unwilling to talk for publication, but gossip about the new in- vention has been so frequent, in Hartford and elsewhere, that it seems proper to print general statement. The officers of the company say they will be ready for public exhibitions in few weeks.