The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1892-01-14
ELECTRIC BOATS.
Now One May Travel on . Pho
turesque English Lake.
ne Noisy steam Launch Gives Place 60
. Graft That Moves without Dirt,
Smoke or rAmoyance-El~ctrici APP
pusd as Propelllng rower.

The quiet English lake Of Windemere,
which nestles among the hills Of the
lake country, has seen great changes
since the days-not SO very long ago
when IL single little paclSetboat served
Tor nearly all the traffic there was upon
It. The great Christopher North used
mot infrequently to steer that packet
boat himself, and Harriet Martineau
tells how striking a figure he made as
he sat in II with all the wild turbu-
hence of his nature subdued into repose
by the quiet influence of the peaceful
scene. Sitting motionless, with his
hand on the tiller, in the presence of
journeymen and market-women, his
eye apparently looking beyond every
thing into nothing. and his mouth
closed above his beard as If he never
meant to speak again, he was quite as
Impressive and immortal as he could
have been to the students of his moral
philosophy class or the comrades Of his
jovial hours"
Now, however, says the Chicago
Tribune, the calm waters of Windemere
have become the highway of many
thousands Of tourists, and particularly
of crowds of work people, escaping for
q short interval of pleasure from the
busy towns of Lancashire.
The day that a steamer first sailed on
the lake, to the no small wonder Of
many of the older peasants, was the be-
ginning Of new era for Windemere,
and the summer of the present year,
when the first electric boat moved
swiftly and silently over its waters, is
the beginning of another as full Of
meaning to American lake dwellers as
to English, it may be.
It is not inappropriate, for many rea-
sons, that the beginning of the restora-
tion of comparative quiet ut Windemere
should proceed from the lake that lies
in 'Esthwaite's peaceful vale," SO close
1y connected with Wordsworth's boy
hood. 1t is the stream that flows from
this lake that supplies the electric
power for the new boats. On this
stream, just where it enters Winde-
mere, is a picturesquely situated bob
bin mill, driven by water power. This
mill had been partly burned down, but
the company which is working the elec-
trio boats found the mill driving ma
chinery intact, and had little to do but
plant its dynamo in the large room
where bobbins used to be turned, fix its
wires and then run off as much electric
power rs it might need. The wet dock
for the boats at Causey mill and the
charging station on the Browness side
Of the lake, where steam power is avail
able in case Of drought interrupting the
supply of water power from Esthwaite
lake, are shown in the accompanying
illustrations.
The first experiment in applying cleo
trio power to the navigation of the lake
has been made with four boats leach
forty feet in length and carrying thirty
persons) built, on good lines, Of steel,
iby Glasgow firm. Nothing can be
simpler or more effective than the ar
,rangements for the management of
these boats, unless an improvement
might be made by placing the ma
chinery for regulating the power and
for steering in the bows. Vibration is
Isaid to be reduced TO minimum, and
dirt. smoke and noise forever banished.
The vessel passes through the water
with a motion which is said to be al
most too quiet, gliding silently along in
a fashion which is almost weird, as if
the craft were endowed with some
strange, mysterious life of its own.