The St. Johns herald., 1893-01-05
ELECTRIC BOATS.
How One May Travel on a. Pic
 turesque English Lake.
The Noisy SteeE Launch Gives Place to Craft That Moves Without Ni>irt, Smoke or Aanoy noyanco-Electrtclty Ap-
 piled as a Propening Power.

The qniot Enrlisll lake of Uin,,en1ere, which ues5le5 among the hills of the lake country. has seen great changes since the Gays-not so very long ago when a single little pacl7ctboat served for nearly al the traffic there was upon it. The great Christopher North used not infrcquently to steer that packet boat himself, and Harriet Marf4neau tells how striking Q figure he made as he sat in it with Gll the wild turbu- fence of his nature subdred into repose by the quiet influence of the peaceful scene. Sitting motionless, with his hand on the tiller, n the presence of journeymcn and narket-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 YVindcmere have become the highway of many thousands of tourists. and particularly of crowds of work people, escaping for 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 req sons, that the beginning of tho rcstora- ton of comparative quiet at Windemere should proceed from the lake that lies in ''Esthvaite's peaceful vale," so close ly connected with Wordsworth's boy hood. It 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- tric 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 it's wires and then run off as much electric power as 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 intcrrupting the supply of water power from Esthwaite lake, are shown in the accompanying illustrations.
 The first experiment in applying elec- trio power to tile 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, by q Glasgow firm. Nothing can be simpler or more effective than the ar engagements 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 said to be reduced to Q minimum, and Girt. smoke and noise forever banishcd. The vessel passes through the water with 8 motion which is said to be al- most too quiet, gliding silently along in fashion which is almost weird, as if the craft were endowed with some strange, mysterious life of its own.