The Saint Paul globe., 1896-11-30
IT RUNS BY AIR
WONDERFUL MOTOR WHICH A
WASHINGTON MAN CLAIMS
TO OWN.
HAS ALREADY BEEN TESTED.
NEW YORK CENTRAL's DARK Sc
CRET THE FIRST TO BE
TRIED.
SMALL, COMPACT AND POWERFUL
Will Soon Make Trip From WASH
ington TO New York i'm
Buggy.

WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. 29.-The
New York Central Railroad company
about a year ago experimental in the
most mysterious manner with new
motor on its tracks running from New
York to Brewster. On the day on
which a large company of railroad
men had been invited to see it work 1t
was announced that in the fire which
burned down the shop the motor had
been destroyed. Wonderful tales were
told of this machine, but all expert
ments with it were so we'll guarded
that the public never knew anything
definite about it. This motor was
called by the New York Central peo
pie THE Dark Secret"
The Worlds correspondent here has
discovered what 1.-The Dark Secret"
was, and also that it's successor has
been secretly built in this city, but not
for the New York Central company.
This engine will soon be put under
the seat of an ordinary carriage, and
the inventor says he will start some
morning in the next three weeks for
New York and reach there the same
afternoon. He says he will go over
the regular wagon roads at the rate
of from ten to forty miles an hour ac-
cording to the roadbed
BUILT IN SECRET.
The building OF the new engine has
been so secretly conducted that no one
but a few scientists has known of it,
but large number of mechanical ex-
perts and scientific men connected with
the Smithsonian institution and other
government departments will be invit-
ed some evening this week to examine
the motor and subject it to all sorts of
tests.
The inventor is William E. Prall Jr
He is only twenty-six years of age. His
engine is SO small that it can be wrap
ped in one of the sheets of the World.
In its proportions it looks like small
mail bag. 1t is only eight inches by
twelve on the outside, and the cylinder
is but six inches in diameter and four
inches long.
The motive power is oil, vapor and
air, and the inventor says that it will
develop forty five horsepower, and can
be run by what is practically an ordi-
nary kerosene lamp burning under the
pressure of compressed air.
The fact that young Prall was at
work here upon some mysterious ma
chine leaked out through the strange
noises which for two months have been
coming night and day from the cellar
of the Hotel Arno, on Sixteenth street.
The hotel is a large and well-known
one. 1t has been closed for several
months. The noises in the disused
building started rumors that dynamite
bombs were being manufactured for
the Cuban insurgents in the hotel Gel
lar.
The World correspondent found that
the cellar had been converted into an
extensive machine shop, with plants for
the working Of wood and iron. About
a dozen carefully selected expert ma
chinists have been working there for
two months, quietly going and coming,
50 as not to attract attention. The no.
tel is owned by young Prall and his
father, who is at present in New York
Both are inventors but they have quar-
relied and they are no longer together.
Young Prall is very bitter against his
father, and asserts that many of the
inventions tried while they We're in
partnership, among which was the New
York Central Dark Secret" were the
product OF his brain.
HIS BUSY LABORATORY.
The young man is in a very nervous
condition. He is outspoken as to his
experience with the New York Central
Railway company and the history of
the mysterious Ozark Secret" He oc-
cupies a few well-furnished rooms in
one of the upper floors of the Arno,
and in one room has a laboratory full
of all sorts of surgical instruments
which he has invented or improved;
machines for producing X rays, in the
operation of which he is exceedingly
expert; high-power microscopes and a
wonderful collection of various Scien-
tific inventions. He divides his time
between the laboratory and the sub
teTranean machine shop, where the new
nf uyhi ic
approaching completion.
When Mr.. Prall was asked If he was
building the new motor for the New
York Central railroad, he said: mo,
I am building this for myself. The
Central engine, or Dark Secret ran
oil vapor and a suitable amount of air
for its complete combustion.
1.-THE principle is what is known as
combustion at constant pressure. There
is continuous combustion without any
explosion and with no jar. 1t works
burning under pressure in q vessel
The air is SO heated that it is expanded
about ten times its original volume
and the engine is run by that hot air
1t is-the ideal way of running an ell
gine by hot compressed air. 1t has q
direct rotary action. / call it COLI
centric vibrating engine
patent was granted. said that it was
entirely different from anything they
had ever seen. 1t overcomeS the clutch
problem, thing which inventors have
considered impossible.
TO NEW YORK IN A FEW HOURS
After the exhibition 1 shall put i
IN an ordinary buggy some day before
Christmas and run over to New Yorl
In few hours The engine with the
tanks, will not weigh over 150 pounds
and L can and have run it up to forty
five horse power"
According to young PraIl, after hi
had built several more or less success
ful motors, he showed his plans for 9
hot water engine to Mr.. Clifford of tht
New York Central railroad, and, al
though Mr.. Buchanan. of the railroad
company, made an adverse report or
1t, the other officials were SO much
impressed that they told him to gC
ahead.
He went to Philadelphia, and with hi.
own hands built a complete engine. Ht
says it ran at the rate of 200 reyoIu.
tions a minute, and surprised the Cen
trail people. The company sent him t.
Schenectady to build an engine at The
locomotive works. This succeeded 81
well that a new motor for public exhi
bition was built. 1t was tried at Var
CcUrtlandt park.
This" continued Mr.. Prall, was tn.
New York CentraPs Dark Secret. /
was built at Watson & Stillman's. OF
One Hundred and Forty-second street
] ran it up the incline of 107 feet to thu
mile to Dunwoody with perfect ga ase
On the night before the day set for tn,
public trial the shop burned down, bu
the engine, as matter of fact. was no
very badly injured.
Mr.. Clifford had telegraphed for me