Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1897-01-18
A FORTY KNOT GAIT
REMARKABLE SPEED CLAIMS FOR A
 NEW ELECTRIC VESSEL.

Eight Aft to Push Her Through she
 water-To Be Built at Providence.
 A model of an electric vessel for which really marvellous sneed is promised by the inventor has been con- structed at Providence. It is distinct novelty in very many respects, and. if as successful as it's promoters confident. Iy expect, will scarcely fail to play some havoc with modern shipbuildine methods. Its promoters are planning to build vessel 200 feet long, which is to have 1 4 propellers, placed forward to draw it through the water. and & astern, as pushers, the arrangement. of course, being on each side.
 A speed of 40 knots an hour is coufi- dently expected. The boat is designed for passenger traffic in Narragansett bay ostensibly, but it's real purpose is a practical demonstration of @ system which the projectors hope to see applied to naval vessels in the near future.
 The president of the company that will build this boat is Richard B. Pain- ton, naturalized Englishman. Though his company is located at Providence. he lives at Williamsport, Pa.
 "I have perfected a vessel with near ly double the speed of vessels propelled by steam." said Mir. Painton. "An ocean liner of this pattern can cross the Atlantic in three days; cruiser sim iIarly equipped will have a speed of 85 knots an hour. Steam propulsion can only drive these great armored mon- sters 15 to 21 knots an hour under the most favorable conditions, and the ex- treme limit of marine achievement by old methods seems to have been reached. Added speed must be attained by the use of electricity.
 ''That object has been accomplished, and I am offering the government an opportunity to profit by my invention. am an Englishman by birth, but am a naturalized American citizen and feel it my duty to give my adopted country ths first benefit of my invention. If tho Amer1ean congress does not see fit to take advantage of the opportunity that is presented, I will then feel free to look for market among the great powers of Europe, as did Hotchkiss. Maxim, Gatling and other inventors who were turned away from America and forced to seek market elsewhere for inventions which were afterward adopted in this country upon the pay ment of vastly larger sums than were originally asked.
 tOne great source of complaint with the navy department has been the in- suffieieney of room in war vessels for the accommodation of men, armament, coal and provisions. The machinery necessary to propel these great ocean Actresses occupies such large amount S of space that there is practically no room for anything else. The terrific < heat from the furnaces and steam pipes, the maddening hissing of the steam and the ineessant vibration and shocks re- Asulting from the wrenehing of the heavy shafts and the straining of the smechanism make life almost unendura- ble and convert the vessels into verita- ble hells. They are torture prisons from (which there is no escape.
 "The new electric motors will have sgreatly enlarged power over steam. h. zstead of the enormous 80 ton shafts, ex- Blending from the middle of the ship to the stern, the electrical plant will have from If to Is screw propellers, ranging $along the sides of the vessel, as we'll as 1.-two of ingenious construction at the Sstern. These propellers are operated |Efrom switchboard. They can be oper- bted singly or all together, at the will of he man at the keys. Each propeller is
 machine by itself, and the disabling N one or moro has no effect whatever Qn the others.
 When the entire complement of pro- pellers is in action, there is no more noise than would come from the action sof fywheel. There is no jar caused by the horizontal motion, no excessive Beat from steam piping the iong shafts iare done away with, and the terrific straining of the engines and shafts when alternately submerged and raised aloft by the pitching of the vessel ill Aeavy seas is avoided.
 The engines that generate the power are not mechanically connected with tfHo pfopel1eIs, as IS HOW tH6 CdS6 III *ham vessels, but the power is trans Mtted by electric wires direct to motors milt on propeller shafts. The machinery Nsimplicity itself No belting or oou- ping is required. The propellers allw dheot, and, as before noted they can be operated singly or together. If some @eak down, those that are left can do 'Ae work. It would not be possible for an to be disabled as is now so often the 0ase with vessels equipped by steam,
 Ewing them foundering for days at the Mercy of the elements.
 # From 186 to 156 revolutions of the New minute is about the limit of
 am power. There is practically no
 bit to the speed of screw operated
 eleotricity Eighteen hundre5 revo-
 tions minute and higher havebeen