The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-01-02

Professor Langley, of Washington, with
his aerodrome, the secret of which un-
til recently he has carefully guarded.
Besides these three, there are inventors
of less note: Chanute and Paul, VINO
made unsuccessful trials of winged
boat near Chicago; Crowden, of Nir-
ginia, with a triple-cylinder affair pro
PEELED like n fish; Captain Kern, of
Oregon, with a paddle-wheel machine
modelled after a salmon. DIR. Wolfert,
of Berlin, and Mr.. Bastard, of Eng
land, with cone-shaped balloons.
Besides Professor Langley's, the only
really successful experiments in air
navigation during the year were made
on the old-fashioned kite principle by
Charles II. Lamson, of Portland, Me,
and William a. Eddy, Of Bayonne, N.
j., who have constructed kites strong
enough to lift men into the air. with
these the government weather bureau
is now exploring the cloud regions in
search of data for making more per-
feet weather forecasts.
PHOTOGRAPHIC NOVELTIES.
Discoveries in photography during
1896 have been sufficient to stagger one
who has not thought of the collective
result. The Roentgen discovery may
be considered under this head. Profess
sor Gates has photographed in dark
room with invisible rays of light. The
photuchrOnOgraph made during the
year for the use of the army, pictures
the flight of projeCtiles. Photos in bas-
relief, like canoes, have been taken
Further advances in color photography
have been made, though the difficulty
of printing off the colors from the
negatives has not been removed. DIR.
Packer, of England, has caught the
corona of the sun through a metal film
The human voice has been photo
graphed in Columbia college NJ. Ra-
del, of France, claims he has taken i'm
pressions of dreams, each vision OF the
sleeper making different shadow on
the sensitive plate, and even figures of
persons appear which the dreamer,
when awakes, recognizes as the indi-
viduals he saw in his sleep. Equally
startling is the assertion of NJ. Mar
kierrico-Jodko, of Russia, that he has
photographed true love: or rather that
he has caught the electric discharges
exchanged when the lovers clasp hands
which discharges are not found in the
hand clasp of mere friends.
TO TAKE THE PLACE OF STEAM.
OF more practical benefit to mankind
will be the invention of new motors to
take the place of steam. One substan-
tial advance has been the harnessing
of Niagara Falls, after years of toll on
tunnels and masonry. 1t was during
the New York Electrical exhibition
that Chauncey Depew, with a current
from the fails, flashed a message
around the world in four minutes. The
same power is now turning the wheels
of factories of Buffalo.
Two newly-inVented motors have
been in operation on the street car sys-
TENS of New York for some time
compressed air, and combination of
storage and third-rail systems.
A new style of electric locomotive has
been produced jointly by the Baldwin
Locomotive works, of Philadelphia, and
the Westinghouse electrical works, or
Pittsburg.
DR.. Jacques, of Boston, has discov-
cred a method of extracting electrical
energy direct from coal, without the
aid of a steam engine. Petroleum mo-
tors for bicycles and horseless mail
wagons have been products of the year.
Anticipating the time when fuel will be
scarce and expensive, Ernest Gelarch
has been at work on a wave motor on
the coast of California, to utilize the
vast power of the tides.
Nowadays nearly all professional in
Ventors are electricians, for the possi-
bilities of the mysterious force seem
to be greater than even yet dreamed
by science. Edison has produced a new
electric light, which he calls nuor-
escent lamp that gives an intense white
| light. The most startling innovation
| in this line, though, is that of d. Mac
| Farlane Moore, who dispenses with
| wires altogether and pipes his electric
| ity, like gas. Through glass tubes ar
ranged around a room he distributes
| evenly a soft phosphorescent glow, the
best counterfeit of daylight yet de-
vised.
PEDDLING ELECTRICITY.
Even now, electricity for domestic use
| is peddled from house to house in
| New York city, like milk in cans. Edi-
| son has improved the telautograph, in
vented the previous year, in a still
| better device for transmitting pictures
by wire, calling his invention the au-
|
land, of Johns Hopkins university, has
devised the multipleX printing tele-
| graph, capable of sending ten separate
| messages at once over a single wire
NJ. Kildischewsky has been experiment.
| ing with long-distance telephOning un-
| der water. He has already talked
through several hundred miles of wire
under the Don river and now asplres
to make his voice heard by cable across
the Atlantic. Alexander Graham Bel
has invented a radiophone, by which hc
! transmits a sunbeam over the telephone
for long distances.
James p. PembertOn a Tennesseean
has the most wonderful project of al
for using the wire. His idea is to oper
ate linotype machines from Centra
news agencies, putting the dispatche
| directly into type, wires being attached
to the keys of machines all over tn
country and worked from the centra
agency by a single operator.
Among other 1896 inventions mad
possible by electricity are the eophone
for detecting the exact direction o
sounds at sea during a fog; Edison
Vitascope, for reproducing plays; Lu
miere's cinematographe, which, lik
the kinetoscope, already out of date
produces figures in action, but in addi
tion projects them in masnified form
so that whole audiences may see them