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

sed TO Turn the Wheels OF Industry,
Mole Hills to BE Seen in the NJ loon.
W. j. Groat, in Pittsburg Dispatch.
Were all the projects now perfected
which the brain of man has conceived
during the past IL months, the unpaved
air would be our highways; phosphor-
escence would illumine our homes with
a mellow glow like daylight; all our
heavy work would be done by wind,
tide and compressed air; we would talk
d by wire with friends in the Antipodes
and see them face to face; would solve
the most intricate problems Instantly
by the application of electricity to our
brains; and would photograph not only
colors, but bas relefs, voices, dreams
and emotions. Such ailments as pneu-
monia, epilepsy, lockjaw, snake bite
and insanity would be as easily cured
as the most ordinary cold; and the
body itself would bemade proof against
disease by the injection of micrebe kill
ers into the system. To sail to the
North Pole by balloon would be an
ordinary Saturday evening pleasure
trip, and to communicate with the in
habitants of distant planets would be
an everyday occurrence.
No doubt, some of these projects are
visionary, but most of them are in the
range of probability, for imperfect ap-
pliances already exist to achieve such
results. They will not find their way
into ordinary use, of course, until they
are so far improved that it will be econ
omy to discard present methods for
them.
THE CHIEF ACHIEVEMENT.
The greatest achievement of the year
was at its threshold. 1t was early in
January when Professor Roentgen, of
Wurzburg university, astonished the
world by showing that such substances
as wood leather, aluminium and human
flesh are not opaque, but as transpar-
ent as glass, and that there is another
and more powerful medium of vision
than ordinary light-a mysterious me-
dium which is itself invisible This
discovery was the more surprising be-
cause it was never limited or guessed
at before, but was entirely new. II
was found that few things were abso-
lutely opaque when Roentgen or "X'
rays were turned upon them, and that
common glass is harder for these
beams to penetrate than thick boards
No sooner was this discovery an
nounced than the whole civilized world
became interested in it, our own coun-
try most of all. There was scarcely an
inventor or a college laboratory that
did not begin experimenting, and al
most daily fresh capabilities of the new
rays revealed themselves. AT first only
shadOwgraphs We're taken by camera
and Crookes tubes. Later both these
instruments We're dispensed with, anG
by means of the rays, the naked eye
pierced wood and tissue, even pene.
trating Zones to the marrow, anC
Sazed upon the inner structure OF stee
plate.
EXPERIMENTS WITH X-RAYS.
Professor Elmer Gates, of Washing
ton, has utilized the rays in searching
the heavens for wonders in astronomy
DR., Dawson Tucker of England, ha.
taken shadowgraphs by using a glow
worms light. Professor Salvoni ha!
invented the cryptoscope, which en-
ables one to see through opaque OBJ
jects with the new rays. Both Edisor
and Tesla have largely added to oui
stock of knowledge in the same direc
tiOn.
But though science has found ou
much that the ROentgen ray can do, i
is still ignorant of what it is Som,
surmise it is a form of radiant heat
some opine that it is true ray o
light, invisible in itself because it Il
either lower than ultra-red or highe
than super-Violet, the two extremes o
the spectrum; others believe it to be al
known form of energy. Tesla says th
rays are sound waves, claiming tn
best of proofs--that he has actual,
heard them. Whatever they are, the,
differ from ordinary light in that the,
can neither be reflected nor refracted
AIR TRAVEL.
1t has long been the dream of inven
tors to find some method of navigatins
the air as easily as we now naVigat,
the sea. Some of the best brains o
the scientific world were turned in tha
direction during 1896, and while som
progress was made, have not vet sue
ceeded, unless ii is true that PrOfesso
IangleyS aerodrome has reached tn
goal.
The foremost of them all, Professo
Lillenthal, of Germany, yielded up hi
life for the cause, and after his fata
fall, like the hero he was, he only la
mented that he had not other lives t.
give to science. AS the majority o
airship inventors have done, he tool
the soaring bird for his model. He ha
sailed through the air for short dis
tances, but his performance could hard
ly be called flying. 1T was rather a.
easy method of falling, for his plan wa
to leap from an eminenCe and sustain
gradual downward flight until h
reached the ground.
The two other best known eXperimen
ters are Maxim, the American born En-