Omaha daily bee., 1898-06-12
LATEST CREATOR OF FORCE
Amazing Possibilities of the Power Of
Liquid Air.
DISCOVERY PoRTENDS A REVOLUTION
Facts About "a Scientific Triumph
Euuniiing In Importance the
Revelation of Elcctricity's
Potency.

For ten years past Charles Il. Tripler. an
American explorer in the domain Of chemica
science, persistently sought the secret power
Of air, and his labors have been rewarded
with what is pronounced a revelation and
a revolution. The product of his investiga-
lions is liquid air, a marvellous creator of
force. The story of his discovery is told in
the Cosmopolitan magazine. 1t reads like a
fairy tale in which he occupies a very small
part. Blu the experiments which he has
made with liquid air already change the
seeming fairy tale to a reality and leave
the observer in a bewilderment of surprises.
Liquid air Is air such as we breathe from
which the heat of the sun has been eX-
tracted. This heat once removed a liquid is
the result, one cubic foot of which represents
500 cubic feet of ordinary air. This liquid
is a heavenly blue in color, a hadean force in
explosive power, yet 1t can be handled as
safely as a glove. the book on the table or
your hat.
The commercial world is already astounded
by a slight insight into what liuuid air may
do when rightly applied. For instance. its
use in the propulsion of a vessel using 400
tons of coal q day would reduce the coal
necessities to 100 tons per day and increase
the speed capacity of the vessel So per cent.
Liners like the st. Paul and the st. Louis,
making the run from New York to Liverpool
in five and a half or six days, would find
that with liquid air their time would be
cut to three or three and a half days. A
vessel now steaming at eighteen knots per
hour could increase that time to thirty-two
knots. Commercially this gain to the world
in time would be represented by millions of
dollars.
Some Things it Will Do.
With liquid air the steam engine ceases to
be a necessity. the submarine boat becomes
a certainty, a new curative agent for con-
sumption is discovered, excessive heat in
close places is done away with, an explosive
is provided so deadly that the force of Atlas.
dynamite and the deadly gun cotton pale
into insignificance. Distance is annihilated
as it never was before, conditions of men
are elevated and a new instrument of prog
ress is delivered to man.
English scientists paid So, 900 for the pro-
duction of the first ounce of liquid air ever
eX|perimentally secured by them. Charles e.
Tripler, an American, produced an equiva-
lent ounce and then sought for it's applica-
ton to the necessities of man and found the
way.
Liquid air when produced has a tempera-
ture 312 degrees below zero. Fahrenheit.
When expanding to return to its gaseous
state the power is developed which makes
It the wonder of the ending century. Two
distinct fluids are found in it-liquitied
nitrogen and liquihed oxygen. 1t can be
dipped up with a tin cup and poured into a
dish like so much water.
The intensity of the cold of liquid air
makes iron and steel extremely brittle,
while it increases their tensile strength,
temporarily. Copper, gold, silver, alu-
minum. platinum and most other metals are
not so affected. Drop an oyster into the
liquid and it is frozen solid instantly. Beef
steak is made so solid a mass by it that it
may be then pounded into powder.
Mercury becomes a solid bar Of metal
when immersed in the liquid.
Once created, liquid air SINNERS like a
kettle on the range. The pot in which it
boils is heavily coated with frost. The
harder it boils the more intense becomes the
cold produced. Placed in a tea kettle the
fluid boils without fire. Wood saturated
with the fluid burns like gunpowder.
AS an explosive there is no thickness of
armor which could resist a shell or torpedo
charged with liquid air. A sponge soaked
in it explodes with a loud report. A wad
of oily cotton waste, first wet in turpentine
and then saturated with the fluid, becomes
of greater explosive force than gun cotton.
Gas tubing charged will this wad explodes
into fragments, windows go out, plaster
falls. the building rocks and a miniature
earthquake is produced.
SafeIy and Easily Carried.
Still the liquid may be safely packed in
cans and conveyed considerable distances
without the slightest danger to human life.
So far experiment has proved that it may
be produced and its power retained for
| thirty-six hours before complete return to
the gaseous state sets in. Future adyances
in knowledge of the product will undoubt-
eddy extend that time as much as practical
uso demands.
The liquid is not a mere production of
the laboratory for professors to do peculiar
things with. One of the practical uses to
which it may be put is refrigeration. Trans
portation OF fruits, fresh meats. with its
use, becomes a problem so simple that cars
having it as an attachment may stand in
the Mojave desert for a day and a night
and not suffer from the terrible heat of that
spot. The power which operates elevators,
runs engines. raises hoists, may at the same
time be cooling rooms. The liquid is com
paratively inexpensive in production, so
much so that its use in private families for
the cooling of sleeping apartments is en-
tirely practicable. The air given Is abso-
lutely pure, the wind OF the mountain peaks,
sweet from the touch of ice and snow.
For the use of physicians liquid air offers
! p product free from all disease germs. The
stimulating effect of oxygen may. be Sc
cured through 1t without trouble and free
from the impurities which now %endanger the
use of that gas. Hospital wards can be
cooled to any temperature desired, and yell
low fever patients kept in a temperature so
near freezing that their recovery is has
tened and danger of contagion removed.
Even hay fever and asthma may be relieved
by it's use, and the cauterization of flesh be
made the perfect success which it is not
now with nitrate of silver.
In our conflict with Spain there are in
Vulnerable ways in which liquid air would
be of incalculable value to our navy. Gun
rooms In or out of action could be kept at a
temperature healthful and delightful. Guns
which require now from two to five minutes
for cooling after being fired could be cooled
by 1t In less than a minute. Coal bunkers
on vessels propelled by this power would
cease to be their present enormous size, and
greater space would be secured for men and
armament.
Liquid air can be used in ordinary steam
engines without any OF the oppressive heat