The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-04-07
Liquid Air as q Motive Power.

While Tesla's great scheme for project
ing electric power through empty space
has for the time dropped out of sight,
Tripler's equally sensational claims for
liquid air as a motive power continue
daily to gain ground. The, New York
inventor has so thoroughly established his
ability to make liquid air cheaply and to
apply it successfully in various wonder
full experiments that he almost compels
belief in his main clainl-that he can
adapt the new force to all steam engines
and locomotives and run them without
water or fuel. IT he ever demonstrates
this by actual trial, the fact will revo>
lutiOnize the whole modern world Of rail-
ways and factories.
The most important feature of Mr..
Tripler's discovery is the fact that he
can use liquid air to produce more liquid
air III an increasing ratio. In his lecture
before the National Geographic society
ut Washington the other evening he re-
peated this declaration, stating that with
three gallons Of the liquid lie had repeat
eddy made ten gallons, and that he could
60 on doing so for any length of time.
There Is no reason to doubt this asser-
ton. but the possibilities it opens up are
bewilderihgs It means that locomotive
equipped With apparatus for making and
applying liquid air to Its piston heads can
uCIO6S lAC COutlleut W1llOuL SlOpIluS
for fuel or water. 1t means that pas
senger or freight vessel furnished with
such APPARATUS can cross the ocean with
out coal bhhkers or the smoke and dirt of
coal. It meahs that battleship or
cruiser cah circumvigate the globe with
out need for coaling stations: In short,
it promises to rnvolutionize tile methods
both of war and Of peace.
these things are still theory, but it
l., ax3,r,S%&oa &ka4 =.
fact, and one with greater promise than
any other now OH the industrial horizon.
1t is not at all impossible that it may
shortly outstrip electricity itself in point
of practical RESULTS; and again it is also
possible that 1t may not fulfill any of its
promises for years to come. A good
many years ago compressed air seemed
about to supersede steam, but the one
fact that it froze and clogged the ma
practical work. Some similar difficulty
may stand in the way of liquid air, yet
only within the last year human ingenui
ty has triumphed over the defects of COM
pressed air, and it will be strange if the
same does not ultimately prove true Of
liquid air, which is the same thing, only
infinitely more compressed.
The fascinating possibilities Of liquid air
lie in it's great force by mere contact
WITH Tue HeA< VI liz OulSAOe ali, anu III
it's strange power of reproducing itself
fourfold without fuel. Its intense cold
ness of 312 degrees below zero makes it
hard to handle, and it is az dangerous I'M
der certain conditions as dynamite. But
SO is electricity dangerous: A ruce that
can Use the mysterious electric current
with IMMUNITY can certainly use so SIM
pie thing as liquid air without harm.
Then, when it Is remembered that an Or
binary glassful Of liquid air, In the proc
ess Of being warmed only 100 degrees,
horsepower engine, It Is evident that the
financial Incentives to complete the appli-
cation of it to machinery are Of the
strongest. The abolishing of smoke and
SCOT is alone powerful ,desideratum.
One. cannot, help following Mr.. ,Triplers
further experiments with much hope and
with intense Interest. Chicago Tribune.