The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-04-27
LIQUID AIR AND SCIENCE.

Thanks to Professor Charles f. War
| ner of the Mechanic Arts high school,
| Springfield people have had two oppor-
tunities to witness experiments with
liquid air, and thereby gain some idea
of its wonderful properties. No scien-
tific achievement in recent times has
attracted such wide attention, or awak-
ened so much popular interest as the
discovery of liquid air, if it can be call
ed discovery. Like most great ex-
ploits in the unlimited field of science it
is the product of patient work and re-
source. Michael Faraday, that emf
nent English chemist and natural phil
osopher who died in 1867, made some
valuable experiments in the liquifaction
of gases, and it would not be stretch
ing the truth very much to call him the
father of liquid air. Since his time,
scientific men have worked along the
line of his experiments until to-day, by
the aid of mechanical appliances and
profiting by both the negative and pos
tive results of former scientists, liquid
air can be made with comparative ease
and little cost AS in all great inven-
lions and discoveries, science has pro-
crossed beyond itself
Who can foretell the possibilities OF
liquid air? 1t may prove even more
revolutionary than electricity. Great
claims are made for it, and these claims
are entitled to respect and considera-
ton. 1t may furnish q motive power
of the greatest possible value, being
both economical and efficient. Miracu-
lous as it may seem, with three gallons
of liquir air. ten gallons of it can be
made. 1t may almost be said to manu-
facture itself; to closely approach per-
petual motion. When Professor Charles
Tripler made this statement, he was
rdiculed by scientific men everywhere,
save a few who thought he had been
misquoted in the newspaper interview
in which he made the assertion. In an
swer, Professor Tripler said to a re-
porter of the New York Evening Post:
81 positively and absolutely make the
claim that with three gallons Of liquid
air have made ten. and
distinctly claim that practically by
the use of any given amount of liq-
uid air you can make larger quantity.
/ won't claim to create energy, to make
something out of nothing, to upset any
of the laws of nature. l do say, though,
that the scientists have been wrong in
some of their notions, and that they
will have to change them. | assert
that by the use of a given quantity of
liquid air, substituted for steam power,
| can make and have made larger
quantities of liquid air. ! use over and
over again the liquid air employed in
the making. 1t seems simple enough to
ic ca CT 1y,la hat
it ought to be grasped by any scienti-
fic mind at once, but, to my surprise, it
is not; what my critics say appears
plausible, but in fact their contentious
are all aside from the mark, for they
get hold of the wrong end of the prop
ostion, and do not comprehend at all
what | am about
The controversy is thus narrowed |
down to a simple question of fact, with |
everything in favor of Professor Trip
lers statement. He must know more |
about the possibilities of liquid air than |
any of his critics, for he is the man |
who first made it in any considerable |
quantities, who constructed a machine |
which reduced the cost of its manu-
sacture from $500 pint to about TWEEN
" cents gallon. No scientists ever de-
parted radically from commonly ac
,epted theories without meeting a
storm of opposition and rdicule from
lis fellow workers. Every material de-
yelopment in science has had to over
,ome it's calumniators, and so it will
nave to be with liquid air. Claims
which to-day seem false are tomorrow
proved true. We are living in an age
If startling discoveries. The unexpect- ,
ID is constantly happening. Electricity,
7oentgen rays, liquid air-what next?
Springfield Union