The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1901-02-21

less liquid air to keep the compressor
engine going. This difference save. 1t
is hard to understand just how this
comes about, for you must remember
that we are dealing with intensely low
temperatures-an unfamiliar domain, the
influences and effects OF which are not
yet well understood and not with
pressures. sbr
Il have actually made about ten gal
Ions of liquid air in my liqueher by the
use of about three gallons in my engine.
There Is, therefore, a surplusage OF sew
en- gallons that has cost me nothing and
which | can use elsewhere as power.
And there is no limit to this proiuc-
ton; you can keep on producing this
surplusage indefinitely"
Il think so. | have not yet finished
my experiments. you understand, and
don't want to claim too much. believe
have discovered a great principle in
science and believe | ian make practi-
cal machinery do what my experimental
machine will do"
What if Mr.. Tripler can build sue
cessful "surplusage machine 1t is be-
wildering to dream of the possibilities OF
a source of power that costs nothing
Think OF the ocean greyhound unencunl-
bered with coal bunkers, and swelterlng
boilers, and smokestackS, making her
power as she sails, from the free sea
air around her Think of the boilerless
locomotive running without fre-box
or fireman, or without need OF water
tanks or coal chutes, gathering from the
air as it passes the power which turns
its driving wheels With costless power,
think how travel and freight rates must
fall, bringing bread and meat, more
cheaply manufactured clothing more
cheaply to our backs. Think of the pos
sibilities of aerial navigation with power
which requires no heavy machinery, no
storage batteries, no coal-but | will
take up these possibilities later. If one
would practice his imagination on high
flights let him ruminate on the question,
What will the world be when power
costs nothing"
1t is not until ~ou begin to speculate
upon the changes that such machine
as Mr.. Tripler's. if successful, will work.
that you begin to doubt and waver and
feel the total improbability of it all. The
announcement fairly shocks the nearer
out of his humdrum. and turns his well
regulated world all topsy-turvy. And yet
it is not difficult to remember what peo-
pie said when Morse sent words by
telegraph from Washington to Baltimore
and when Bell spoke miles over a cop
per wire.
I'VE have just begun discovering
things about the world says Mr.. Trip
ler
Then he begins, at the beginning of Ii
| quid air, and builds up his wonders step
by step until they have almost assumed
the familiar garb of present-day real1-
ties.
PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO LIQUEFY AIR.
Until twenty years ago, scientists
thought that air was permanent gas
that it never would be anything but a
gas. They had tried COMPRISING it I'M
der thousands of pounds of pressure to
the square inch; they had tried heating
it to the greatest known depths ofcheml-
Gals nreyerberatory furnaces and cooling
it to the greatest known depths OF chem
ical cold: but it remained ara gas
But one day in 1877, Raoul Pictet sub
| mitted oxygen gas to enormous pressure
| combined with intense cold. The result
was few precious drops of clear blush
liquid that dubbed violently for few
seconds and then passed away in a cold
white mist. NJ. Pictet had proved that
oxygen was not really a permanent gas,
but merely the vabor of a mineral, as
steam is the vapor of ice. Fifteen years
later Olbekski, Pole of Warsaw. Sue
ceeded in liquefying nitrogen, the other
constituent of air. About the same time
Professor James Dewar, of England, ex-
ploring independently in the region OF
the North Pole of temperature, not only
liqueied oxygen and nitrogen, and then
actually froze it into mushy ice-ar
ice The first ounce that he made cost
more than $1,000. A little later he re-
duced the cost to $500 pint, and the
| whole scientific world rank with the
| achievement. Yesterday in Mr.. Tripler's
laboratory, | saw FIVE gallons of liquid
air poured out like so much water 1t
was made at the rate of fifty gallons
day, and it cost, perhaps, twenty cents
a gallon.
Not long ago Mr.. Tripfer performed
| some of his experiments before meet
| ing of distinguished scientists at the
University of the City of New York.
| 1t so happened that among those present
was NJ. Pictet, the same who first lique
fled oxygen. When he saw the prodigal
way in which Mr.. Tripler poured out
the precious fluid, he rose solemnly, ex-
| tended his arm across the table and
shook Mr.. Tripler's hand, 1T is a grand
exhibition" he exclaimed in French;
the grandest exhibition ever have
SEEN"
The principle involved in air liquefac
ton is exceedingly simple, although its
application has sorely puzzled more than
one wise man. When gas is compress
ed. it gives out its heat. Any one who
has inflated bicycle tire has felt the
pump grow warm under his hand. When
the pressure is removed and the gas
expands, it must take back from some
where the heat which it gave out. That
is, it must produee cold.
Professor Dewar applied this simple
principle in all his experiments. He
compressed nitrous oxide gas and ethy-
lene gas. and by expanding them sud
denly in a specially constructed appar-
atus, he produced degree of cold
which liquefied air almost instantly. But
nitrous oxide and ethylene are exceed
ingly expensive and dangerous, and the
product that Professor Dewar drew off
was worth more than its weight in
gold; indeed, he could hardly afford
enough of it for his experiments.
At the earnest announcement of the
liquefaction of air Mar. Tripler had seen
with the quick imagination OF the in
ventor its tremendous possibilities as
power generator, and he began his ex-
periments Immediately That was eight
year ago. After futile attempts to
utilize various gases for the production
of the necessary cold. it suddenly oc-
cured to him that air also was gas.
Why not produce cold with it?
THE idea was so foolishly simple that
| could hardly bring myself to try it."