The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1903-06-17
IDEAS LOST TO The WORLD.
Marvellous inventions That Seem
to Have Been Forgotten.

A recent issue of the most prominent
exponent of the steam engineering IN.
! dustry, Power, reviews a number OF
interesting instances which cannot DO
otherwise than convince even the most
doubtful that engineering is today
very, very far from having reached a
pinnacle of perfection. Among other
notes it states that it is hardly twenty
wears since John Weymouth, the
Wolverhampton engineer and designer,
discovered the motive power OF heat,
exhibited it in one of the Simplest,
cheapest and most useful engines
imaginable and then deprived the
world of its benefit.
He had produced beforehand round
dozen of excellent inventions, which
still bear his name, including the
modern revolving chimney coWl and.
having made a large fortune, he deVot-
ed himself to harnessing the ordinary
heat of a fire and making new power
of it. The idea was laughed at by all
his friends, but after four years OF
study and experimenting he produced
a stationary engine that gave double
the power of any steam-driven me-
chanism at about third OF the cost
aad also small model heat locomotive
large enough to draw truck with
man in it.
KEPT THE SECRET TILL DEATH.
He invited committee of sciec-
lists and engineers, including Prols,
Huxley and Forbes Brown, and show
ed them that his two machines worked
to perfection. The affair made great
stir and it was proved that a great
power of unlimited scope had been dis
covered. Weymouth was flooded with
offers of huge sums for his invention
but, for no apparent reason, except,
perhaps, the alleged madness OF
genius, he absolutely refused to either
bring it out himself or sell the secret.
He announced himself satisfied with
the triumph of the invention and be-
fore his death, a year later, he de-
stroyed all the papers and plans explain
ing the system and removed the es-
sential parts of two engines. These
engines are still possessed by his heirs.
but nobody has been able to make any
thing of them.
Still stranger was the famous loss of
the recipe for the manufacture Of dia-
monds, some fifteen years ago. Her
bert Warner, who alone discovered and
held the secret of diamond making,
did not live to wreck the diamond IN
dustry, as people thought he would,
and the circumstances of the loss were
mysterious and tragic. Inferior dia-
monds can still be produced artiicially,
but only at cost of abont ten times
their value. Warner, after years Of
experimenting, was able to turn out a
genuine diamond of large size and OF
the first water at the cost of small
fraction of the complete stones worth.
He, like Weymouth of aeat-power fame
manufactured his diamoads before an
audience of scientists and produced
three fine stones, which We're tested
and pronounced faaltless. Two of
them are still in existence and are the
greatest curiosities the jewel world
has ever seen. But within a fort
night of this triumph, before any new
stones were put on the market, Warner
utterly disappeared from his house on
Harley street, London, leaving no
trace whatever. So complete was his
disappearance that from that day to
this not the smallest explanation has
been hit upon.
THE SECRET OF TALIUM.
Then there is the lost secret of the
wonderful new metal called talium,''
which would certainly have been
worth many millions to the nation and
the inventor Grantely Adams dis
covered it just eight years age and
during its short life it was one Of the
greatest wonders of the science of
commerce. world. Talium" is an
alloy of metals, electrically treated,
nearly 50 per cent. lighter than steel,
both stronger and tougher and costing
80 per cent less to produce. 1t was
the fruit of four years hard work
and study and eventually Adams COM
pleted it and publicly exposed it to ev-
cry kind of test.
Trains or any other vehicles, as it
was proved, would be able to travel at
nearly double their present speed if
constructed of "talium'' and there
was no kind of edged tool that would
not be as keen as well as much lighter
if made of the new metal. The COM
motion caused by this discovery was
extraordinary and still more so was
the upshot Of it, for the magnitude OF