The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-25

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 The Engine.
 Cylinder revolves around sta-
 tionary piston.
 One-seventh of friction of ordi-
 nary engine.
 No limit to speed but bursting
 strain on revolving steel.
 Two thousand revolutions
 minute done easily.
 Has no vibration whatever.
 Compounds twice as we'll as
 ordinary engine.
 By Broughton Brandenburg.
 The man who has built a steam en- zine which will render obsolete all ex- isting steam power plants. railway and marine engines sat on the other side Of a table from me in the Hotel Lafayette n mi rh Trt, phant at the end of thirty years struggle with crushing defeats and wretched failures, standing on the threshold of millions in wealth and of such fame as is Stevenson's. Edison's or Marconis. yet he merely chatted in an easy commonplace way of his inven- ton, putting into the terminology of the unmechanical the fascinating story of his wrestle with the archimedean problem and his victory.
 Across the room sat two massive bearded men, glum and silent over their coffee. They were two Russian naval officers who had that afternoon re- ceived his refusal of a dizzy figure for five years complete and secret control of his engine for their navy They wished to exclude the United States as we'll as all other nations, from the ben eft of that engine. and William M Hoffman. the man who has given the best years of his life to build it, told them they did not have enough money In all Russia to induce him to cripple his native country in any way for one minute. That Is the sort of man he Is.
 For several years had been one of the few who knew of the mark at which he was aiming, and had seen him build engine after engine and seen them al most succeed, even be so excellent that noted engineers could find no fault, and then beheld the inventor himself point out the flaws that made the failures. drop the exploded scheme and start anew. Now that the hour of triumph had ar rived. when there was no final test to make. when the achievement was wrought and the hill topped, the man who had done 1t smoked his black ci gar and laughed easily over the Ques- lions of two engineers of national rep utation who sat with us and acknowl- edged before the evening was over that whereas they had imagined they were In the very van of the great American mechanical forward march leading the world, there was one mon who was ten years ahead of them even, and that was l William Hoffman. the inventor arG builder of a successful rotary engine | that Is not turbine.
 Forty Years of Failure. For forty years ingenious minds have | been struggling to construct such an ! engine that would be practicable. Fail l ures were so numerous that any man | with the rotary engine bee in his bonnet | has been looked on such as a perpet- | ual motion dreamer or Keeley motor | fanatic would be. It has come to be a | patent office joke. There are over | two thousand patents of various types | of rotary engines which are so narrow | in claims as to be worth hardly more | than the paper on which they are writ | ten and there is not one of them in | practical use to-day. Telling his own story over that table | MT. Hoffman said: Though I am now fifty-one years | old, began the search for the secret of | the rotary engine when I was merely | boy right here in Buffalo. I had my | own mechanical education to work out | a s well as my liberal one. and the bet | ter portion of the beginning was in the | cab of an Erie engine. When I was | proficient enough I served three years | IS the engineer of one of the best road | sters on the line. It was just at that | time that the railway engine was devel- | oping very rapidly and every one was | striving to perfect it. To-day the railway engine is a won derful machine, a true marvel. but 1t | is reciprocating-that is, 1t must stop |