Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1905-02-25

Science is sometimes thought to be
a profitless search after hidden truth
that rewards its seekers and human
ity but scantily. Yet applied science
revolutionized the world in the nine
teenth century by developing the
steam engine, the telephone, the tele-
graph, electric transportation, engin-
eering and chemical manufacturing
There are signs abroad now that eco
nomic science is going to work an
other revolution in the twentieth CEN
fury as great, if not greater, than any
thing in the nineteenth century
Former Naval Constructor Lewis
Nixon now declares that the age of
steam is at an end, that the power
that will drive vessels of all sizes, from
a launch to a battleship, is the gas
engine and the kind of motors used in
automobiles and autoboats-
Another revolution in our domestic
and commercial affairs is about to
come Alcohol is to be the new clean
fuel to take the place of coal, gas,
kerosene and gasoline in heating,
cooking and lighting in the household.
as well as for driving all sorts of
motor engines, especially automobiles
and autoboats.
foot passenger ship. Such ship, with
about half the draught and displace-
ment of a steamship of the same
length, would make a gain in speed of
one-third over the present rate of
ocean liners. This is an estimate
made by r. F. Kelsey, the motor boat
expert of Boston. If the autoship
should make thirty miles an hour, in
stead of twenty miles an hour, the
present average of fast liners, the
trip from Boston to Liverpool could
be made in four days. The American
autoboat Onantio, owned by Commo-
dore Harrison B. Moore of the Allan
tic Yacht club, made a record of
twenty-eight miles an hour last year.
The autoship will be a queer look
ing craft. She will be long and mar
row, somewhat like a torpedo boat.
She will have no mastS nor rigging
except a single spar by the bridge for
carrying lights and flying pennants
and signals. She will have no smoke
stacks, but instead row of huge ven
tilators. Her hull, in the middle and
hind part, will be almost that of the
whaleback type. Most of the draught
will be forward, where the engines
will be placed. Her fiat bottom will
taper upward toward the stern anu
be scarcely deeper than river boat.
In fact she will follow the model of
the successful small autoboat of to-
day. only on an enormously enlarged
scale.
Her bows will be high to prevent
the water coming aboard as she splits
the sea with her furious speed. Seen
at distance she will look almost like
the present day torpedo boats, except
that she will not be belching forth
clouds of smoke from tunnels.
The cause that will bring about the
autoship will be economy Mr.. Nixon
has shown that the limit has about
been reached in the speed and capac-
ity of steamships; that every fraction
of knot of increased speed is gain
ed at enormous cost of machinery and
fuel But the auto motor changes all
that. With no heavy boilers. no big
coal bunkers. no large stoke rooms,
a passenger ship can be made as light
as a pleasure craft At one bound
speed can be increased one-third.
She can be operated with about half
or quarter the working crew of a
steamship. This opens up the vision
of faster, cheaper trips to Europe
than any one has even dared hope
for before.
The automobile on land has been