Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-11-26
THE COMING MARVELS
Marconi Predicts Ships Will Be
Run by Electricity.
AIRSHIPS FOR COMMON USE.
Inventor Also Sees a Better World
With Fewer Children, but of Higher
OuaIity-Operas to Be Heard and
Seen From a Distance.


shine is the opinion of Guglielmo Mar
conf, who recently discussed the mar
vels of the future.
The inventor of wireless telegraphy
has come to America to increase his
transatlantic service from a capacity
of 5000 words day to 10000. After
predicting a great future for wireless
telegraphy he said to a reporter of the
New York World:
"There seems to be happy fate in
the coincidence of scientific discover
les, which on first thought are quite
unrelated to each other. The develop
ment of the airship, as shown in the
astounding performance of Orville
Wright's machine in Washington,
would seem to have nothing in com
mon with the perfection of wireless
communication, and yet If one looks
into the future, the great airships
which are to come, sailing at incredi-
BILE speed and at unforeseen and vary
ing attitudes, could never without the
wireless speak each other as ships do
at sea and so remain in touch with
those safely at home.
"And the airship is certain to come
into general use, and that within the
lifetime of our generation, not for
freight perhaps, but for people sure
ly In fifty years thdGpeople of New
York will be freed of the vexing prob
lem of rapid transit. There will be no
need for surface cars, elevated roads,
subways, tunnels and ferr es.
I'm fact, as | look into the years to
come | am convinced that life will be
an easier problem, more genial func-
ton in the scheme Of things, than it is
today.
aside from the economy of labor
which follows the conquest Of natures
forces. there will be fewer people
among whom to divide the benefits.
The birth rate will continue to de-
crease, as l believe t. should, at least
for the present. With the growth of
intelligence among the mass of people
there will come a realization of the
folly of rearing more children than
can be properly fitted to be efficient
members of society. Quality, not num-
berS, Will come TO be the standard of
racial excellence, and the present
anomalous condition wherein the num-
Der of children in family is in inverse
ratio TO the earning capacity of the
parents will have disappeared
THE condition today is not one of
race suicide but of social common
sense. And If the present enlighten-
ment of the average men and women
continues TO its righteous turning
point there will come an end of con
gested cities. with their wretched and
starving children of the tenements,
their crimes, their killing competition
and their dlscouragement of the gen.
tier aspirations of men.
'In all ways science Is more and
more studying to perfect the practical
comfort and well being Of the world.
OF course there will always be ships
upon the sea. The mysterious primeval
voice of the ocean will continue Its
spell over the human Imagination. But
there will not always be steamships
They will pass the way of their prede-
cessors, and ere long we shall cross
the ocean in ships run by electric pow
er. There will be no CRIME of coal
smoke, no slckish odor of stale steam,
no blazing cavcns in the hold, where
human beings with starting eyes and
blackened faces sweat their lives away
that the pulse of the engines may not
stop. The storage battery will take
the place Of coal and fire and water.
Instead of coaling the great ship will
quietly and clcanly renew her batter
les at her journeys end. and if coal is
used it will hc far from the linen and
the noses of men.
Furthermore, l look for the time
when coal will cease to be our only
source of energy. In every land men
OF science are patiently studying the
problem of utilizing the energy of the
sun-storing it, In fact-so that the
generation of electric force may be
cheapened by its use to point where
'IIc StoIuSc DulleIS bh ldlSt SIhIo
will be an economic as well as an aca-
demic possibility. The wasted energy
In coal as now used may In the inter
val be brought to do Its work and so
bring about the monster storage bat
terry sooner than we COW expect. But
sooner or later we shall enslaye the
suns rays to our uses as we have the
other products of his being.
"Ah, yes, life Is going to be better
experience for our children than it is
for most of us now, In many little
ways 1t will be so. DO you know that
in many laboratories they are coming
close to letting us see the person who
is talking to us at the other end of the
telephone connection? And if they can
do this, II they can transmit the light
waves of images at a dlstance-and 1t
looks rs II science Is bound to accom-
plish it-I am vaicing no extravagance
in saying that we may yet sit in our
homes on cold winters night, turn a
switch and not only hear, but see, the
opera in progress In a faroG building.
"And, going back to my own hobby
of wireless communication, | want to
say that we shall not have to wait
long for the wireless telephone. De
Forest and his colleagues are doing
great things in that direction"
An Interesting Railway.
An interesting railway will be open.
ed In Moscow, Russia. In the near FL