Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-11-26
AMERICAN INVENTIONS.
X-The Future.
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
trains or were passed by them would G.
crazy because of the fast motion.

| crazy because or the last motion.
| j. x X
| Such speed as the German professors
were thinking of would scarcely exceed
that of q slow
Perfect Rotary Engine freight today.
and Ideal Roadbed. ns,,r e as ms
| think we need, to double the speed of our
| fastest express trains. They admit that
! such speed cannot be attained with the
| present reciprocating counterbalanced
| locomotive; that 1t would pound both tt
self and the roadbed to pieces. But they
| say with perfect rotary engine and an
| ideal roadbed they can carry passengers
from Washington to New York more
quickly than they do from Philadelphia
to New York today, and that the trip
from New York to Chicago could be
| made between lunch and dinner time.
Nitrogen, when applied to the soil in
proper quantities. possesses the almost
| magical power Of making four blades Of
grass grow where one grew before. It is
one Of the most plentiful things in the
world. existing in incalculable quantities
| in free air, but 1t comes down only with
| the lightning stroke and the raindrop
| and then In insufficient quantities. So
1t Is now being extracted from the air
by electro-mechanical methods. The in
ventor who will find cheap method of
extracting 1t will make the United States
able to support a population of 3OO, OOO. OO0
people more advantageously than it now
supports 10.O0O,OOO.
The properties Of that latest and great
est of discovered elements-radium-ar
| so wonderful as to beggar description. A
ton of it would heat and light q palace
through thousands of generations, losing
not more than an ounce of weight or
q +
son, before the Royal Institution Of Eng
land not long ago. attempted to describe
some OF its powers. He declared that II
| man could use 1t in war he might hurl
projectfles as big as houses with veloc-
ity thousand times greater than that
Of the finest projectile military science
has yet produced. Flour worm larvae
have been made to live three times as
long as their natural span Of life, both
as larva and as moth. 1t was as If
boy had been made to live more than 200
years and still retained his youth. APP
plications Of radium rays have made
f1cially fertiltzed the eggs of the sea ur-
chin. Radium is so elusive that 1t is
worth 5000 times its weight in gold Yet
indications are that 1t is plentiful await
ing only the proper formula for it's ex-
traction.
The possibilities of liquid air are no less
interesting than those of radium AL
ready methods of
Immense Power of making it cheaply
r;n,,;l A.. have been attain
"A~ AA ed. The gaseous
air in a small room can be compressed
into bucketful of liquid air. Put piece
of steel into it, and although the liquid
| Is cold enough to freeze mercury, 1T will
| burn the steel as easily as pine knot
| burns in an open CRATE Place the pailful
| of liquid air on ice and it will begin to
boil. 1t will permit man to handle 1t as
| he pleases, except that it will not allow
! itself to De confined. Inclose 1t in an air
tight vessel and an explosion follows that
| would make an explosion Of nitrogylcerin
| seem like a baby firecracker in COMPARE
| son. The man who will effectively har-
! ness liquid air may work even more Of a
transformation in human, existence than
did those who gave us our modern appli-
| cations of electricity.
One scarcely can realize how rapidly
! the tide of invention is. rising in the
| world today. The late Prof. Langley once
declared he had archaeological evidence
| that it took mankind thousands of years
to learn to sharpen his stone ak by rub
| bling it on another stone. Certain it is
that Andrew Jackson had no better means
| of communicating the victory Of New Or
! leans TO WdSHlHStOu tHdu tHdl uStO III
the days of Abraham or Xerxes. The
! octogenarian of today has seen more hui
man progress than all the generations
since Adam. He has seen man multiply
| his powers in vast proportions; add in
| finitely to his well being and subtract
wonderfully from his limitations.
| xk
Standing on the acropolis Of the great
est eighty years in all history. and peer
| ing from that emf
Golden Age Still hence into the flu
| 81 ture, the inventors
| III TIC OAS'~.S' today tell us that
the golden age has not yet dawned: that
| the only golden age they see is the one
of realizing that illimitable possibilities
are yet ahead, and that we are seeming
ly as far removed from the Ultima Thule
of what genius may accomplish as We
were years ago. They believe that each
invention opens new fields Of possibili-