Arizona republican., 1912-05-01
Prison Wizard Talks of His Invention for Divert ing Electricity
 From Air
TRAVELS ALONE
 TO THE CAPITAL
Says His Mechanism Needs Development in Detail But Has Found
 Great Secret

Roy J Meyers. the Arizona prison CT made an honor man by Governor Hunt and released on his own recog- nizance for thirty days, for a trip to Washington to patent his recent inventions while confined in the peni- tentiary. and one of which may be- come the most notable device of all the ages. was in Phoenix last night. preparing to start on his eastern journey. He was planning to leave on last nights train and was at a local hotel when interviewed by re- porter for The Republican. having re- trained from registering that he might avoid publicity. Though Myers has invented many things the one achievement that gives promise of making him famous. Is an apparatus l for assembling electricity from the surrounding air and applying it u the operation Of machinery. Meyers i is above medium height al man of l lperhaps 35. Of ruddv complexion and ] looks well the part of d mechanic. well attired in a brown suit of clothes He was cordial in his man liner and answered questions freely. though he is not talkative and his idisinclination to say a great deal 1 is enhanced by two facts One Is i that he is quite deaf. making conNer- sation something of an effort. and the 1 iother is that the recent notoTiety given him and his work through the 1 incident in the legislature that led ito his release. makes it necessary for i jhim 10 be reticent that he mdy safe guard his secret until it has been ipreserved for him through means of Ithc patent office.
 i He said in the course of the inter
 view that there was very little he could tell except to disclose the par lticular thing it is now his business i to keep a secret. He was willing however to answer any general ques- ltion that might interest the main fact Asked how long he had been eN- perimenting on this particular thing he said about two months. and he ! had been given every possible help 1 bv the prison management which
 took great interest in his work
 Asked if his invention. in the case it was demonstrated as a practical pow
 CT producer. would be expensive of
  at the present time. as there are many details he has yet to work 1 out and he expects to make some Imore practical experiments when he Iarrives in the east. before he applies for a patent He intimated however lthat the paraphernalia. whatever it is ought not 10 be very expensive Asked if j. required the placing of poles high in the air or any aerial devices he replied in the negative. The electricity is as easy to pump iout of the lower strata of air as higher up. The inference was drawn Ithat his mechanism is all on the ground Being reminded that cleo Itricians say the electricity in the air lis static and must be transformed linto a dynamic current he said that lis true and he employed q crude transformer. from which it is un- Iderstood that that part of his de- vice is perhaps the chief mechanism that needs improvement
 Asked if the report that in his ! prison exLeriment he captured q cur Trent equal to 81a amperes, was true, he said that was merely the estimate iof those who saw 1t work. He had m means of measuring the fluid. All he could say respecting it was that
 he had used it in place of battery
 to spark the gasoline engine with which he twice pumped the water tanks at the prison. full Of water. , Among his other inventions on which he hopes to secure patents are Ia trolley protector and flying ma Ichine. The former he says is q very practical thing and should come into general use. It is for the sole pur- pose Of keeping the trolley on the ? wire and is SO devised that when il jumps off it automatically runs back 5 on again
 The flying machine he calls th6 { ioriole as it is patterned in some way [ iafter that sUecies of bird. It i. : neither q bi-plane nor n )noplane
 ] Q sort of an imitation of the birC
 wings being utilized instead Of th'
 planes The chief merit of his fly
 ing machine he says is in the en- l zine. which it is presumed might bt Z placed in any flying machine. H. l says it's advantage is that whenevel c lany particular cylinder gets out O
 repair it can be thrown out of com
 mission while the rest continue to
 perform their intended functions H. n can start or stop any cylinder in ldependentIy os the others.
 Asked about the story that he Wa. r lonce in the employ of Edison h' f said that is only partly true. He sai' n he had worked a little around tn
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