Norwich bulletin., 1914-06-24

JtSgNo1 of the house of o peers and of com mons have in turn visited the workshop where this tenth wonder of the world is on exhibition, and they are amazed at his flying train" They have mar veled, too, how the United States, the motherland of the ingenious. has let this uncanny product of the scientific imagi- nation leave its shores.
 The levitated railroad is declared the latest word in transportation. A train travelling 300 miles an houri That rate should satisfy the most rabid of speed maniacs; from New York to Chicago in about three hours!
 Your business man could take an early train, do a good days work in the Windy city and get home in time for dinner with his family in New York.
 Congressmen from Manhattan would be able to commute over to Washington on train that would take about three quarters of an hour to make the trip.
 In England the principal difficulty will be keeping the trains from running oil the island when they are once started.
 
 In the opinion of many, M. Bachelet seems to have solved the problem of the next great step in transportation. A visit to his workshop at Saffron Hill, one of the oldest districts of London, has con- vinced even the skeptical that we are arrived at the period of the twentieth century which corresponds to the period of the nineteenth when the locomotive displaced the coach horse.
 His invention overcomes that bugbear of the Neilroad engineer-friction. The flying train' does not travel on wheels, but on air. Not that it has any analogy to an aeroplane or an airship Although, to the unscientific eye, the train seems to be resting on air, there is in fact an electric wave cushion between the levi tators and the track, and this supports the car in space. And while so supported 1t is dragged forward by another electri- cal current in much the same fashion as a trolley car.
 But to arrive at a clearer comprehen- sion of this miracle-for surely it is a miracle to float forty pounds of steel, the afr--follow the inventor through his se- ries of illuminating demonstrations.
 While watching the experiments that give an insight into the basic idea of the flying train you cannot get rid Of the impression that you are assisting at a private exhibition of extraordinary conjuring The whole performance is magic of kind that exceeds the most astounding feats of Hermann.
 ***
 The top floor of an old warehouse ia curtained off in green baize in a setting that is peculiarly suited to the manifesto tion of mystery. When you pass the curtain your eye is first caught by what looks like the model of a section of the elevated railway of New York. But on the tracks, instead of the ordinary en- zine and line of cars, there rests what might be the aluminium frame Of the model of a submarine.
 , At one end of the room girl of tyni- cal American prettiness, sits before an electrical switchboard, such as is used to control the lights of a theater. Down tba center or the room is a series of nickel posts aDout three feet high, surInounted by black steel cylinders eight inches in diameter and five inches deep.
 Beyond these are the >dials of scales and weighing machines that remind one of a switchboard is set of bells like those used by the Swiss bellringers in a yau5es vile act Of these, more later.
 The wizard of the revolutionary prin- ciple of locomotion- has about his per sonahty nothing of the occult or obscure. About hfty-ffve years old, steckily built. with gray hair and mustache, and gray e.1 Daus eyes, miio, yet penetrating. he is the hrenchmen to be seen any day in those little cafes in the French quarter of New York city.
 AS we enter. he is testing the strength or the electric current tapped from a local wire and passed through the trans forming box, black square contrivance packed with copper spools and magnets, and alive with sparks. In this secret caught and divided and changed into a current of repuIsion.
 
 The current Is now switched into one of the cylinder surmounted posts in the center of the room. On the top of the spool rests a disk of aluminium, eight inches across and an inch thick. Sud- denly. as though moved by some invisi- ble agency. the disk begins to dance on the top of the cylinder. Now 1t is raised clear and remains suspended in the air. Now it drops back with metallic clat- ter as the current is shut off This test reveals the principle of the SIevitated train.
 Every one is familitr with magnetic at- traction Reverse that principle and you understand the lifting of the aluminium disk. It Is what might be called mag. neuc repulston. This is a paradox of terms but it describes the force empIoy- ed. When the repellant current is turn ed into the spools, try as you like you cannot press the aluminium plate down upon it. What feels like a cushion of compressed air seems to resist your every effort.
 that only certain metals are repelled by his current. Not that the inventor makes claim for having found out a new principle, but of applying an old one. For the fact that copper ring would float over An alternating current magnet has