The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1915-08-27


hammond is getting
greater publicity than his father. It
seems probable that the German
army technlcians have appropriated
his thermit she'll which will gnaw its
way through steel girders. His wire
lesscontrolled torpedo for harbor de.
tc'se is about to be adopted by the
United States military services He
@ill probably alt some day on Secre
tary of the Navy Daniels new board
Of inventors with Edison and Ford
aud Steinmetz.
This is considerable progress for
even young American to make in
ave years out of college Hammond
follows right after his dad in that un.
Official gazette Of celebrities, Who's
Who In America" We learn there
that the inventor was born in San
Francisco April 13, 1883. He is there
fore twenty-seven years old.
Hammond Is a hard bitten young
American, to use a phrase of Sir Ar.
thur Conan Doyle. Just at the tango
age when with his fathers great
wealth he could cut a wide swath in
gay and frivolous society, he has de-
voted his days and nights to abstruse
calculations, endless bueprints and
sput.ering dynamos
His keen, lean face and spare figure
remind one much of Henry Ford
Roth men are hard-headed, practical
Yankees, without a bit of fuss or pa,
layer about them.
Reading further in our who's
Who we find that in 1912, two years
after his graduation from the Sheffield
Scientific school of Yale university,
Mr. Hammond was a delegate by APP
pointment Of the United States gov
ernment to the Radio-Telegraphic con
ventian az London
He is, moreover, the treasurer and
chairman of the committee on mem.
barship Of the Institute of Radio-Engi.
ueers. member of the advisory com.
mittee Of the aerodynamic laboratory
OF the Smithsonian institution and
member Of the Royal Society of Arts
Of London.
All this Mr. Hammond has done
with three years still to go to the
thirty mark-not by being an infant
prodigy, but by hard work. by driving
every nerve and fiber Of his wiry body
at full speed
Mr., Hammond has an office in lower
broadway, New York city, but has
done most of his work in the more
inspiring and le distracting atmos-
phere Of a beautiful little slate-roofed
laboratory situated in the side of a
crag overlooking the water at Glouces-
ter, Mass. Here he has conducted the
important experiments which may
mean much to America some day in
repelling a powerful enemy.
Nikola Tesla was the pioneer in tel. |
nutomatics, as the branch of electri-
cal science to which Mr.. Hammond |
has devoted himself is called. Tel. |
automatics is the control of mechanl-
cal movements at a great distance by
means of wireless waves.
Mr. Hammond is not the first person
TO control a water craft at a distance |
by wireless But he is the first man |
to do this effectively. He has taken
out more than one hundred patents to
protect his inventions. Incidentally
ne has spent $4,000 in experiments.
Until Mr. Hammond improved on
the previous devices, it was not pos
sibIe to guide by wireless a torpedo
making a greater speed than eight
miles an hour, and even then it was
impossible to prevent the interference
of a hostile wireless apparatus.
The young inventor has solved both
these difficulties. He can control
boat or torpedo making 80 knots, or
80 miles an hour. Wireless transmit.
ters much more powerful than his own
have tried in vain to check the direc-
ton of his boat.
The secretary Of war, Mr.. Hammond
recently announced, has recommended
that the Hammond system be pur-
chased by this government and be
kept as an American secret.
II congress will appropriate the
money number of wireless plants
and torpedo units to be directed by
radio will be constructed. One of the