Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1919-12-01
Coal Strikes and Fuel Scarcity
May be Avoided by Using 1t
in Future-Willsie OF Gas
Mask Fame, Inventor.

How science and fiction travel hand
in hand is shown in Honore Willsie's
new novel, THE Forbidden Trail" just
published by the Frederick A. Stokes
company. New York. In 1t the author
tells, among other things. the thrilling
and delightful story of how an engi-
neer developed the desert OF Arizona
by means of a machine to produce
sun power for irrigation purposes.
Mrs. Willsie ought to know what she
is writing about, for her husband is
Henry e. Willsie, the inventor, whose
gas mask with the Willsie hood was
adopted for use by the American army
in France, and who himself has in
vented a sun-power machine of a type
capable of producing thousands OF
horsepower. This machine has actual
ly been in successful operation in Ari-
IONA, and, according to Mr.. Willsie,
the chance to employ the heat of the
sun to diminish our coal bills is already
within the reach of thousands of per-
sons who live below Mason and Dix
on's line. 1t is a chance worth knowing
about in the present day of fuel scar
city and threatened coal strikes.
PROVES PRACTICAL
The sun-power machine invented by
Mr.. Willsie is very different from the
smaller and earlier experiments of
other inventors. 1t has had a practical
working out in the desert country and
can produce power SO cheaply that to
compete with it coal would have to be
sold at 60 cents ton. In construction
it is SO simple that q sun power ma
chine could be made Of many ice ma
nj, in ha tn fnt> ~tr ero
as it seems, the same chemicals are
employed in the production Of heat
and cold.
Few people outside of the scientific
world have known of the experiments
that have been carried on" said Mr..
Willsie when interviewed on his en-
CINE, land the efforts that have been
made to utilize the heat of the sun.
The first experimenter was John Erics-
son, who became more famous, how
ever, for his invention of the famous
Union man-of-war, the Monitor. Err
lesson constructed five or six solar mo-
tors in and around New York but had
little success for his pains.
About fifteen years ago a lot of
money was spent in building a motor
in Pasadena, Cal, from which about
five horsepower was obtained. The APP
paratus looked like an inverted UNI
brella. 1t had to be absolutely bal
anced to face the sun, and there was a
lot of intricate clockwork to move IL
during the day. 1t was found that
when larger machines were made they
were likely to be upset by the wind.
ENGINE PRINCIPLE
my engine has in entirely different
principle. 1t consists of planes in
clined toward the south over which
water runs from a feed trough down
an inclined surface for about SO feet.
In this transit the temperature of the
water will increase with the suns heat
to about $50 degrees. The planes of
course, are under two layers of glass
At the bottom of the incline the heated
water runs into trough which carries
it into a tank which is insulated with
layers of dry sand. In this tank the
water remains hot from four to ten
days.
From the storage tank the heated
water runs into a sulphur dioxide en-
CINE system As sulphur dioxide has
low boiling point you can place it
in the boiler and heat it by allowing
hot water to come into contact with
the boiler containing the sulphur di-
oxide. When the sulphur dioxide in
the boiler commences to boil you get
the necessary sulphur dioxide steam to
run the engine. The hot engine then
pumps up the subterranean water that
is used to irrigate the land. AS sui
phur dioxide is an ideal gas for a lubri-
cant we do away with oiling the en-
CINE, for the steam takes care Of that
in its transit.
"The mechanism is no different in its
features from the steam engine. It
does not, however, exhaust into the
open air. The cost of sulphur dioxide
requires a condenser and the engine