The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-25
THOUSANDS OF INVENTORS KEEP U, s. EXPERTS BUSY

make sure. and found that they con | tained gasoline"
 Mir James and his associates do not 1 send all inventors away hopeless. Oc- casionally some one designs carbu- retor that Is better, or spark plug that shows an impr0v ement in mile age or performance, or something else that justifles its invention. Men in such testing work are naturally misun de rstood. Their job is to make a thorough investigation of anything submitted to them with the idea of definitely determining it's value and to add to the store of scientific knowledge. You can't blow up a mans air castle without earning his dislike to a certain extent.
 Despite the bureau of standards, however. a good many inventors are reaping profits out of inventions that are of no real benefit, and a good many motorists are pleased and are operating their cars more econom- ically as the result of buying some alleged "gas saver or other The reason for it is that nearly all auto mobiles are operated with an inn proper csrburetor setting-a setting which makes the car waste fuel. When the car owner buys any sort of gas saver he submits the car to carburetor adjustment usually proper adjustment He gets more miles and attributes the benefit to the device he has purchased. Dr. A c. Fletcher of the bureau of mines experiment station in Pittsburg con- ducted investigations some time ago that showed that practically 25 per cent of the gasoline consumed by mo- tor cars and trucksNis wasted through poor carburetion.
 Some Weird Inventions.
 During the war enemy avfators learned the deplorable trick of shoot ing holes in airp1ane gasoline tanks. An inventor got the idea that the fires and kindred disastrous results from such unpleasantnesses could be prevented by solidifying the fuel. His idea was to introduce albumin into the fuel and subject 1t to a whip ping process, as the housewife whips cream. The invention included an en- larged feed line from the fuel tank to the carburetor and a device to ac- celerate the movement by suction. The fuel was prepared and the scheme tried. The engine ran for about three minutes, gasped, choked and stalled. It refused to start again. Upon being dismantled it was found to have foundered upon fried eggs. The heat of the motor had very quickly coagula.ed the albuminous substance which the inventor had brought with him and proved, with out further chemical analysis. thai 1t was indeed whites of eggs.
 A rather interesting invention was ! one which placed a screen. contain Ing some mothballs, in the muffler The purpose of it was to have the mothballs absorb the unburned. ex- plosive vapors which were exhausted by the engine, and thus prevent oackfirfng. Backfiring, in case it is possible that some one does not know, Is known by that startling bang that results when the collect ed unburned gases in the muffler or exhaust pipe are ignited. The in- VenttoJa while theoretically sound enou g& tdid not prove to be of prac- tlcaI value, since the mothballs were soon covered with soot and com pletely saturated with gas. There would be too frequent necessity for taking out the old mothballs and putting in new ones.
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 Some Inventions Successful
 Among some of the successful in- ventions tested was that of treating the fuel with silica gel. This sub stance removes impurities in the gas- ollne, such as sulphur and foreign matter which may have become mixed with the fuel. A valve for inducing a stratum of air on the compression stroke of the piston and piston rod is another invention that was proved to be about 10 per cent. efficient. The air is permitted to enter the cylinder by means of vaIve and forms a layer between the charge of gas and air from the car buretor and the top of the piston.
 Another gasoline economy device that indicated a sound principle and which, under tests, showed a favor able result, Is the application of a n a RnYI1Fa der head, which contains a catalyst, In explanation, catalyst is some thing which speeds up chemical re- action. An explosion is a chemical reaction. This fact Is made use of, In the invention mentioned. The mere pressure of catalyst is all that is necessary to increase the ve- locity Of such reaction, conse- quently the inventor reasoned that l if the catalyst could be made con- stantly present in the combustion chamber in some way an increase in power would be achieved The cata- lyst, which probably was a metal of some sort-the inventor keeps the formula secret-was mixed with a refractory paint and applied to the interior of the cylinder head. Some of the tests showed rather startling results and others showed little diff ference, but 1t was concluded that a sufficient increase in mileage was developed to give the inventor the | benefit of the doubt.
 o O O Comprehensive. Motor Fuel Tests
 For all our experience in gasoline it | still remains mysterious stuff in some particulars. For years the au- | tomobile engineer and the scientific | men in the oil refineries have been quarreling about fuel and engine de- sign. Unsatisfactory performance of an automobile when no mechanical difficulty could be found was blamed by the engineers upon the fuel. The fuel men asserted that they were producing good fuel and that the 1 engineers were at fault for not nak- 1 ing their engines fit the necessary Ao