OBITUARY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14916, 14 March 1914, Page 12

OBITUARY.

MR. GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

(By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.)

(Received March 13th, 5.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 13.

Mr George Westinghouse, the famous inventor, is dead, heart disease being the cause. He was 68 years of age.

A-GREAT INVENTOR.

George Westinghouse, the inventor of the railway air-brake that bears his name, was born in America in 1846, and was the son. of, an engineer. The boy, who worked in his father's shop, invented a rotary engine at 'the age of fifteen,- and. at nineteen a devico for replacing.derailed trains. His famous Westinghouse air-brake, .which has since been adopted all over the world, was invented "when ho was only twentytwo. He also made other inventions, in railway signals, steam- and gas engineSj steam turbines, and machinery.

Mr Westinghouse built up one of'the greatest manufacturing businesses in the United States. He kept the manufacture of .his air-brake invention in his own.hands, and extended his works to embrace electrical and other machinery. A few years ago he was president of corporations employing 20 uOO men, and besides his works in America he had brandies in several foreign countries. "A few years back the long valley.of Wilmerdihg, Pennsylv.anin, Was little better than a wilderness," wrote a correspondent of the "Daily Mail" some years ago. "Here and there stood a farmhouse,' and the passing trains seldom stopped to let down chance passengers. Today the products •of this Wilmerding valley cover the world. Every passenger train in England uses gear made iv the works here or their hranches; many of our electric railways have been planned here; every industrial exhibition shows its goods. Fifteen thousand pdople to-day find employment here, and, only the time necessary for building delays the opening of fresh works.' 1 Mr .Westinghouse was the pioneer, .against great opposition, ir. introducing alternating current machinery in "America, which has rendered possible the great development or water-nower ;for long distance electrical transmission.. Ait the Wfestinghouse Works new ideas are warmly welcomed. v Mr Westinghouse took in every year a number of the best students from the coßegJes. These were carefully watched and the best retained. Everybody m the. works was expected to maiie any-suggestions that occurred to him for "improving methods of manufacture. iMoney was,spent freely in research work. For some years £20,000 a year was spent without success in a certain idea for the utilis.'iiion of gas. The intelligence department searches the Press of the world, technical and general, for new ideas. A weekly paper is issued for the heads of the different branches of the works, telling them of things happening in their fine that they ought- to know. Should a brief note appear in some obscure Vienna paper revojiling jor shedding fresh light on a minor technical problem, the man who has to do with that at tho W r estinghouse Works finds it pointed out to him in the office sheet he receives on Saturday night.

The death occurred at Gore on Tuesday*"of Mr William Martin, who was very widely known in the stock business by farmers and dealers in Otago and Southland.