OBITUARY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 72, 17 March 1914, Page 2

OBITUARY.

MR GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE. LONDON, March 12. The death is announced of Mr George Westinguoust:, the inventor. Tho cause of death was heart disease.

Mr George Wcstinghouse was born in New York state in 1846. He was president of 30 corporations, the aggregate capital of which is £21,000,000, and which; employ about 50,000 workmen. He was educated at the State public and high schools, with a year at a University. He then enteral his father's machine shore, and later served in both the United (states Army and Navy. In 1865 he invented a device for replacing derailed steam care, and in 1868 came his famous invention of the air brake. He later applied pneumatic devices to railway signalling and ■ switching, fuming his attention to electricity, Mr Wcstinghouse succeeded, in spite of great opposition, in introducing the alternating current system of electric distributioji for light and power. Ho also took a foremost part in developing gas engines, and in adapting steam turbines to electric driving. Mr Westinghousa founded works for the manufacture of his patents in five centres in AmericA; at Manchester and London, England; Havre, Fiance ; Hanover Germany ; St. i Petersburg, Russia; Vienna, Austria; and Vado, Italy. "A few year's back the long valley of \\ ilmerdxng, Pennsylvania, was little better than a wilderness," wrote a wellknown English journalist some few years ago. "Here and there stood-a farmhouse, and the passing trains seldom stopped to let down a chance passenger. To-day the products of this \Vilmordnig Valley cover the world. Every -passenger train in England usesgear made- in the works hero or their branches; many of our electric railways have been planned there; every industrial exhibition shows its goods.' Fifteen thousand peoplo to-dav find employment here, and only the time necessary for building delays the opening of fresh works.

Mr \Vc6tinghr>use was famous for his foresight and progressiveness. Ho kept Ins great invention in his own hands, unci he had always carried on invention as a. business. The best technical schools in America are tapped for bright pupils to work out unportiint problems, or to bo trained in his workshops for posirlS™ responsibiliiy. For'manv vcara was spent annually to no purpose in experiments with coal gas, and huge sums have gone in trying to find a new method of generating electricity