WIZARD'S RAYS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 85, 9 April 1924, Page 5

WIZARD'S RAYS

PATH OF DESTRUCTION

GRINDELL MATTHEWS'S

CLAIMS

USEFUL FOR PEACE AND WAR.

(BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.^ISYDNEY SUN CAOLE.) (Received 9th April, 10 a.m.) LONDON, Bth April. Further experiments with the Grindell Matthews "Ray," which is said to be capable of stopping an aeroplane in flight, or exploding from a distance an ammunition dump, show that it is even more powerful than was at first supposed. A mouse sixty-four feet away, at -which the ray was" directed, was killed instantaneously. Enormous interest has been aroused . by the invention. The "Star" reveals that its secret preparations for largescale tests on a barrenV. part of the coast are in progress, and expects that the rays will be able to intercept and explode a shell at any point of its trajectory, and also that it can destroy distant ammunition dumps. Whereas poison gas and shrapnel, are unable to penetrate every nook and cranney o£ a battlefield, Mr. Matthews claims that his rays can be controlled, and that it is possible to sweep every square inch of a desired space. He proposes in wartime to generate the destructive power at a, central station, which he estimates will cost £3,000,000, and distribute it through sub-stations' and so to maintain an aerial barrage for fifty miles round London, in which nothing can live. It is suggested that portable plants may be employed in peace time for the destruction of locusts. The inventor claims^ that he . can sweep the heavens clean in ten minutes. He explains that the new destructive electrical agency uses a controllable ray as a path, just as lightning uses a "conductor." The range and power of destruction are limited only by the size of the generating plant. Zeppelin engines could be put" out of action, and the envelope set on are, in five minutes, by an apparatus compact enough to be carried by a battle-plane, -or a motor-lorry Recently one of Mr. Matthews's assistants accidentally came into contact' with the weakest possible ray, and was unconscious for twenty-four hours. Anin less tt &ce-completely skinned m less tuan a second.