TRAVELLING IN THE AIR.

Evening Star, Issue 9582, 31 December 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

TRAVELLING IN THE AIR.

Travelling in the ait is a fascinating subject at present, for it is sufficiently mystical to arouse interest. The invention of the air ship is "in the air," so to speak, and scientists are sanguine that in the near future we shall travel as readily above the earth as we do to-day upon it. The " flying machine " (says the ' Boston Home Journal') is the goal of many an inventor's work, and certain imperfect machines have already been made, and discussion of them in the papers is rife. But of all that have come it may be said they are merely ingenious arrangements of old devices. The balloon has been abandoned for the aeroplane, audit is probable that the aeroplane will, in turn, be abandoned for something else. It is a fact Busceptible of proof that most great inventions were projected long before they were possible, and were finally made possible only by the discovery of some new force. It is but few years ago that great light could be produced, for illuminating purposes only by concentrating by lenses the light of a lamp, then gas appliances multiplied without great success, until of a sudden electricity was harnessed to use, and the electric light became an established fact. For years efforts were made to propel vessels by mechanical means, but without success. Speed on the water was as impossible as speed on the land, limited by the extent that human ingenuity could multiply the forces it had at hand. When the steam engine was perfected the locomotive and the steamboat quickly followed. But these things cannot come in a day. "apergy." It was in 1759 that Watt made the first' model of a steam carriage, and it was not until twenty-five years later (1784) that he could patent it. Nineteen years then followed before the first engine was built (1803), but it was not until another lapse of nineteen years (1824) that the first locomotive was actually run. It is well, therefore, not to be too sanguine about die immediate invention of the air ship from the use of any of the present known forces. The obstacle 3ncountered is, of course, the force of gravity, which must be overcome. Many ways are suggested, the balloon and the aeroplane being the first to come to mind, but jhese are clumsy devices. John Jacob Astor

in his just published scientific romance speaks of the discovery of a new force which nautraliaoa tho force of gravity. This done, the air ship wonld indeed be simple of accomplishment, the propelling force only being needed. Mr Astor calls this foroe " apergy " for the want of a better name, and, like some of the foreshadowings of Jules Verne's works, it may be that it is not as fanciful as may at first appear. Could gravity be neutralised, a body would 1 : rest as easily above the earth as upon it, and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that this force is already discovered; although, like steam, it may take years to harness it for man's use. John Worrell Keely, that name which is so much scoffed at, is undoubtedly the possessor of most that is known of this praotically unknown force. Through the machinations of financial speculators, an attempt was made to put Keely's first discovery upon the market for profit before it was controlled, and the result was as disastrous to him as would have been a similar attempt to float a steam engine company in 1760. NEUTRALISING THE FORCE OF GRAVITY. Mr Keely has abandoned for the present his attempt to make a patentable motor, and is devoting himself to the building of an air ship not one that depends upon balloons to lift it or aeroplanes to keep it from falling, but which, by the use of this new force, neutralises the force of gravity, and rests at any height as easily as upon the earth. This seems an.impossibility and in opposition to natural laws, but so eminent a scientist as Dr Joseph Leicly, after a visit to the inventor, wrote: " After having had the opportunity of witnessing a series of experiments made by Mr John Keely, illustrative of a reputed new motor power, it has appeared to me that he has fairly demonstrated the discovery of a force previously unknown to science. I have no theory to account for the phenomena observed, but I believe Mr Keely to be honest in his attempt to explain them. His demonstrations appear to indicate great mechanical power, which, when applied to appropriate machinery, must supersede all ordinary appliances." Dr James E. Willcox adds to this : " Keely has made manifest the existence of natural forces that cannot be explained by any known physical laws, and has shown that he possesses over them a very considerable control." A spectator" at one of Mr Keely's experiments in this line writes: "In demonstrating what seems to be the overcoming of gravity, for aerial navigation, Mr Keely used a model of an air ship weighing about eight pounds, which, when the differentiated wire of silver and platina was attached to it, co%municating with the sympathetic transmitter, rose, descended, or remained stationary midway, the motion as gentle as that of a thistledown floating in the air," But this is not as wonderful as the description of an incident which took place late last year at Keely's workshop. A machine of 200 horse-power designed to be the propellerof hisairsnip wasdelivered at his workshop, and what follows is described by H. 0. Ward:—" One section of this wonderful propeller weighs about 800 Sounds, and to have employed men and a errick would have taken the best part of one day to get the pieces (weighing 2J tons in all) in the upper storey of Keely's workshop. With his vibratory lift, the size of * large watoh, Keely himself placed them there in thirty-one minutes, in the presence of the workmen and the - secretary of the Keely Motor Company. Only call the wonderful . apparatus now undergoing adjustment in Keely's workshop by it proper name and the public will feel an interest in the prinoiple of its operation under polar and depolar action—depolar to ascend, polar to descend; masses of metal' rising like soap bubbles in the air." With suoh a new force discovered, the air ship is simple of accomplishment, and it undoubtedly will come.