EDISON LOOKS FORWARD

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1929, Page 4

EDISON LOOKS FORWARD

TO WONDERS YET UNKNOWN. On his 82nd birthday recently, Thomas A. Edison, greatest of all inventors, answered a series of questions in writing as to prospects or possibilities of future important discoveries to humanity, says the Sacramento “Bee.” Among the most interesting of his replies Avas an expression of belief that sunlight may yet be converted into electricity on a large scale for human use; also that other,forms of energy than those now in use may be found, and that electricity may be' had direct from coal, as already has been done experimentally in a small AVay. Electricity has reached a marvellous and manifold development, but to the mind of Edison, it appears to be still in the infancy of its value and usefulness to man.

The possible exhaustion of petroleum does not discourage the inventor. He says power for motor cars may be had from powdered coal, benzol, and alcohol; that humanity never will be«, at a loss for natural sources of power of some kind. Apparently age has brought no trace of pessimism to Edison. His greatest pleasures still are research and invention, and his active, fertile brain may in the future give even greater gifts to the world than his wonderful achievements of the past.