SCIENTISTS CLAIM.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9186, 25 July 1902, Page 4

SCIENTISTS CLAIM.

THE UTILISATION OF ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY.

HAS A GREAT DISCOVERY BEEN MADE. LAS PALMAS, June 6. A most remarkable claim, (he genuineness of which, it is as yet impossible to .test, is being made by Senor Clemente Figueras, an Engineer of Woods and Forests in the Canary Islands, and for many years Professor of Physics at St. Augustine's College, Las Palinas. For a long while Senor Figueras has been known in the Canary Islands as a scientific student, but now he has suddenly^ attained to local fame. It seems that for many years he has been working silently at a method of directly utilising atmospheric electricity —that is to say, without chemicals or dynamos—and of making practical application of it without the need of employing any motive force. Hitherto he has jealously guarded the secret of his labors, fearing that premature revelation might rob him of his reward, and even now, while he claims to have entirely succeeded, he still remains silent concerning the exact principles of his discovery. He claims. However, to have invented a generator which can collect the electric fluid, to be able to store it and apply it to infinite purposes, for instance, in connection with shops, railways, and manufactures. He says he is expecting that its effect will be a tremendous economic and industrial revolution. He will not give the key to his invention, but he declares that the only extraordinary point about it is that, it has taken .so long to discover a simple scientific fact. People in the Canary Islands consider Senor Figueras veiy clever, and firmly believe his invention to* be genuine. Senor Figueras had his appartus made in separate parts in Paris, Berlin, and Las Paimas, and fitted them together himself. A firm, in Berlin who supplied parts was curious enough to send to the Canaries to try and "draw" him, but the emissary returned none the wiser. Senor Figueras is shortly going to Madrid and to Berlin to patent lus invention. ■ To. this we may add (says the London Daily Mail) that, according to letters received in London from a friend, Mr E. Ley, of Tenerift'e, "Senor Figueras has constructed a rough apparatus by which, in spite of its small size and its defects, he obtains a current of 550 volts, which he utilises in his own house for lighting purposes and driving a, motor of 20-horse power. "Senor Figueras is shortly coming to London, not with models or sketches, but with a working aiiparatus. His inventions comprise a generator, a motor, and a sort of governor or regulator, and the whole apparatus is so simple that a child could work it." A southern explorer, Mr Henry Fowler, has drawn the attention, of the Tourist Department to the magnificence of the scenery in Freeman's Valley, and Lake Manapouri, the beauties of which, he says, tire equal to any of the southern fiords and lakes. The mountains are high, and there are magnificent waterfalls, and numerous lakes. He recommends the construction of a track and the provision of tents for tourists. Mr Donne, tlie Superintendent of the Department, will visit the locality shortly. A new armor plate, invented by Messrs Beardmere, of Glasgow, has proved a great success. This firm supplied the British Admiralty witli a plate nine inches thick of non-cemented steel. This, upon being tested, withstood the heaviest .shells. -An English firm has invented a. forged steel cap for shells, which, it is asserted, will penetrate the four-inch armor plates at present in use on gunboats. In consequence, the Admiralty has advised private firms entrusted with navy work to delay making a start, as an important change in design has been decided upon. The United States Fire Brigades are very fruitful in new devices and apparatus. One of these which has just been adopted in Pittsburgh is a pneumatic fireescape and tower. The apparatus is worked by compressed air, a tank of 3001b pressure supplying the necessary i-nergy to telescope a heavy ladder into I he. air. Standing on this ladder one, two, or three firemen, each with a section of hose, can be lifted to any window, even to a, height of the fifth storey of a building. The Pyrmont Bridge, which spans the head of Darling Harbor, Sydney, and which has taken two years to'build, at a cost of- £112,000. has just been opened. Thu old bridge, which it supersedes, had become rickety and insecure after fortythree years' service. The new structure, which is 1200 ft long, and has a- swing span of 223 ft, will carry the great volume of traffic that passes along Market streetthrough Pyrmont and Glebe to the Great Western road: But the wisdom of constructing it at all has been seriously questioned, and by none more than the head of the present Harbor Trust (Captain Hixson), who. when Under-Secretary for Works, urged strong reasons for filling up portion of the head of Darling Harbor and carrying traffic round that way. He even recommended pulling down the new structure shortly before its completion, and the adoption of his own scheme, notwithstanding the heavy outlay incurred. For the initiation of the present work, the Reid Government were responsible Now Mr O'Sullivan (Minister of Works) talks about accepting a tender for the construction of a free bridge to connect Sydney with North Shore, at a cost of £1,000,000.