A VISION OF THE FUTURE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 54, 18 October 1911, Page 3

A VISION OF THE FUTURE.

I\lr Edison seems to have been unusually ciinWUttucative while on hoard the gt<?iur.er that carried him to England (states an American paper). He was a familiar figure in the smoking room, ready and willing to talk ao Or ary oil P, and to expound file views to till and sundry who cared to hear liieuu vfinniO one asked him what he though about the transmutation cf '.Petals and the probability of manufacuring gold. “Only a matter ot time,” he replied. “The discovery of a proper combination and treatment of metal is hotltitl to Ooiiie Soon. It may arrive to-morrow. Scientists all over- the World are working at metal combinations, and the crucibles will betray things sooner or later—and then w hat about those clauses in contracts to pay in gold coin of standard weight and fineness? Supposing the railroads suddenly became a Ole to pay their bonds in gold which they know how to mahlifafiture at’a cost of only live pounds a ton. Mark my words, it will come.”

Another suggestive remark dropped by Mr Edison was in reference to aviation. He'believed that uA should do better to adopt certain insects for oiir flying models rather, than birds, hut he does not seem to have elaborated the idea. He believed that in a year or two we should have air-trans-ports flying at the rate of 100 miles an hour, and that they would he the general means of travel. “The earth, however, will not cease to be busy in consequence,” he added. _ “There will he lots of things running up and down, all the time; hut the days of steam power are about at a finish; electricity will he the motive power everywhere. As for agricultural implements, there, indeed, there is going to ho revolution! The coming farmer will push a button and work levers. Storage batteries will,. .drive ploughs, while the future agricultural labourer will ho a man who has acquired a working; 'knowledge of chemistry and botany. The very , utmost will 1)0 got -out of the earth and of the seed within, ‘ the parth; but all the manucl labour—the donkey-work with the sweat- of- the, brow—will ho performed by machinery controlled by electricity.” ,