A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1809, 12 September 1874, Page 3

A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

An American inventor, Mr. John "W. Keeley, asserts that he has discovered a new motive power which is destined to supersede steam. This discovery is a method whereby water is transformed by a mechanical process to vapor, without the application of heat, and yet transformation results in the production of a motor far more powerful than steam, This discovery is the sequel of twenty-five years of experiment on the part of its investor. Before he was twenty years old Mr. Keeley was at work on a model water-wheel, and at a time the idea occurred to him that an engine might be constructed which should be driven partly by water and partly by atmospheric pressure, which should be as powerful' as a steam engine and infinitely less expensive. After many experiments he succeeded in making an engine whose motive power was compressed air on one side, and a vacuum on the other, while water was the agent for holding the vacuum in suspension. This was, in his opinion, a vast improvement on the steam engine; but the inventor saw by the working of his model where he could better it by simplifyingvit. This he proceeded to do, and he now has a motor which is merely a cold vapor produced from water by mechanical means, yet so powerful that it can produce, a pressure of ten thousand pounds to the square inch. In fact, the tremendous results of this process quite astounded its discoverer. It is also a peculiarity ot this vapor that it can be used at any rate of pressure desired, from ten pounds to thousands of pounds to the square inch; it can also be generated and preserved in receiving vessels for an indefinite length of time without losing its force. Mr. Keeley has proved this by repeated experiments, sometimes keeping the vapor for a fortnight without appreciable loss of power. "When the discovery was first brought to the notice of prominent scientists, the simplicity of the invention made it seem impossible to them; they saw the results, but could not believe the evidence of their own senses. They suspected the hidden presence of electric, magnetic, chemical, or other known agenciea, when they witnessed the marvellous operation of the machine ; but the closest investigation by experts convinced them that Mr. Keelev's assertion was true that a mechanical process alone generated this strange motive power, which was at once so simple and so tremenduous. There is no doubt that if Mr Keeley's process proves to be all that it now promises to be, that steam is destined to be superseded entirely by this new motor. An entire revolution in steamships, railway engines, horse cars, and in fact in every department of mechanical operations, will be effected, and that speedily. This process is simple and inexpensive, and its working models are so marvellous in their operations, that not only many scientists but capitalists have also become converts to the new motive power. Already stock companies have been formed which have purchased the right to use this new and strange motor in variou3 states, New York and New England^States among them. This is an era of scientific progress, and a motive power which shall supersede steam is no stranger discovery than the electric telegraph or the uses of steam itself. It was one of Professor Earaday's sayings " that a graiu of water contains electrical relations equivalent to a very powerful flash of lightning." If Mr Keeley has learned the art of extracting these electrical forces from their watery hiding place, and forcing them to his bidding, he has only wrested one more of Nature's closely hidden secrets from her jealous keeping, and in this evidence of supremacy over the material world he has given another proof that it is not altogether an idle boast that man is the lord of creation.