NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18200, 26 February 1929, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Can Electricity ba Amplified?: Comparatively few years ago no one believed it possible to set up a small wireless set amid the eternal silences of the southern snows, and call up New York, but the march of modern science lias completely annihilated space, as far as radio inter-communi-cation is concerned. Hence the whole world lives literally on the tip toes of expectation in an age when the wonders of electricity are being fully exploited. It is therefore not surprising to find investigators declaring with no small measure of confidence that if the claims for what is known as the Harrison-Wood patent for an apparently innocent process connected with electricity are substantiated all present ideas about the manufacture, distribution, and use of electrical current may become obsolete. It is asserted to be established that, contrary to ail previous theories, electricity can be amplified, llie claim has made such an impression on the national and local governments of Britain that the Imperial Government is so keenly concerned about the invention that an immediate investigation and a thorough test of the new apparatus has been authorised. The inventor is William Harrison, an elderly man who was formerly a clerk. His principal sponsor is Councillor .Thomas Wood, of St. Helens. The invention is patented in their joint names. It is the product of many years of unbroken trial and study on Mr Harrison’s part. The outcome is, it is asserted, a quite simple piece of machinery which for a trifling cost will convert a small quantity of lowpower electricity into relatively unlimited supplies of current at high voltage. Attach Mr Harrison’s small machine to an equally small accumulator—about the size of an ordinary wireless low-tension> battery—and a man, the inventor claims, could illuminate an average-size villa for an average-size vil!a for an indefinite period at a trifling cost. If tjie villa be already equipped with an electric supply, making the accumulator unnecessary, all that is required is a small plug in the socket of the nearest lamp-holder, and the machine will light half a dozen 100-watt 200-volt lamps for the cost of the original one. This it is stated, lias actually been done over a period of some months under Councillor Wood’s supervision, and it is to be done again shortly for the Government test. If the claims for this are sound, then a circuit can be perpetually energised; in other words, low-tension electricity is converted by the invention into hightension current, which is harnessed to the ordinary processes of any electrified undertaking and can then be employed again by' existing appliances to recharging another accumulator in circuit. It is as though a man running a wireless set from one accumulator could at the same time continually charge another for alternate use. The S.O.S. Call:

Generally speaking, the average landsman thinks of the wireless wave mainly in terms of amusement ; but a moment’s serious thought will convince even the superficial observer that wireless renders a graver and more vital service in keeping ships on the high seas in touch with land and with the hope of rescue in case of disaster. Within the past few days, we have had several fine instances of the way in which this, the oldest use of wireless, still saves human lives. In a thick fog, the well-known steamer Kanowna ran on the rocks of Cleft Island, seven miles south of Wilson’s Promontory, in a situation described as one of the most dangerous points on the Australian coast. The ship sent out urgent S.O.wS. calls. Steamers raced to the assistance of the wrecked liner, and one thousand passengers and a crew of 130 were in peril of their lives. From the outset the vessel’s position was precarious, and general relief was shown when it was known that although the big liner slipped off the rocks and sank in seventy fathoms of water, the passengers and crew were taken off in time. Doubtless the wireless operator remained at his post in the gravest

danger, and preserved wireless communication with the rescuing vessels, and also circulated the good news, that the rescue vessels were in attendance and all was well. Another call from the sea is reported this morning, a disabled steamer being at the mercy of a fierce gale. By the immemorial tradition of the sea, a captain is the last to leave his sinking ship, because the lives of all on board are in his hands. But in these days when lives depend almost as much on the wireless operator, the members of that gallant profession have risen to the height of their responsibilities, and, if they leave the sinking ship at all, leave it only with the captain. In a famous instance, the operator of the Titanic went down with the ship, and many other heroes of the new linkbet ween ships in distress and means of succour, particularly during and since the war, have paid equal sacrifice in their devotion to duty. The wireless operator on the Kanowna as did the man in charge of the key on the illfated \ estris, showed himself a worthy member of their heroic fellowship, and while it is a matter for thanksgiving that the passengers and crew of the Kanowna were saved through the instrumentality of wireless, it is doubly gratifying to learn that the wireless operator who though leaving the ship with the captain, was saved.