A Vision of the Future.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XIV, Issue 64, 21 October 1911, Page 4

A Vision of the Future.

MR EDISON TALKS. Mr Edison seems to have been unusually communicative while on board the staamer that carried him to England, states an American paper. He was a familiar figure in the smoking room, ready and willing to talk to everyone, and to expound hfs views to all and‘sundry who cared to hear them. Someone asked him what he thought about the transmutation of metals and the probability of manufacturing gold, “Only a raster of lime,’’ he replied. “The discovery of a proper combination and treatment of metal is bound to come soon. It may arrive to-morrow. Scientists all over the world are working at metal combinations, and the crucibies will betray thinps scorer cr later—and then whaT about those clauses in contracts to pay in gold coin of standard weight and fineness? Supposing the railroads became able to pay their bonds in gold which they knew how to manufacture at a cost of only five pounds a t;on. Mark my Words, it will come.” v

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