Wheeling Register

ROMANTIC
ELECTRIC EXPERIMENTS.

We can hardly keep pace with the
achievements of electricity in these
days, and the poetic imagination
could hardly paint a picture of what is
in reserve.

The latest exploit is that of the application
of magneto electric power to a
small boat, the experiment being made
by a distinguished electrician in Paris.
and the account of which reads like a
romance.

The little craft, which was worked on
the Seine, was some sixteen feet long
and held three people. The motor
weighed about fourteen pounds, and
was driven by two series of six Wollas-
ton elements, weighing in all fifty
pounds. The mean velocity easily ob-
tained was some four feet per second,
the motor being constructed to develop
an energy something equivalent
to sixteen pounds per second. The
motor was placed in the stern,
and communicated with a small screw
placed in the lower part of the rudder.
post. No attempt was made to utilize
the whole of the motive power which
could be generated by the elements.
What this little apparatus did, which
weighed in all not 65 pounds, was to
dispense entirely with an oarsman. It
was apparently perfectly portable, and
the motor and battery could be taken
out or put in, the screw shipped and
unshipped all in ten minutes. The
build of the boat, the trim, required no
alteration. There was not the least jar,
noise, or vibration. It was stopped instantly,
was started as quickly, and
the screw was reversed in the fraction
of a second. It required no attention,
and would possibly (though
the account given does not so state it)
have kept on working for 48 hours without
much difference of speed. A button
pressed down would start it, and if kept
so would continue the power, or if allowed
to rise up by a string would disconnect
the motor. There is full scope
for poetical imagination in a motive
power of this kind when applied to boats
or yachts. When the principles of storing
electric power are better understood
those things which are but toys today
will be made capable of hoarding a vital
force which can only be compared to
the electric effects of the heavens.

It seems as if it were perfectly practicable
today to take a yacht and apply
magneto-electric motors to her, and give
smoky coal hot boilers the go-by. Considerations
of cost on pleasure trips are
hardly worth estimating, and we should
suppose that some enterprising masters
of steam yachts would be quite willing
to expend money for a motor of this
kind, and strike their funnels for a season.