The Bridgeport Evening Farmer

SNYDER WATER MOTOR
RUNS MERRILY IN ASH CREEK TIDAL CURRENT

Inventor Believes He Has Solved the Problem of Producing Abundant and Cheap Power from Ocean Undertows

The water motor invented by Parke R. Snyder, a young mechanical engineer, the associate and friend of Buffalo Jones, the associate and friend of Theodore Roosevelt, was installed yesterday in Ash Creek, near the Ash Creek Bridge.

In a tidal current going four miles an hour it ran merrily and developed an astonishing amount of power. The brake and scale with which it was attempted to measure the horsepower developed broke under the test.

The power actually in being when the scale broke was apparently about four horse, whereas only two horse had been expected by the inventor.

Four horse power from a wheel which cost but $15 to build, and which to develop power but has to be fixed in a current of water, whether tidal due to an undertow, was sufficient to amaze everybody who saw the motor in operation.

The inventor was exceedingly pleased with the performance of his model. He believes the changes he will be obliged to make to develop maximum results are very slight.

The only one that he intends to make at present relates to the lugs against which the blades rest, as they feather when they begin to move against instead of with the current.

He found that the blades on the model feathered somewhat too abruptly and not quite enough so that a little back pressure was created.

The change is merely a detail, and does not alter the fact that the motor as now constructed in running and developing power.

In talking today about the available sources of power Mr. Snyder said:

"The greatest available sources of power are the ocean undertows. You probably know that through the ocean there flows great rivers precisely as on land. These rivers seek the low places in the ocean bottoms just as water runs down hill on land.

Let us consider, for a moment, the Gulf stream, the enormous current created by the hot water of the torrid region which flows north. As it moves north this Gulf stream creates a flow from the land. The currents that flow into it from the land move always in the same direction. They are the undertow and the move from four to 16 miles an hour. They are sluggish where the land is level, but move swiftly when they flow between elevations of the bottom as is frequently the case. There is no difficulty in locating these currents, nor in finding the points at which their movement is swiftest.

One of my motors set in a strong undertow will provide day and night an enormous and inexhaustible source of power to be converted into electricity and sent overland to be used where desired.

The motor once installed will run night and day. It will need no attention. The cost of installation will be very small.

Mr. Snyder will permit his experimental motor to run in its present location at Ash Creek Bridge for a few days. He will then take it to Atlantic City and try it in one of the strong undertows in that vicinity.

Then he will take it to Washington and set it up, or a larger model in the Potomac river. He will ask the government experts to see the motor at work and will offer perhaps to install a plant to furnish current for light of Washington and run its street cars."