A NEW MOTOR.
Whatever may be the fate of the Keely motor, we are apparently on the threshold of equally grand discoveries destined to supersede our present motors—the steam engine, the horse, and the donkey.
The new perfume motor, just invented by Prof. TYNDALL, was originally suggested by CROOKE'S discovery. that the radiating energy of sunlight could be made to move a small machine. - It at once occurred to Prof. TYNDALL that if radiating light could be utilized as a motive power radiating perfume could be utilized in a similar way. That perfume is the radiation of indefinitely small particles of matter is the universally accepted theory. These particles must necessarily produce a certain amount of energy in coming in contact with other matter, and that this energy can be utilized as a motive power appeared certain to the distinguished inventor.
Without reciting the successive steps by which this idea grew into a visible machine, it will be sufficient to mention some of the results which have been: already achieved. The wheel of the perfume motor is set in motion whenever any perfume exerting a force of .016 “ ahms”—as the measure of this new force is called—impinges upon it. "A faint perfume moves the wheel slowly, and in proportion to the strength of the perfume the wheel revolves with greater or less rapidity. So far only three perfumes—those of musk and of garlic and the “Compound Perfume of Hunter's Point”’—furnish sufficient power to make the new motor an efficient rival to steam; though it is supposed that Roquefort cheese will sooner or later be utilized. Musk exerts a power of 3,000 ahms to the square inch, Garlic is a little less powerful, while the “Compound Perfume” has a power of 7,200 ahms. - With the help of musk a load three-fourths as heavy as that drawn by the largest locomotive on the London and Northwestern Railway can be drawn at a speed of forty miles an hour, but with the “Compound Perfume of Hunter's Point” exactly twice as much power as is obtained by steam can be obtained at a cost of less than a “quarter that of steam. The new perfume motor will hence in all probability be worked by the "Compound Perfume," except in places where musk can be obtained at a much cheaper rate. The attention of Prof. TYNDALL was called to the former perfume when visiting America, and when he was searching for - the most powerful of all perfumes he immediately recalled his American nasal experience and sent for a carboy of the “Compound Perfume.” He is completely satisfied with it, and has already made proposals to the Long Island Railroad Company to supply it with perfume motors, to be worked entirely with the perfume of Hunter's Point, at a cost of not more than one-eighth of the present annual cost of the locomotives operated by the company.
Published: December 11, 1884
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