THE PROGRESS OF INVENTION 



THE spray pump promises to be as im- 

 portant an invention for the horticulturist 

 as the cotton gin was for the cotton 

 planter. 



MB. J. F. DUKYEA, the inventor of one 

 of the most successful of the motor wagons, 

 is turning his attention to its application 

 to the farm wagon, and in a form that 

 will permit of its being utilized to drive 

 the wagon, a thresher or the stationary 

 machinery of the farm. He considers it 

 entirely practicable. 



D. L. HOLDEN, a New York inventor, has 

 perfected a method for making artificial 

 ice at a cost not to exceed fifty cents a 

 ton. It is an automatic plant whereby 

 the evaporation of ammonia, which passes 

 through large cylinders in a revolving 

 tank filled with filtered water, will pro- 

 duce ice crystals that are compressed into 

 available blocks. 



A CARBON harder than the diamond has 

 been discovered by M. Moisson. It is a 

 compound of carbon and boron, produced 

 by heating boracic acid and carbon in an 

 electric furnace at a temperature of five 

 thousand degrees. It will even cut dia- 

 monds, and is likely to supersede them 

 for boring rock, cutting glass, and other 

 industrial purposes. It can be produced 

 in pieces of any required size. 



Two machines, perambulating fumi- 

 gators, have been designed for the United 

 States marine hospital, to be used in ex- 

 terminating epidemic diseases in cities. 

 One is a chamber in which infected cloth- 

 ing and other articles can be thoroughly 

 saturated with hot steam ; the other is a 

 sulphur fumigator provided with appa- 

 ratus for disinfecting houses, the fumes 

 being driven into the building through 

 rubber hose. These machines can be sent 

 post haste to any house where contagious 

 or infectious disease breaks out. 



THE bicycle represents the greatest car- 

 rying power, according to its weight, of 

 any vehicle that has ever been constructed. 

 Farm Machinery calls attention to this 

 as a most interesting suggestion to the 

 constructors of vehicles of whatsoever char- 



acter. The freight car carries twice its 

 weight twenty miles an hour ; the farm 

 wagon carries about the same proportion 

 of load to weight not more than six miles 

 an hour under the best conditions, gen- 

 erally not more than four ; the bicycle 

 carries seven to eight times its weight" ten 

 miles an hour, and apparently with no 

 greater risk of breakage. 



To produce a light without any carbon, 

 such as is used in the incandescent light, 

 is one of the great problems which Edison 

 and Tesla have been striving to solve, and 

 both have announced discoveries in this 

 direction which are big with future pos- 

 sibilities. The principle has been dis- 

 covered of producing light by electrical 

 vibration, and Tesla claims that 200 times 

 the light can be obtained from the same 

 power. Edison has perfected a lamp 

 which produces the X rays in a form that 

 may be utilized for house lighting mov- 

 able lamps. He is simplifying and study- 

 ing the process of construction, so as to 

 make the invention of commercial value. 



THE NEW LIGHT.. Edison announces 

 that he has completely succeeded in pro- 

 ducing a new light, which he calls the 

 "fluorescent light." It is simpler than 

 the incandescent and in every way prefer- 

 able. The same style of globe is used* 

 but the whole globe is aglow with a bril- 

 liant white light of wonderful illuminating 

 power, instead of the carbon filament. 

 Crystals of tungstate are welded to the 

 inside of the globe, a partial vacuum is 

 created and the light is produced by mole- 

 cules of air in rapid vibration striking 

 against the tungstate crystals. A low 

 current of electricity is employed, and 

 whereas in the incandescent light only 

 5 per cent is utilized as light, there is 

 no perceptible heat from the new light. 

 Its power is greater, at a much lower cost, 

 than any light ever before produced. We 

 have only just begun to get used to the 

 incandescent lights through their general 

 introduction and use, and now comes a 

 substitute, which is likely to supplant 

 them as rapidly as they were originally 

 introduced, from the same inventor. 



