560 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



able as my remarks may seem, there may be engineers in this room who will yet 

 see men safely sailing through the air." 



I write this letter as a further and timely statement of the advances made to- 

 ward aerial navigation, and would gladly aid in extending, even thus slightly, the 

 interest felt in the theme. 1 believe that the time is not far off when capitalists 

 will take hold of the problem with results proportionate to their means and enter- 

 prise. The first aeronon of practical value will not be constructed except by 

 skilled engineers authorized to expend upon it at least the half million dollars re- 

 quired for the construction of a steamship. The sum was raised at once for Capt.. 

 Ericsson's vessel when he invented his caloric engine, twenty odd years ago. 

 Among the scores of communications which my article of 1879 brought me — not 

 only from more or less intelligent (and " distressed") inventors, each with a mod- 

 el or caveat of his own, but also from amateurs and engineers — those from laymen 

 often made light of the topic or subjected me to severe criticism. To my surprise- 

 many professional experts of high standing expressed the greatest interest in my 

 views, and, allowing for the defects and crudeness incident to my limited study 

 of the subject, in the main coincided with them. I judge that the prediction of 

 an early solution of the problem is not without a basis. If it shall be solved, all 

 the results which I have dwelt upon with some enthusiasm most surely will fol- 

 low apace. A speedy revolution will be observed in the social, commercial and 

 political systems of human life upon this globe. — N. Y. Tribune. 



A THAMES LAUNCH PROPELLED BY ELECTRICITY. 



SYLVANUS P. THOMPSON. 



Having been one of a privileged party of four, the first ever propelled upon 

 the waters of the River Tnames by the motiv^i p^wer of electricity, I think some 

 details of this latest departure in the application of electric science may be of in- 

 terest. 



At 3:30 this afternoon I found myself on board the little vessel Electricity, 

 lying at her mooring off the wharf of the works of the Electrical Powe^ Storage 

 Company at Milwall. Save for the absence of steam and steam machinery, the 

 little craft would have been appropriately called a steam launch. She is tweniy- 

 six feet in length and about five feet in the beam, drawing about two feet of water, 

 and fitted with a twenty-two inch propeller screw. On board were stowed away 

 under the flooring and seats, fore and aft, forty-five mysterious boxes, each a 

 cube of about ten inches in dimensions. These boxes were nothing else than 

 electric accumulators of the latest type, as devised by Messrs. Sellon and Volck- 

 mar, being a modification of the well-known Plante accumulator. Fully charged 

 with electricity by wires leading from the dynamos or generators in the works, 

 they were calculated to supply power for six hours at the rate of four-horse pow- 

 er. These storage cells were placed in electrical connection with two Siemen's 



