270 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
eight feet in diameter, and so arrange them that each shall have full sweep of the 
wind from whatever quarter it may blow. The wheels here contemplated would 
revolve on vertical axles — or horizontal if preferred — with fixed blades, one-half 
shielded and turning so as to suit the direction of the current. They would need 
no attendance, no brake, no check, let them spin with the utmost fury of a gale, 
or lie still in a calm. 'Rapid motion could do no harm, only increasing their 
efficiency ; whenever they turned they would do work, when they lay still they 
would do nothing. Each wheel would drive an air-pump of size suited to its 
power, and each stroke of the piston would send its given quantity of air into the 
common reservoir provided. That reservoir becomes then a magazine of com- 
pressed air whose energy is reported by the gauge, and is used by any of the 
means now so well known. 
A wind -wheel of the size stated carries on each of its blades a surface of 
forty-eight feet. The pressure of wind in what is known as a "strong breeze" 
is about two pounds per square foot, and its rate of motion about 1,750 feet per 
minute. It is easy to see, therefore, that theoretically the efficiency of such a 
while in such a wind is safely reckoned at five-horse power. 
But here comes in the difficulty, and it is the difficulty of all and must be 
overcome, or this power is of practically no value in the line of which we have 
been speaking. The power is capricious, and unless we can steady it no form of 
business can depend on it for service. How shall we store the power that may 
come to us by day or by night, Sundays and week days, gathering it at the time 
when we do not need it and preserving it till we do? This is the problem. 
Who is the man to solve it. Surely it should not be set aside as too difficult for 
trial. 
Why should it not be dynamized into electricity ? No distant transmission 
with its loss of energy comes into play, for a line of shafting can be driven directly 
on the spot. It is true the whole field of electric storage is yet too little explored 
• to answer this question on the instant, but is it not worth considering? 
Other modes of turning to account the compressed air, and using it only as 
needed, are also within our reach. 
A factory or other building, of the size already given, with the wind-wheels 
on its roof, taking the average rate of the wind as it is known to be in our region 
and climate, has at its command, if it can store the power, at a fair and moderate 
estimate, 4,200 horse power per week, thus giving it a 70 horse power engine for 
six days of ten hours each. And this power is without engineer, without fuel,, 
without labor ; practically without expense. 
Store the wind-power, and render it of even application, and all this is per- 
fectly possible. Shall we admit that this cannot be done ? — W. O. A. in Scientific- 
American. 
