The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

The Phonoscope (Copyrighted, 1896) A Monthly Journal Devoted to Scientific and Amusement Inventions Appertaining to Sound and Sight Vol. I NEW YORK, JUNE, 1897 No. 7 XCbe IHew Customs detective Baggage and Postal Packages Examined With X=Rays The X-ray is being tried in a new role. The chief function of this invisible, but inquisitive agent is to penetrate an opaque body, and tell you what is inside. And hitherto its services were acceptable alike to what may be called its victim and to the operator. A child swallows the family rat trap by accident, and is quite as anxious as the doctor is to find out precisely where the blooming thing has lodged. Or maybe there's a bullet hidden away somewhere in the tissues of a human being, having caromed half a dozen times during its journey, and thus having eluded the surgeon's probe. So, too, with complicated fractures of the os what-do-you-call-it. But now the all-revealing emanation of the vacuum tube has been called into service where there is, or at least may be, a conflict of interests. In other words, it has been invited to act as a customs detective. Rumors of this sort of thing have drifted across the Atlantic from France two or three times within the last few months. But official confirmation has only been received by the last mail. The latest Paris papers supply full details of the affair. To a reporter of the Figaro, the Director. General of the French customs seivice gave a short but enthusiastic description of his experiments. A parcel to be examined, he said, was taken into a dark room that bad been darkened by the lowering of window curtains. It was placed between the usual X-ray generator and a fluoroscope, arranged somewhat like an enormous opera glass. The latter was mounted on a rolling tripod. On looking into this instrument, one perceived, pictured in shadow on the luminous screen which took the place of the lenses, the contents of the parcel under scrutiny. "I was able this morning," said M. Pallain, the official in question, "to count the twenty-five cigars contained in a sealed box, by viewing it endwise and sidewise. I could see the steel springs hidden in a velvet-covered chair. In a postal package, carefully sealed and substantially wrapped, I detected two superb cuff buttons. "I recognize incalculable advantages in this system. When people understand that dutiable articles which are hidden in their clothing or in sealed packages can be made manifest by means of the X rays, they will hesitate about attempting to defraud the revenue. On the other hand, the new method of examination will lessen the annoyance which honest travelers are compelled to undergo. There are some trifling difficulties to be met with in providing for the use of the apparatus at railway stations and the city gates, but these can be overcome. The plan seems to be well adapted to use both for the local and national customs." Some of the newspapers, however, question the efficacy of the system. The Gaidois, for instance, after a bitter criticism of the typical customs officer and an extended psychological study of him, refers to the new means which he will employ. It then adds, cynically: "He will see the coins in your leather purse, the steel nails in your boots, the handle of your toothbrush if it is of bOne, and the glass of your watch. None of these, though, are dutiable. But tobacco, matches, laces, new goods and materials for clothing he can scarcely perceive, because they are all composed of matter that is transparent to the X-rays. Having made the apartment absolutely dark, he will expose your parcels and yourself to these rays, which, you know are very baneful, and which burn the flesh like the sun. Finally, upon the conclusion of these propitiatory ceremonies, he leads you out into the light, and begs you to open your baggage in order that he may see what the X-rays have not revealed ! Such is progress !'' ^ pictures for Ibtstorg In a letter to the secretary of the National Museum at Washington, F. Z. Maguire, representing Thomas A. Edison, has offered the National Museum a set of photographic films suitable for projecting kinetoscopes and vitascopes, which were taken under Mr. Edison's directions during the inauguration ceremonies of President McKinley. The films show the President taking the oath of office; Mr. Cleveland and Mr. McKinley going to the Capitol, which was taken when one of the horses attached to the President's carriage slipped and fell on the pavement; the return of President McKinley from the Capitol; Vice-President Hobart and his escort of the Essex Troops and films of organizations in the parade. It is intended to have these films hermetically sealed and marked: "To be opened by the curator of the National Museum thirty years from President McKinley 's inaugaration." Mr. Maguire offers to add to this collection pictures of such subjects as are of public interest taken by Mr. Edison. Ever\> fllian will ©wm Mis Carriaoe That Is What Thomas A. Edison Promises the People Horseless carriages at $100 each is the hope now held out to those who would ride. Motor vehicles for the masses and every man his own motorman. Experiments have been in progress at the factory of the General Electric Company, at Schenectady, N. Y., which have brought forth the announcement that the market is soon to be flooded with horseless carriages at a price that will bring them within the reach of everybody . Every man who is now able to own a bicycle will soon be able to own a road cart or a landau, or a victoria for the use of himself and his family. He will need no stable in which to keep horses, no hostler or footman, no hayrack or harness — but merely a shed or a back porch or a cellar in which to shelter from the weather his motor cycle, or automobile, or outocycle, or horseless carriage, or whatever else he may choose to call it. Thomas A. Edison was credited with having devised the motor by which these cheap machines are to be fitted. This is not the case, however. When seen at his home on the crest of the pretty hill at Llewellyn Park, West Orange, one day last month, he verified the statement that the General Electric Company was preparing to offer cheap motor carriages to the general market, but denied that he had devoted any time to them. "Oh, yes," he said, "the boys up there tell me they have a cheap motor and that they are going to turn out a large number of low-priced vehicles, but it is not my work. Inventing motors is too dead easy for me to devote time to it. I have dabbled at such a thing during spare moments, but purely on my own account. "The thing I am making is to be used on a tricyle, to pull me up this hill every day," and he pointed to the steep decline leading through Llewellyn Park from his residence to the laboratory at the foot of the slope. "That, however, is only for my private use. I am building for the purpose a tiny motor that will generate a great power. Yes, electricity, of course, is the force. This motor will be attached to the axle and will be hardly large enough to be noticed at all. That can be done easily, because I only intend using it for this short distance. Where a motor is to serve for several miles it must of necessity be larger. "The whole problem rests in the construction of cheaper and lighter motors. Over two thousand men are at work in this country alone trying to invent better motors for horseless vehicles. Hundreds of others in Europe are also engaged in the same task. It is only a matter of time. The automobile is bound to be in general use before long. Take the bicycle, for instance. The highgrade wheels which cost $100 each to-day will in a few years at best drop to $50, and the machines that can now be bought for from $50 to $75 apiece will cost only $15 or $20. "The same thing will be the outcome of the experiments with horseless carriages. The motors now cost from $250 to $350 each. The price will eventually be reduced, if the boys in the factory up at Schenectady have not already reduced it, to from $25 to $50 each. The motors will also be made smaller and more easily manipulated. That means that tricyles and light road vehicles can be put on the market at a cost of $100 to $125 each. Of course, the cost of the superstructure can be made little or much — just as carriages cost more than buggies — but a serviceable light vehicle to carry two or even four people can be made, very much after the principle of the tricycle, at a cost of from $100 to $125. "In the construction of the motor there are three different kinds of power to consider — gas, petroleum and electricity. Electricity should be the best and cheapest. The most successful automobiles made thus far are those in which electric motors are used. They can go twenty-five miles or more without being recharged, at a rate of ten miles an hour. I expect the horse to disappear almost entirely so far as his use for street traction is concerned. Delivery wagons, busses, express wagons, broughams and all of the heavier class of vehicles can be driven as easily by a storage battery as any other kind, if the battery is improved sufficiently, and that will unquestionably be done. "Horseless carriages at such a low cost would permit the poor as well as the rich to crowd the parks and boulevards on every pretty day. It is a revolution that is bound to come, and at a very early day.''