The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 24, 1901, Page 6

AUTHOK. Dl oy W A o QUMY y was “oncord ITCH your wagon to a star. g his advice m y one bave imaj They hitching their engines to . The riches at the farm near Los An- geles one of their paddocks & A bu iness S eeks ago and man the newc and even for ains, ted with th ttracting the and popular n claimed for it The device speaks for itself in the m but impressi performance 1ly ves a ten-horsepower engine from alf after sunrise to with- set. Its perform- increased with e perfecting of details son to suppose that its aximum has been reached, mor that it wii be wh present model. At this writing its best record is the ralsing of 1400 gallons per minute at a lift of twelve fect age percentage of sunshine At hour of gradusally the The aver VEST OF AMERICA” Z-THE arid region as a whole is 70 per cent figure would correctly represent f the year in which sun relied upon. Making due of idleness after minute, which ers’ Inches, would irrigate alfalfa, about 300 acres ns per of oranges, or about 50 acres of decidu- ous trees. Although there are large dis- tricts where water may be had at a depth of twelve feet, that is by no means an lift, so that the actual capacity ar motor cannot fairly be set Its capacity will vary with the the character of crops es of s important con: and with ideration is that the power effects a complete saving of m of fuel, since it gathers all the directly from the sun. be just as cheap if diffused as the sun- i nfortunately it ik not. wer is being more and more used for pumping, but pplied by companies e investment and then charge the irrigator an annual $5 per horsepow In addition the irrigator must pply his own ant, so that his expenditure practically a total loss as compared with sunpower. The natural comparison of the solar motor is with the windmill, since both are automatic, being operated by the elements. ~“How does it run and how does it look?” will naturally be asked. It looks not un- like a huge umbrellz, although this fllus- tration should not be construed to mean that t olar motor is a frall structure. On the ¢ ry, it 1s large and substan- t hing $300 pounds. But in shape it much resembles ar umbrella open and inverted, and is so disposed as to catch the sun’s rays on thc mirrors which line its inside surface and to reflect both light and heat with concentrated energy on a iong, slim boiler, which is where the um- breila stick ought to be. It should be widely only be have made weig! noted that no lenses are used, but that the heat is reflected from plain mirrors and 0 centered upon the bofler. The reflector measures 33 feet across its diameter at the top and 15 feet at the bottom. It contains exactly 1788 mirrors 3%x24 inches in size. The reflector s set in meridian like a telescope, the axis being due north and south and the movement from east to west. The boller is tubular, 13 feet 6 inches long, with a capacity for 100 gallons of water, and 8 cublc feet ad- diticnal steam space. It is made of fire- box steel, covered with lamp-black and other absorptive malerial. Before this boller is thrown into focus its black cyl- inder is but an inconspicuous feature of tHe novel mechanisin which stands face to face with the sun. But when, with a few turns of the crank, it swings into the concentrated rays reflected from hun- dreds of mirrors, it suddenly assumes the appearance of shining silver, or perhaps of a great, gleaming icicle, and becomes the irresistible cynosure of all eyes. Here at last is the sun harnessed. A long pole is reached to the glittering boller, and s00n begins to smoke and then takes fire and bursts into flame. Evidently it is hot up there, and this simple test carries con- viction on that point to the most unsct- entific mind. In about one hour the in- tense heat has ralsed the cold water to a high temperature, evaporated it into steam, and a pressure of 150 pounds is shown on the gauge in the engine room. For, be it understood, the solar motor is not a sun engine in the sense that it is operated without the intervention of steam power, as the water wheel is turned by the falling stream. The sun strikes the mirrors; the mirrors reflect the heat upon the boiler; the heat turns the water within the boller intuv steam; the steam passes from the head of the boller through a flexible metallic pipe Into the engine cylinders, and from that point the process is the familiar operation of the compound engine and the centrifugal pump. There is nothing occult, nothing new. Every boy has felt the concentrated = < S o= v W o~ 7we /4 EGrrve ey~ - heat of the sun gathered in the burning glass held by a mischievous neighbor, or had his eyes momentarily blinded by tho reflected light cast from a hand mirror. These princlples are old and known to us all. In the solar motor they are applied on a larger scale and made to perform useful work in connection with the steam engine and the pump. Now that the thing is accomplished, it does not seem at all extraordinary that we have found a way to apply a lttle of the sun's enormous heat to actual eco-' nomic uses. It marks but one more step in the assertion of mwan's control over the forces of nature. Long ago we harnessed the winds and the waters, making them bear our burdens anc perform our tasks, More recently, and far more wonderfully, it seems to me, we made the subtle cur- rents of electricity the docile servants of our will. Science long since demonstrated that the solar heat falling normally upon four square feet of surface during one minute is equivalent to one horsepower. Professor Langley of the Smithsonian In- stitution recalls the fact, in his interest- ing work on “The New Astronomy,” that in the eighteenth century Bernleres, a Frenchman, and an English optician named Parker each constructed burning glasses of great size and power, under the influence of which “‘iron, gold and other metals ran like melted butter.” One of those glasses was presented to the Em- peror of China, who was so much alarmed at its performances that he had it buried in the ground, where it could work no sin- ister miracle. The later efforts of Mouchot and of Erlesson are well known. The former ex- hiblted a sun engine which operated a printing press at the Paris Exposition of 1570, while the architect of the famous Monitor brought his device so near perfec- tion that sclentific men began to build serious hopes upon it in 1884. But none of these inventions were able to stand the test of application to actual commercial uses. They concentrated the rays of the sun. They made steam. They even drove engines. But when brought to the crucial test of practical, every-day uses—cheap manufacture, ¢conomical and continuous operation—they fafled. And so it has been with many other less celebrated efforts. N Whalle the present successful motor has been developed in the fullest light of ex- isting scientific knowledge, the solution of the problem is a triumph of American genfus, which ‘has bullt a successful de- vice on the ashes of past failures. The most obvious advantage of the solar motor is the saving of fuel. It will be used over wide districts where the cost of fuel is prohibitive, and will even super- sede all ccher power in the uses for which it.is adapted in localities where fuel is most abundant, since it is plain that no fuel is cheaper than any fuel. The saving is effected not merely in the purchase price of coal or wood, oil or gasoline, but also in the item of handling these mate- rials. ‘The solar rays are not oniy fur- nished without cost, but by a convenient provision of nature are freely transported to the place of use, which is wherever the reflector may happen to be erected. Tre usefulness of sun power will be by no means limited to irrigation, nor should it ‘be inferred by the size of the present engine that ten horsepower = SHOWING MACHINE TormEd To CATes Jun) RAyy bounds its eral reflectors grouped about a central en- gine, are already feasible, and It is quite within reason to expect that with the im- provements which will naturally be added as time goes on the present meximum will be much increased. It is In its relation to irrigation, how- ever, that the cuccessful utilization of sun power will excite the widest public inter- est. Mining is an industry which flour- ishes in spite of all obstacles. There is no country so far nor climate so severe— there is no peril and no expense which can discourage mining, because the posst- ble reward is so great and the hope of sudden wealth so alluring. It may be sad and deplorable, but it is none the less true, that a man will risk less for a home tnan for a ; herolc exceptions to the rule, but remains that must be made easily if made at all les the chief stgnifl er, limited, for the present at least, to sunshine reglons of the earth certain fact fortune. There are the conquest of the desert Here nce of the new tions are necessa since its uper possibilities. The new motor will be used Halt of our own continent, most for various industrial purposes, and prob- tralia and New Zealand, most of 2 . ably quite largely in conaection with min- and South America, a vast portion o ing. Plants of 100 horsepower, with sev- Asta, Including India, belong distinctly to Lo N the sunshine reglons. Here solar power is bound to be extensively employed in lifting water from under the ground and from the deeply eroded channels of in- numerable rivers. Exact Information concerning the under- ground water supplies is somewhat mea- ger, sinaa both public and private enter- prise were natarally first directed to the diversion of streams and the employment of the smalle” class of reservoirs. But during the past five years pumping has become the most aggressive feature of the irrigation industry in the West and the area of its operations has been rapidly widening. A large portion of the precipi- (Continued on Page Seven.)