Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1890 — NEW KIND OF AIR LINE. [ARTICLE]

NEW KIND OF AIR LINE.

SHIPS TO BE BUILT FOR AERIAL NAVIGATION. A Chicago Company Formed for the Purpose of finiidiug a Line of Air Ships That Will Do Away With Railroads and Steamboats—What the Inventors Say. [Chicago dispatch.] For a week past a dozen gentlemen have gathered at the Grand Pacific in earnest discussion of a plan which sounds like a talc from the “Arabian Nights.” If carried oute-and it is claimed $20,000,000 of solid cash has been paid in to say that it will be —their schemes will result in making railroad trains appear like mere stage coaches, will make the transportation of the mails almost equal to tho telegraph, allow a business man to have his office in New York and yet live in Chicago with no more inconvenience than if his home were just around the corner. The tourist will be permitted to leave any point in the United States one day and arrive in, Europe the next, and any one may have the opportunity of leaving Nellie Bly back in the middle ages by making the circuit of the globe in just five days. The project was completed yesterday afternoon'and to-day at Springfield the Mount Carmel Aeronautic Manufacturing Company will be chartered with a capital of 820,000,000. Within sixty days the first air-ship is put down on tho schedule to arrive in Chicago. The company is said to be backed by a powerful English syndicate and by Eastern capitalists, both these interests having representatives at the Grand Pacific meeting. The incorporators, however, are the inventors, E. J. Pennington and Richard Butlei, of the .Mount Carmel Machine and Pulley Works at Mount Carmel, Ill.; W. C. Dewcv, of the Grand Rapids Filin’tlire Manufacturing Company of Grand Rapids, Mich.; E. L. Chamberlain and James A. Pugin The proposed air-ship, models of which the inventors claim have been successfully tested, will carry cars the size of the Pullmans and will contain fifty persons each, special cars being manufactured for quick mail and passenger service. Work will commejico immediately at Mount Carmel upon the manufactory, the plant being a mammoth one covering many acres. The first building to bo erected will be 800 feet square, and the contracts for it have already been let. The company will manufacture all it needs from the raw material, even to the aluminium, of which the air-ships will bo almost entirely composed. This metal is not only the strongest and lightest, but by a new process owned by tho company it can be made the cheapest. The claim is made that the ship combines safety, speed, and comfort, and is so perfect as to bo under the absolute control of a crew of two men. It is shaped much like the hull of an ordinary sea vessel. It has on either side and extending the entire length large wings arranged so as to turn into a parachute in case of accident. At tlife corners of these wings thero are propeller wheels, enabling the ship to be raised or lowered at will. A large propeller wheel at the bow gives the ship power either to go backward or forward. Above the buoyancy chamber is a rudder for steering horizontally. Just in the rear of this is a smaller one to steer either to the right or left. The cabin or car is suspended immediately beneath this framework, and beneath this are the storage batteries, which also act as ballast. In the front of the car is a place for the pilot, who is provided with levers for switching the electric appliances, the rudders and propellers being controlled by electricity. The inventors say the chief secret in the aerial navigation problem lias been aluminium. In addition to this all the machinery is of entirely new design and of the lightest weight possible. It is also said that in order to cause the ship to fall or to bo lost control of at all the rudders, the wings, tho propeller wheels, and the buoyancy chamber must all break at once, for any one of these would keep it suspended. But even if they should do so the automatic parachute, formed instantly by the wings, would allow the ship to descend gently to the earth, and as special cars will be made for crossing the ocean, even should this happen in mid-occan it would float on touching the water. Mr. Dewey, with whom a talk was had at his room at the Palmer at the close of the Grand Pacific meeting, said that not a dollar would be asked from the public at any time to float the company. It was entirely beyond that. Nor would a dollar’s worth of stock be offered tho public until the company had complete and perfectly equipped ships in which they could ask the public to travel. Then if there was any stock to spare it might be placed,on the market, but at present not a share is for sale. “When it is first presented to you,” said Mr. Dewey, “it seems simply impossible —it, is really the simplest and most practical matter in the world. Nor was there ever so great a scheme backed by a more solid business an«j financial a cohcern. I have no more doubt of'its success than of the fact that I shall be in Grand Rapids in the morning. Of course, if successful, it will revolutlhizo the world, even more than the railroad or the telegraph has done. We are already in correspondence with tho postr office department at Washington, and have been assured that the mails will be sent by our air-ships the moment we prove that they can go faster, than the present mail trains. They have not realized the stupendous fact that in a Jew months a man will be able to fly over the continent Saturday night and return in time for business Monday morning.” The first car will leave St. Louts for Mount Carmel within two months, and will then come to Chicago, where tho men and a few invited guests will take a day’s vacation for a trip to the Pacific coast or to some other distant pofnt.

During her voyage of 125 days from Calcutta to New York, the Timandra ran through four hnrricames. Oil bags hung over the bows, sides, and stern saved the ship, as Captain Mowatt verily believes. The outfit of a hop-picker that started from Howell Prairie, Oregon, the other day, comprised two packages of cigarettes, a bottle of whisky, a pack of cards, a pistol, and a pair of blankets. A New York hotel announces that It has started “agrill-room.” The cashiers* desks at most hotels in Gotham are good substitutes.;» They grill all the fat out of a pocket-book at short notice. It is claimed In the South that more Southern people visited Northern resorts last summer than in any previous year in the history of the country. ,