Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 217, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1915 — PERSONNEL OF NAVY BOARD ANNOUNCED [ARTICLE]

PERSONNEL OF NAVY BOARD ANNOUNCED

Edison to Head Board of Experts Who Will Study Marine Problems of Our Country. The membership of the naval advisory board, the organization of» experts nominated by eleven great engineering and scientific societies to contribute their inventive genius to the American navy, was announced Sunday by Secretary Daniels. The first meeting will be held at the navy department Wednesday, Oct. 6, with the chairman, Thomas A. Edison, presiding.

Mr. Daniels said: “The result of the selection of names by the societies has been most gratifying. I have received the nominations of all these societies and have accepted them, and it only remains to have a meeting, organize and determine the method of procedure in order to utilize to the best advantage this mobilization of talent and genius of our great country.” The members of the board are as follows: Hudson Maxim, Brooklyn, ordnance and explosive expert and maker of the first smokeless powder adopted by the U. S. Matthew Bacon Sellers, Baltimore, authority on aeronautics and the first to determine the dynamic air pressure on arched surfaces by means of the “wind funnel.”

Howard E. Coffin, Detroit, Mich., and Andrew J. Riker, Bridgeport, Conn., inventors, automobile builders and now vice presidents of large automobile manufacturing companies. Dr. Peter Cooper Hewitt, New York, inventor of appliances for telephones, hydoplanes, aeroplanes, balloons and electric lights. Thomas Robbins, Stanford, Conn., inventor of many mechanical devices including the belt conveyor of coal and ore, served in the New York naval reserve and observed military conditions at the front in France during the present war. L. H. Baekelan, Yonkers, N. Y., a native of Belgium, famed particularly for the invention of a photographic paper.

Frank Julian Sprague, New York, an early assistant of Edison, who directed the building of the first successful electric trolley railways in the U. S., Italy and Germany and equipped the first electrically trained gun for the navy. Benjamin G. Lamme, Pittsburg, inventor and head of a committee which passes upon all Westinghouse investments.

Robert Simpson Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institute at Washington and an authority on astronomy, geography and mathematical Dr. Arthur Gordan Webster, Worcester, Mass., professor of physics at Clark University, inventor and the leading authority in America on sound. Andrew Murray Hunt, New York, graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy and experienced in development of hydro-electric steam and gas plants. Alfred Craven, New York, son of an American rear admiral and now chief engineer of the New York Public Service Commission.

Wm. L. Saunders, New York, inventor and engineer, former newspaper and magazine editor and former mayor of Plainfield, N. J. Benjamin Bowditch Thayer, New York, metallurgist and explosive expert and now president of Anaconda Mining Co. Dr. Joseph William Richards, South Bethlehem, Pa. professor of metallurgy at Lehigh University. Lawrence Addicks, Chrome, N. J., metallurgist engineer and president of the American Elecero-Chemical Society Wm. Leroy Emmet, Schenectady, N. Y., engineer and inventor and first serious promotor of electric ship propulsion, having conducted the recent epoch-making series of experiments on the naval collier Jupiter. Spencer Miller, South Grange, N. J., inventor of apparatus that has Simplified coaling of ships and of the breeches buoy device now used by the coast service in shipwreck rescue. Henry Aleronder Wise Wood, engineer and maufacturer—student of naval aeronautics and regarded by many as the world’s foremost authority on the engineering features of the art of printing. Elmer A. Sperry, electrical inventor and manufacturer.