6
HARNESSES
OLD OCEAN
GREAT oTRUCTURE BUILT FOR
WAVE MOTOR
INVENTOR'S DREAMS ABOUT TO
BE REALIZED
Big Barge and Pier in Course of Con.
¦tructlon at Redondo Expected
to Solve Problem of
Power
•.¦••During -the past your experiments -with
'th» Starr-wave motor have been carried
or. Jn and near Los Angeles until today
th* Atlantic, Gult and' Pacific company,
- one ;of ] the largest marine , construction
concerns ; in the j world, is building a pier
at Redondo to accommodate the machin
ery of a 60,000 horsepower plant. .' Yet the
Urge amounts of money already spent
\ here by the> Los Angeles Wave Power and
. Electric ' company ¦ have been 'so ' quietly
disbursed that probably, not , one man i In
¦ ten thousand In this community realizes
the ¦ wide scope of this . local concern's
'."? operations. > , i ¦
' •-. The mystery which has surrounded the
company's plans Is due to the fact that
detailed drawings : explaining the. work
ing of the motor could. not be published
'• \ until : all ; patent rights ¦. had been amply
protected. ¦ - -, V ' •
, The , illustrations ; with > this article are
' the first to show the inner, workings of
this remarkable mechanism. Still, many
Los Angeles people saw a demonstration
plant built, by Fred Starr at Venice last.
fall and witnessed the steady production
'¦ of electricity by the ocean swells. I,.:; '
' Fulfills Edison's Prophecy
'¦-•',' The ; plant , rose 'without notoriety and
was finally . dismantled after serving its
purposes. • ' • "' :'."
How did It all come about? .What does
."¦ it mean that capital has come forward to
undertake the , construction J-' of ' a plant
eventually to cost $2,500,000? ' That repre
sentatives of hundreds of millions of capi
"¦^.tal have given their Word that If the big
plant now building at Redondo does any
where near as much in proportion as the
smaller plant operated at' Venice last
' winter the money will pour in for world
wide exploitation of the Starr method of
. running electric dynamos by the power of
';;- ocean waves? That eminent engineers are
. waiting under .orders to watch for. the
3-' completion of the first unit and to be on
the ground to report the result of their
observation to the millionaires who em
ploy them? It means • that . trained en
f ... gineers have expertcd the demonstrations
i .' of : this Los Angeles company and have
pronounced its ¦ devices < a sober, every
day success and of revolutionary signiti
cance. It means ; that Los Angeles will
be the first city of the world to test on
"•".¦¦• a grand scale . the prediction of , Edison
that the ocean is the ultimate source of
, the world's supply of power for all pur
poses. •' ."•'>'¦ t.' i
Success After Thirty Years -
The Starr wave motor In its perfected
. . form is the resultant of over thirty years
; * of labor against disheartening odds. Many
times ¦ the inventor has been apparently
within grasp of success, only to uncover
still more fundamental difficulties requir
ing an entire readjustment of the mechan
ism. Finally, about eight months before
the great fire at San Francisco, : a work
", ing model was launched. in the harbor of
that city and engineers were bidden to
. witness its workings.
Vi So far, bo * good, , said the engineers.
But they wanted to see It work on a large
scale and in the open sea. during storm
¦ and calm. Very well, said the manage
ment. And they prepared to build near
the Cliff house. Then came the great
¦ disaster and the scene of the company's
operations shifted to Los Angeles. But
first : came the story of the now famous
Starr "roller clutch." In the smaller
diagram of the cut this device, which is
. '. the real secret of the realization of Starr's
. . dream, is explained, so that its workings
; 'can be understood by the lay mind. And
. thereby hangs a tale.
Has Sudden Inspiration
It was one day after the San Fran
cisco model had been in commission for
, a long time that a vital defect appeared
in the clutch. The rollers had "buried"
' so that they failed to catch. The core, a '
; Costly affair cut from tool steel, was used '
up and good for nothing. And then one !
of the inventor's sudden inspirations came ,
to him. '.'We'll Just cut down the faces of
. the core and set In a little plate under ]
the roller." said he. No sooner said than ,
, done, and ' in that little wear-plate lies
the value of the entire machine. For j
¦ when the application was made , for a ,
. patent It developed that the roller clutch ;
' was no new thing. It had been invented
and tried before, and had failed, just as
Starr's had . done. But with the wear- '
. .plates to be renewed at . a trifling ex
. pense the clutch became not only us good
v as indestructible, but better. For the big
• : core of the Redondo plant need not be
I made of tool steal. Cast Iron will do.
.' Starr credits Thomas A. Edison for em
bßrklng.hlm on the thirty years of strug
¦. gle toward the solution of this wave
motor puzzle, so alluring' to many of
the great inventors of this day. Edison
forecasted two enterprises of the great
._ est moment to the human race, namely,
-"I. 1 the Invention of apparatus for making
and using electricity and a provision for
' Its - source from the ceaseless, limitless
CONSTRUCTION CREW RUSHING WORK ON PILE DRIVER
and all but universal energy of the ocean
waves. . r ' s .'."¦•/
Saw Vast , Power Wasted . /.
"Electricity," said he. 'Is the power/of,
the ; future, and before many < years/ its
source must be the restless : sea." ( ' '"•
Edison dreamed, anil at that time/both
visions appeared about . equally llttislve.
He saw the great coal beds of 'world
approaching exhaustion. He saw that the
power to ' he . developed > from i tunning
water, great and practical as it Is. would
be utterly inadequate to meet the demand
for power for all purposes.- Butmlong the
ocean ' shores :of the world he/ beheld a
waste ' of : energy : absolutely Incalculable.
The world's physicists are too univer
sally |on record to admit of /dispute on
that point. > Some ; of them, those with a
taste for big figures, have nyt'de meaning
less computations of the energy developed
in the rise and fall of the/ ground swell
along short stretches of coast. '
"When you get hito the trillions you
might, just as well be calling them mil
lions of horespower. v The power is there.
It has been a 'mere matter of mechanical
device to harness It to useful apparatus.
Always an Inventor
Fied Starr rrom boyhood always
Inventing things. He rigged up con
trivances for labor-saving about the
house and farm. At the ago of 12 he
cored out a cylinder from a chunk of
¦tj I with an old file stuck Into a broom
handle.
Then he added slide valves and pistons
and wheels and worked awa? until he
had ms pretty littlo steam engine :is a
boys heart could desire. Ho still has
the engine and It works as perfectly
today a> it did up on the farm. It was
UMd to Rrner.-ite the electrirlty in his
first shop model built on the lines of
Hie plant now under construction at
Redondo. »¦
"When Starr, then a finisher in the Pull
man car works, heard Bdison'S dictum
he decided to be the man to bring the
wave motor part of It truo. But had
ho done so that year his work would
have been of little use. Edison had to
bring the other part true Ilrst. nut
given the electrical applianqet that these
thirty years have seen come Into being
It Is high time for the cheap power to
make those appliances available to all
the people and for all purposes. That
Is part of the parallelism of invention.
There must be orderly progress. Com
plete plans for a modern auto would
have been of little avail twenty years
ago. W« lacked the knowledge and ap
pliances to put the plans into steel and
iron. Before long, says seienre. elec
tricity can be transmitted as far as one
lilens-'s and with little loss on the way.
A little higher voltage, a little better
Insulation to hold the current on the
wires and you can broil a St. Louis
beefsteak with Far Horknway 'trlcity.
or light the streets of Topeka from
power installations off Monterey.
Works Through Poverty
Starr's first experiments, he says, were
carried on In Chicago. Years of work
merely sufficed to lay bare the com
plexities of the problem. But Ihe quiet
little mim about whom scientific men
are beginning to gossip was only up
and nt It all the harder. He would go
to sleep worrying nt the great Idea, and
along in the wee. small hours would
waken to find a new solution tantalizing
him. T'p he would get and put the
outlines on paper before he could get
any more sleep that night. He has
slaved for that same iden year In and
year out, day and nipht. in season and
out of season. Somewhere in all his
plans there lurked bnsic errors, elusive
problems whose very conception required
extensive research and baffling experi
mentation. The quiet little man's friends
begged him to (rive up n bondage thnt
was bringing him nothing but poverty
and trouble and ridicule. Tie merely put
on more steam. TCarh device was more
complicated thnn the one preceding. An
infinity of detail attached to the device,
making it almost impossible to build
models to test the principles used.
Today all those details are present In
the simple machinery of the ultimate
type, but (hey nr<* unseen, save to the
man who worked through complexity to
simplicity.
Ceases to Oppose Nature
There cane S time when Starr deter
mined to find and analyze the causes of
defeat In all the wave motors invented
nd patented. After wading through
thousands of patent office specifications
he began to see light ahead. "We have
all b«en opposing our puny devices to
nature in one of her most imperious
moods. 1 he said. "The secret of In
vention is in taking nature by the hand
and going with her."
Beginning with his new principle the
inventor abandoned nil attempts to con
fine rigidly the vast power with which
he dealt and all effort to utilize the sud
den thrust of the breaking wave. He
saw that the commercially useful energy
of the ocean Is exerted in lifting weight.
He saw that a craft of any description
lying on the surface of the sea was In
constant motion upward and downward;
whatever its weight or Imiik the waves
lift it with ease. Now weight in motion
means power, and Starr determined to
proceed to yoke that power to a mechan
ism thnt would yield In electrical cur
rent the equivalent of the energy ex
erted by thfi ocean swell in raising a
given weight.
Uses All Energy
More specifically, the problem was to
transmute a vertical motion, erratic and
variable, and, withal, irresistible, into
the circular motion of a driving shaft.
There were a thousand minor desiderata
to be considered- this was the great
basic end he held in vlc-w. We have
already seen how Starr met this prob
lem.
The roller clutch, worked by cables
reaching upward and downward from a
crosshead moved by connecting rods
from a heavy barge in the water, takes
the power nnd takes it all. Be It a
toS ANGELES HERALD: SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 25, 1907.
Diagram shows end view of power
barge, attached by connecting rods
to machine on pier. Two cables, one
upward, one downward, pass from
crossheads around clutch drums.
Clutches are in pairs at each corner
of barge, and cables are crossed to
reverse stress on drums, one turning
power shaft with rise of barge, the
other with its fall.
ripple of an inch or a storm billow fif
teen feet high this form of clutch takes
and uses every pound of energy excited
liy the swell In raising an- lowering the
float. And, like many a great invention,
the successful device Is almost absurd
in Its apparent simplicity when once
found and applied. It does not allow
the bargo to move in any direction with
out turning the power shaft.
Some of the minor difficulties deserve a
glance. They have served to wreck many
a nromtsing wave motor when put to the
test of service l« the open sea. For one,
there was the destructive force of the
waves during storms. Mariners assured
Starr that no barge of any size could be
left to ride out storms In the open, and no
more they could In any way known to
well-behaved craft a.« launched from time
immemorial. But, that didn't make Starr
unhappy. He merely sought a new kind
of a craft, one that would act contrary to
all the conventions.
Lesson from Ducks
There was another man working at the
same time along the same lines. His
name Is Holland, and his boats go to the
bottom, a thing abhorrent to well-behaved
boats. Starr caught the same idea in the
same way— watching, a flock of ducks
avoid the rollers while swimming in rough
water. They merely ducked under the
breakers into calm water. Starr devised
a barge tnat could be partially or fully
submerged at a moment's notice, so that
in case the water got too rought for safe
SECTIONAL DRAWING OF STARR ROLLER CLUTCH. DRUM "A". IS
REVOLVED BACK AND FORTH BY CABLE FftOM CROSSHEAD.
ROLLERS "H" RIDE IN CARRIERS UNTIL CENTER OF GRAVITY
IS PASSED, WHEN THEY LOOP INTO PLAY AND LOCK AGAINST
DRUM, LEAVING DRUM FREE TO REVOLVE BACKWARD GOING
FOR LOAD BUT RIGID AS TO FORWARD MOTION. CLUTCH CAN
NOT MOVE FORWARD WITHOUT TURNING POWER SHAFT. .IT
18 SENSITIVE TO LEAST BACKWARD MOVEMENT, THUS TAKING
POWER FROM SMALLEST WAVE. WEAR PLATE "E" PROTECTS
CORE "C" FROM SWAYING
anchorage on top of the waves it could
ride more quietly underneath the smfaee.
Students of physics know that the mo
tion of. the water In a wave, aside from
the crest, is almost entirely vertical. Thu
wave travels shoreward, but the water
merely moves up am down. The hori
zontal movement is conlmed to the break
ing crest, which hurls Itself forward with
sudden fury. Submerge Ihe barge, and it
loses little of Its vorticle motion, mean
while riding out the storm In safety.
Waves Are Mulish
Another difficulty was the confinement
of the barge to a vertical motion. Starr
was not the only Inventor who perceived
that the power desired was that yielded
by the rise and fall of a float In the wa
ter; where he differs from the rest is in
not deducing tue corollary that the barge
should be allowed no other motion. For
the waves had something to say about
this business of setting gtildes for the
barge to travel between. They wouldn't
have It that way. The, barge acted like a
contrary mirle. Hitch him to a post and
he seems seized with determination to put
long stretches of road between himself
and that post, yet after he has kicked
every strap off from him he stops right
there and eats grass.
So the barge aid not want to go far. but
It was determined to break away from
tight fastenings. Tossing a cork overboard
one day, Starrjsaw something suggestive
In the way It washed back and forth, but
stayed near the spot where it struck the
water. "Why, we can let the waves have
the barge," he said. "They won't take It
away, anyhow. They don't want to do
much with that barge, but they want to
do that little mighty bad. Besides, It
wouldn't do us any good If we could con
fin* the float to a vertical motion.' 1 So in
the plant in its present form the barge Is
4
BETTING UP HEAVY TRUSSES OF POWER BARGES
merely anchored so that It cannot move
too far from under the pier and so that it
cannot chafe against the piles.
I < Solves Hardest Problem
Bui bow attach to the barge with con
nections sufficiently flexiole to allow this
freedom of motion while still keeping in
contact to the extent of the power de
veloped? The ball-and-socket Joint was
tried and failed. Again new mechanical
principles were invoked, and attachments
devised to make it Impossible for the
barge to bind for a single fatal Instant.
Once, given tho rotation of a driving
shaft under full load, the generation of
some useful form of energy is an every
day question of mechanical engineering.
Starr uses compressed air. The compres
sors feed Into a common reservoir and
maintain there a pressure sufllclent to
operate ordinary steam engines, which, in
turn, drlye electrical dynamos.
Barge Under Construction
Observations carried on by Mr. Starr in
the vicinity of Los Anceles show that at
this point the total movement upward and
downward of a loaded vessel seldom falls
be.low forty feet per minute. Dividing
that by four, Mr. Starr nas based his cal
culations upon tonnage traveling ten feet
per minute. Mr. Starr is conservative.
The barge now being constructed at Re
dondn and soon to be ready for launching
is for a hundred horgl power unit, the
size named by most of the experts as a
final test of the commercial practicability
of the enterprise. This unit will be used
by tho company for making an electrical
display on the pier at Redondo. Its com
paratively small size enables the com
pany's engineers to put it in operation
while preparations are going on for the
manufacture of the . eavy machinery for
the larger units to follow.
As to the pier itself, the plans have been
approved by competent engineers and its
stability is guaranteed by the great con-
struction company which Is putting it in.
This again is a mere matter of every-day
engineering experience.
Will Cheapen Electricity
Is Los Angeles then upon the eve of
revolutionary development in the pro
duction of commercial power? Had Mr.
Starr perfected his invention the day he
started upon It, it would have been use
less. ¦•¦.-¦ ' ; ' .-.'¦ '.' ;'•'.• ••' "".. . "i 1
Edison had first to produce the elec
trical appliances necessary to generate
and utilize the electrical current. But
today, with electricity every kind of me
chanical work Is performed. Light is
produced: heat Is generated: In short, all
the complex devices that actuate the life
of a modern city are operated by elec
tricity.
With cheap electricity furnished by the
ocean waves the coal trust may h\ig its
fuel supplies ad lib and no coal famine
will have terrors for the consumer. The
great commercial problem of California,
cheap power, will have been solved.
Great Help to Manufacturers
The dead weight which all coast manu
facturers have so long carried will be
done away with; she will stand on equal
ity In that regard with the most favored
manufacturing centers.
A vast deal of smoke and turmoil and
noire may be done away with, and elec
tricity used for all purposes In the house
hold as well as In the shop will make life
plcnsnnter and more wholesome.
New methods of electrical transmission,
developing so rapidly that even special
ists hardly pretend to keep up with the
new improvements introduced, will ren
der this power more and more available
for the Interior.
A radius of 500 miles is already practi
cal from a given source of energy. Dar
ing Inventors predict that during this gen
eration an electrical current may be
flashed around the world without pro
hibitive loss. New methods of lighting
are constantly being invented; new meth
ods of power application.
When Edison said thirty years ago:
"Electricity is the power of the future,''
part m
his words were taken as the words of a
dreamer. Today the splendid vision Is a
practical working realization. Yet It was
ten years afterward that Starr was a
member of a party which Included Charles
T. Yerkcs, Invited to Inspect the first
public trial of a trolley car in Chicago.
Yerkcs' high priced expert adviser pro
nounced the new contraption a car of
Juggernaut. Any man who would put
that thing before tho public, he said,
would be* a murderer, and he didn't mean
it because they were fenderless, either.
He said the deadly current would play
about the vehicle like forked lightning
and kill people right and left. Yerkcs
stayed out.
Is Conservative Inventor
But all of Edison's appliances are today
too expensive in practical use for the
ordinary citizen to take full advantage of
them. The first vision Is realized; how
about the second one? During all theso
weary years no one has heard Fred Starr
claim he had a solution of the problem
of the wave motor. He has kept his hopes
arid his failures to himself. Others hay*
loudly proclaimed from time to time that
they had it; Starr never. When he was
ready to make a demonstration he in
vited experts to investigate. On their re
port? capital was forthcoming to put tho
thing on a commercial basis.
From this time forth those reports and
the company's patent drawings are opun
ti> inspection by the public. They make
interesting reading.
Perhaps the building of the commercial
plant at Redondo will have a large mean
ing now that you have caught a glirnpso
of the grim fight that went before.
If ever the heart's blood of a man went
into gears and shafting and derricks, the
very life of Fred Starr Is crystallizing
there in that installation.
HOW TO KEEP WELL
It is better to take pleasurable and ex
hilarating eJterclse in the open air, on
green playing fields, than to swelter in
smoky cities and lounge at street cor
ners or In crowded cafes.
For game>, when rightly Indulged in,
constitute for those who ar« perfectly
sound In wind and limb a most healthful
recreation.
At the same time one must not think
that the participation in games is a means
of gaining health for those who arc
weakly or who are suffering from tome
illness, whether functional or otherwise.
As a matter of fact, even those who an
hale, well and strong and full of lusty
life, often find that certain of the eonse
qui-nces, both direct and Indirect, of
games are not altogether favorable to
good health, while for the ailing or deli
cate person they arc in nine cases out of
ten most Injurious, and certainly not to
be recommended.
It must be remembered that there is no
such thing as an "all-round" game— tha»
is to fay, that there is no game which
impartially exercises and develops all the
muscles of the boay. In nearly every
well known athletic pastime one part of
the body will be found to be developed at
the expense of the others. Certainly
there is a pendency in this erection.
Now, when a muscle Is exercised, a cer
tain amount ot wasted tl&*Ue is burnt up,
and the flow of blood toward the parts
affected is stimulated.
The tissues call, as it were, to the blood
for assistance. They ask It to bring more
oxygen, more nutrition to them te replace
the matter that has been burnt up by
exercise. And the blood responds to the
appeal. It flo"" ¦¦• In Increasing volume to
the parts exercised, which thus withdraw
some of the life giving fluid from organs
and tissues which perhaps require it more
than they do.
Say you arc a ' sufferer from chronic
dyspepsia, and that your digestive organs
are weakly and their functions disorgan
ized. You take part in some game. You
bring violently into play, perhaps shortly
after a meal, certain muscles. These mus
cles draw blood to them. Your digestive
organs, already weak, are still further en
feetilcd by the diminution In thefosupply
of the blood thnt nourishes then* And,
therefore as a result of the exercise you
have taken, your malady, instead of being
cured, as you had hoped it would be, is
actually aggravated.
Any one who suiters from any chest or
lung complaint should eschew vigorous
athletic pastimes as he would eschew
damp sheets and wet footwear. Too many
are unaware of the urgent necessity of
this. "My chest wants devoloplng," they
argue; "exercise does undoubtedly de
velop the chest, therefore," they conclude
most illogically, "I must play gam.es."
They forget that exercise can be ob
tained in other ways than by taking part
in athletic contests. It is not- the posses
sion of the cricketer, the cyclist, the oars
man, the footballer alone. Quiet, gentle,
physical movements, scientiflcalyl direct
ed, regularly and carefully performed, will
do more to develop the chest than any
amount of haphazard exercise taken In
the course of a strenuous forty-five min
utes between the coach lines. For there
is always danger in athletic games; the
lungs may be filled too full of blood, and
If they are at all weak then hemorrhage
may ensue.
Not that T wish to say. as may be seen
by the opening paragraphs of this article,
one word in depreciation of athletic guinea
when practiced In moderation," under right
conditions and by the right individuals.
But 1 wish to impress most strongly
upon my renders that haphazard exercises
can never usurp the place held by scien
tifically directed exercises in the curing of
11 health. The human body Is such a del
icately constructed organization in many
ways that all care must be taken not to
throw its machinery out of order by too
rash tampering with its mechanism.-Eu
gene Sandow in New York World.
In the future The Herald will Issue to «üb
?cribers holding six months contracts Tha
Housekeeper, Instead of the Woman's Homo
Companion. The Housekeeper In preferred by
many of our patrons. It Is bright, full of ex
cellent articlej of especial interest to women.