Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries (86 page)

The One That Got Away

Probably the most well-known of all the suppressed carburetors was the one (actually there were several) developed by John Robert Fish. The Fish carburetor was not only an economizer, it was a performer. Fireball Roberts had one on his car when he won the Indianapolis 500 in 1962.

The Fish carburetor was no simple device. The patent for his 1941 model (send 50 cents to the patent office in D.C. for #2,236,595) covers nine pages of explanations and drawings. His carburetor had no choke and wouldn't idle very well, which should have been no problem to solve—had he had a little more money to develop it. However, Fish was so broke before he died in 1958 that he had to have the money for one of his carburetors in advance in order to then turn one out. The U.S. Post Office sent all his mail back with "fraudulent" stamped on his orders when he tried to sell them by mail. "Fraudulent" could hardly have been a legitimate reason when no less a manufacturer than Ford admitted that the Fish exceeded their

percent standard carburetor on two separate road tests by 32.5 and 42.8 percent respectively.

Fish went to his grave saying that someone in the industry had "bought off" the Postal authorities in order him out of business.

What do you think?
auto-oil to put

be perfected so that it can be a commercial unit and that will take time. It can hardly be said yet that it can be made in commercial quantities—that will be the job of engineers not of the designer."

While the writer was interviewing Mr. Hammell, a long distance call came in from W. J. Holmes, the original backer. "Holmes just confirms that our handshake on the matter goes for good—we're sticking on the deal 100 percent. Holmes has been recently approached by influential interests but our agreement stands. Pogue is now inspecting every detail of the carburetor being installed on machines other than his own. As the affair is made by hand many test runs must be made and many adjustments made.

"If this carburetor is right—and I've got to be shown—it will be a tremendous benefit to mankind not only through automobile and gas engines, which are countless, but more so for aeroplanes, as it cuts gas down to one-tenth. I'm a flying man and everywhere I go these days is practically by plane so I visualize what the thing might mean."

A typical breezy talker, Mr. Hammell replied to some questions. "How about armed guards?"
"Sure we have a flock of armed guards. They are carrying guns ready

to pop at anybody."
"Is the inventor worried?"
"He is nervous and very apprehensive. However, if there was danger

before it has now passed. Anything broken or stolen can be replaced without harm to the invention."
"Who owns the thing?"
"All I have is an option for control and full and absolute power to handle it anyway I see fit. Mr. Pogue will receive his interest, as will Mr. Holmes."

ARMED GUARDS, A HOUND AND AN INVENTOR GET ON JACK HAMMELL'S NERVES
"It's Got Me Nuts," Says He, Telling of Pogue Gadget

Toronto, Jan. 28—Inventors are "funny people"—and that goes for C. N. Pogue, of Winnipeg, young mechanical wizard who turned out a gas-saving carburetor. Pogue may be a nice boy, but his invention, armed guards and wolf-hound proved too much as a steady diet for Jack Hammell, millionaire mining magnate.

Hammell, backer of the carburetor, told about his reaction to inventors and inventions in an address here Wednesday to the Kiwanis club. The wealthy mine-owner spoke the day after Professor Alcutt of the Univer-sity of Toronto, had termed "impossible" the claims made for the Pogue invention.

"My engineers like it," said Hammell, "but I don't know. It's got me nuts. Did you ever have anything to do with an inventor? They're funny people. He (Pogue) put this big device on cars for us and we got up to 215 miles a gallon out of them. But it's still got to be proved to me—and then it has to have a little sex appeal put into it for commercial production.

"After our engineers tested it I said, T still think it's screwy.' Pogue told me he was going to try to get 450 miles a gallon out of a carburetor and I said 'No you don't—two hundred is as high as I can stand.'"

"There's no reason for the oil companies to worry or for you to sell your oil stocks—it'll be the greatest thing for oil companies that's ever happened, if it works out.

"You could put Amelia Earhart into an aeroplane and let her fly it from Frisco to Berlin and back without refueling—that's what it'd do."

"I had the inventor out at my place and there were two men with revolvers and a big wolf-hound but that wasn't enough for him. He had a revolver himself but he insisted on hiring five more guards with sawedoff shotguns and things and finally I had to send him back to Winnipeg.

"He's spent $35,000 on this carburetor and his backers have spent $150,000—and they haven't got a thing out of it."
"I was glad to get rid of Pogue. He's a nice boy but he's an inventor."

News Clips on
Suppressed
Fuel Savers

WILL MYSTERY ENGINE RUN 300 MILES
ON A GALLON OF OIL?

From Popular Science, August 1922
Three hundred miles on a gallon of oil—10 times the mileage possible for the usual present-day motor!

Such is the astounding record claimed for a crude-oil engine developed by Harry H. Elmer, of Syracuse, NY, for use in automobiles, airplanes, ships, and lighting systems. In experiments, the engine has generated sufficient power to run a battery of 18 incandescent lamps 18 consecutive hours on 1 1/4 pints of oil, costing less than a cent.

Because this mechanical marvel does not require a cooling system, government officials, it is reported, are studying the possibility of its use in dirigibles.

Among more than 300 radically new features claimed for the engine, the most important are these:
It contains only 64 parts and has only three adjustments.
It has no spark, carburetor, wiring, nor any sort of ignition.
The cylinder has a bore [interior diameter] of 3 1/4 inches and a six-inch stroke, yet the engine, it is said, has developed 200 percent more power than internal combustion engines of the same size, and will pick up almost instantaneously from 100 to 2800 revolutions a minute.

How the Motor Operates

The new engine is described as a four-cycle motor, the cycles being suction, compression, expansion, and exhaust. The crude oil is led through needle valves into [the] mechanism, where it mixes with air and then, through another valve of the same kind, is drawn into the motor head, where it is compressed by the upward stroke of the piston. On compression the oil is "cracked" by chemical process and the expansion of gases

515
takes place. As the piston is forced down the exhaust port is opened, and the incoming charge forces out the expanded gases.

There is no combustion in the cylinder, though hydrocarbon gas, escaping the exhaust, explodes on uniting with atmosphere.
The engine has been operated with equal success on mineral, animal, and vegetable oils.

SEWER GAS SERVES AS FUEL

From Modern Mechanix
Municipal trucks and other heavy vehicles operating in Berlin, Germany, are being equipped with motors that enable sewage gas to be used as a fuel. Several sewage gas tanking plants have been erected, where the gas is compressed and stored in tanks for future use by truckmen.

Three of the tanks, each with a capacity of 500 cubic feet of the sewage gas, will operate a five-ton truck at normal speeds for a distance of about 225 miles.

LIFE-LONG BATTERY STARTS TEST CAR 606,969 TIMES IN YEAR-LONG "TORTURE TESTS"

By Dr. J. Morgan Watt
From Science and Mechanics
Here is a story typical of how American ingenuity is constantly at work to create new products that make life simpler and easier for all of us. The beginnings of the story go back more than 100 years to the original European invention of the storage battery and its gradual development and improvement. Thomas Edison predicted a lifelong battery as long ago as 1889. But it was not until World War II that a captured Rommel tank revealed that a remarkable battery had been perfected, good for an incredible 40 years or more of service!

Readers Digest told about this German-type battery in 1948. They also reported on the action of the U.S. Government in breaking up, through the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the international cartels which had prevented the manufacture of the European battery in this country. About two years ago, an American company finally marketed the Life-Long 10-Year Battery, the logical outgrowth of the most developments. The American-made ably with its European predecessor.

In addition to the manufacturer's own rigorous test program to prove this, independent laboratories investigated the new battery thoroughly. For example, a leading commercial laboratory subjected a Life-Long Battery to one of the most unique series of torture testa ever devised. Every 15 seconds, day and night without pause for 12 long months, the battery advanced European and American

Life-Long Battery compares favorstarted a test engine. At the end of the test, the battery had made the fantastic total of 606,969 consecutive starts! This is equivalent to starting your car thirty times every day for fifty years!

The Life-Long Battery was also subjected to extreme heat and cold tests. For example, it was frozen in a block of ice for 48 hours at 70° below zero. The moment it was broken out of its icy prison, it performed with its usual efficiency!

The secret of the Life-Long 10-Year Battery's great power and long life is the sintered Cadalloy plates (derived from Cadmium); indestructible capillary separators which keep plates moist and active; and the special mild-type electrolyte eliminating the strong acids that ordinarily corrode the inside of a battery.The Life-Long Battery differs from ordinary leadacid batteries in other ways as well.

What does the Life-Long Battery do for you? It makes your car lights up to 50 percent brighter. You get faster, surer starts in all weather which means more efficient use of gasoline. You need add water only once a year, giving you a truly attention-free battery. Most important advantage is the 10-year service period, guaranteed by the factory. The bonded guarantee is backed by a state licensed company and remains in effect no matter how many times you transfer your battery from car to car, for the serial number of each Life-Long Battery is permanently registered for your protection.

Surprisingly enough, Life-Long Batteries cost no more than ordinary premium batteries. 6-volt Life-Long Auto Batteries are just $29.95 and 12-volt, $34.95.

INVENTOR'S MYSTERIOUS MOTOR RUNS ON POWER DRAWN PROM ATMOSPHERE

From Popular Science, October 1952
When Cmdr. Ivan Monk, who designs big turbines for the Navy, is pestered by inventors of perpetual-motion machines, he points to a device on his desk that goes them one better—for it works. It is a wheel that spins with no apparent source of power. Commander Monk built it in his spare time, and patented it, since it may find use in clocks, toys and advertising displays.

Actually it is a rotary heat engine, run by temperature difference between its parts. The wheel is at room heat; the long cloth-covered hub, kept dampened with water, is cooled by evaporation. A low-boiling-point liquid, Freon, circulates between wheel and hub, vaporizing in the wheel and condensing in the hub. Valves maintain an unequal weight of liquid on opposite sides of the wheel and gravity does the rest, to turn it.

INQUIRY INTO INVENTION ATTACK LINK

From New Zealand Press Association, Wanganui, 1994
Police are investigating whether a man was beaten up to "silence him"
over his work on the development of a water-fuelled engine.
Mr. Dylan Whitford, aged 18, was found unconscious in a Wanganui
carpark on Saturday night.
He was recently interviewed by Barrie Mitchell-Anyon for an article in
a Wanganui community newspaper on his development of a water-fuelled
engine.
Mitchell-Anyon said yesterday that after the article was published, he
was called by a man who said several Wanganui people knew of the
water-fuel technology but were frightened and were lying low. Mitchell-Anyon said the caller suggested Mr. Whitford should be
careful.
The caller said a Nelson man, who knew of the technology, died in
mysterious circumstances involving a haybaler.
Mitchell-Anyon said he had passed on all information to the police. A Maori warden on patrol found Mr. Whitford unconscious in a parking area behind a building at the corner of Taupo Quay and St. Hill Street
about 10:40
P
.
M
. on Saturday. He was admitted to Wanganui Hospital initially to the intensive care unit.
Detective Sergeant Dave McEwen said yesterday that a full medical
report was not yet available but he understood Mr. Whitford's condition
was stable.
"We're looking at all aspects," he said. "It's too early to form any conclusions if he was assaulted or if he has fallen."
Detective Sergeant McEwen said the theory that Mr. Whitford might
have been attacked because of his work on a water-fuelled engine was one
avenue police would follow up.

WATER VIES WITH GASOLINE AS NEW MOTOR FUEL PASSES TESTS

From Modern Mechanix and Inventions
Serious rivalry is being offered the corner filling station by the kitchen water faucet of Baron Alfred Coreth following his invention of a new fuel for his automobile.

The new fuel, called Corethstoff, after its inventor, is composed largely of water and raw alcohol and can be used in any type of internal combustion motor without alteration of engine or carburetor. It is not only cheaper to produce than gasoline, but goes 20 percent Farther as well, the inventor claims.
Because of its non-explosive and practically non-inflammable qualities, Corethstoff is being considered as an airplane fuel.

ANOTHER MOTOR FUEL

From The Model Engineer and Electrician, May 5, 1921
A new motor car fuel, known as "Penrol" is now making a bid for public recognition says The Cape Times, S.A. It is described as being mainly a combination of alcohol, dissolved acetylene, and other hydrocarbons, and it is claimed to have come through practical road tests with complete satisfaction. It is said to exhibit great power on the hills with smooth engine performance and rapid acceleration. The mileage per gallon is given as 9 percent under that of petrol, but "Penrol" will, it is said, be placed on the market at a price which will more than compensate for that. A distillation plant for the production of the necessary alcohol has already been erected in the Transvaal.