JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
A successful byproduct of not being to find something is finding the stuff that you weren’t looking for and didn’t know about. The article (below) is one such happy find, appearing in the pages of The Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1840. I certainly never thought of somehow (?) harnessing the movement of trees via the wind as a power source. As the author of the paper says, “The idea of turning to account, as a mechanical force, the oscillations of a tree by the wind, has never been proposed, because no one, it is probable, has ever deemed it to be a practicable source of power. A very considerable force, the least costly of all, is thus entirely lost.” There is an inventor named though I cannot find references for him–I also cannot visualize how the tree motion is transformed into that “motive force”. Have a look:
