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Letter to the editor

1928: Magnetic motor runs without fuel

By Theresa Blackwell, Times Staff Writer
Published March 2, 2008

SAFETY HARBOR - This town may soon break into the big news stories with a new fuelless motor, something like the Hendershot device that created so much excitement when its invention was announced only a few days ago.

The Safety Harbor motor is said to use permanent magnets as propelling power. A group of Clearwater men examined the machine yesterday, some with experience in physical and electrical engineering. And at least one of them is enthusiastic concerning the possibilities offered by the motor invented by two Pinellas County men.

Attorney Edgar J. Phillips has been retained to protect the inventors' rights. He has begun research regarding claims set up by the inventor of the Hendershot motor to determine whether it infringes in any manner upon the model made by his Safety Harbor clients.

The inventors of the motor that is being investigated here have been working on their first machine for over a year. While it is admittedly far from perfection, they claim it works and illustrates the principles they seek to have covered by patents.

Description of the motor sounds much like the specifications printed in the newspapers not long ago of the epoch-marking sort of perpetual motion device built by a northern genius. There is a wheel upon which are mounted permanent magnets and stationary magnets, causing the wheel to revolve. The angle at which these magnetic fields cross the wheel causes the rotation, with no electrical or other power used, it is claimed.

March 1, 1945

Tarpon Springs air officer in famed group

First Lt. John H. Corbin, 20, of Tarpon Springs is a pilot on a B17 Flying Fortress of the 95th Bombardment group, an Eighth Air Force component. With his crew, he has flown on heavy bombing assaults in Germany on vital Nazi targets.

The AAF pilot, who already holds the Air medal with two oak leaf clusters, is a member of the Fortress group commanded by Col. Jack E. Shuck, Casper, Wyo., and Monroe, Conn. The group led the first American bombing attack on targets in Berlin and was cited by the president for its outstanding bombing assault on railroad marshalling yards at Nunster, Germany, in October 1943. As a component of the distinguished Third Air division, the group also shared in a presidential citation given to the entire division for its historic England-Africa shuttle bombing of an important Messerschmitt fighter plane plant at Regensburg, Germany, in August of 1943.

Lieutenant Corbin is the son of Mr. and Mrs. W.M. Corbin of 225 Cypress St., Tarpon Springs. He attended Tarpon Springs High School and the Tampa university in Tampa.

March 5, 1928

Quail are received for restocking

CLEARWATER - Tax Assessor Charley Wilcox and Bolivar McMullen of the assessor's office are proud of a consignment of quail from Commissioner Royall of the state game department.

They drove up in front of the Independent Clearwater office Saturday morning with a car full of crates containing the finest lot of Mexican quail ever seen in this territory. Fifty pairs had been shipped by express from Eagle Pass, Texas, and all but two pairs arrived safely.

The birds came from M.E. Bogle of San Antonio, Texas, largest breeder of bobwhites in the world. Twenty-five pairs of lesser quality were shipped from this same place last year, according to Mr. McMullen.

The newly received quail have been distributed in favored places about middle Pinellas County. It is confidently expected that the call of bobwhite, which is real music to hunters' ears, will be heard on all sides next year.

A look back at the events, people and places that made North Pinellas the unique place that it is. The information is compiled from past editions of the St. Petersburg Times.

[Last modified March 1, 2008, 20:56:49]