Scientific Research and Invention 129
out need of a costly third rail or overhead wire
system, generates the power it consumes on the
Canadian National Railways. Some 300,000,000
pounds of artificial silk, known as rayon among silk
manufacturers, was made from cellulose during
1929. Elmer A. Sperry, inventor of the gyroscope
compass, super-power searchlights and airway beacons,
 has just adapted an electrical machine for testing
 the rails of the great railways’ system of the
nation. A “Robot chemist” or an automaton with
an electric eye, radio brains and magnet hands
recently functioned without human supervision in an
improvised laboratory before the New York Electrical
 Society in New York. It helped in producing
an economic cold light, in analyzing a sample weighing
 a millionth of a gram, and in demonstrating a
photo-electric cell used to control analysis in new
scientific apparatus.
Samuel W. Parr states that the American output
of chemical products alone has advanced in fifty
years from an insignificant sum to more than $2,000,-000,000
 annually.
The American Chemical Society reports a tremendous
 increase in research by which pure and
practical science has been advanced, and calls for
half a million dollars more for the fund to report
scientific knowledge. In his address at Dearborn,
Michigan, on October 21, 1929, President Hoover
said: “If we would have our country improve its
standard of living and at the same time accommos
date itself to increasing population, we must main-