Science: Electricity from Wind

For 50 years inventors have been trying to make the wind generate electricity, but with no commercial success. Three years ago Julius D. Madaras, Detroit Hungarian, persuaded six power concerns that he could succeed by adapting a Magnus rotor such as carried Anton Flettner's sailing vessel Baden-Baden from Hamburg to Manhattan (TIME, May 24, 1926) and lifted Harold Elstner Talbott Jr.'s hydroplane from Long Island waters in 1930. The utilitarians gave Designer Madaras $104,000 to build a demonstration rotor at West Burlington, N. J. Last week he showed them that it...