The Schneider Water-Filter Wagon.
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Interesting experiments have been carried out during the past week on the banks of the River Seine with a motor vehicle equipped for the purification and sterilization of water. The Otto process was employed and the demonstration given by the Compagnie Generate de l'Ozone. The outstanding feature, of course, from a motor standpoint, is the use of a commercial vehicle, thus making it possible to supply troops with pure sterilized water, although drawn from a river as far lacking in cleanliness as is the Seine at Paris. It was stated that the demonstration vehicle is one to be supplied to the French army and to be used by troops when in the field or when in districts where the purity of the water supply is not beyond suspicion. It is easy to conceive that a vehicle of this nature could render excellent service in supplying sterilized water to villages inadequately supplied by nature. The sterilizing vehicle is a Schneider ; it was on view at the recent Exposition. it has practically the same chassis and motor as those used for the Paris omnibuses. The motor is under the driver's feet, and the big van body is used for carrying the material necessary for sterilizing. For the .tests, the vehicle was drawn up on the river bank near the Alexandre III bridge and a canvas tank was built up on each side. An independent pump, carried on a two-wheel bogey and driven by a small electric motor, draws the water from the river into the tanks, where it is decanted under the action of a coagulant. From these tanks the water is drawn by a pump driven directly off the motor shaft through a filter composed of alternating compressed cotton and asbestos discs, From this point it passes into the ozone sterilizer and is finally collected in two tanks containing 130 gallons each, The engine of this vehicle drives a dynamo on a continuation of its shaft, and a pump is placed immediately to the rear of the dynamo. The two tanks are united by a flexible pipe, the electric motor-driven pump filling the right-hand side one, and the other obtaining its water by gravity. The samples of water appeared to those present at the demonstration to be as pure as any of the famed bottled waters.