"Bottled Sunshine"

Juan J. Tomadelli, of Buenos Aires, purporting to be an eminent electrical engineer, sold stock in his "Electronic Corporation" at $100 a share. He claimed to have invented, in his laboratory at Buenos Aires, a lamp which, by withdrawing energy from the air and bombarding a substance composed of sea salt, tin, copper, asphalt and paraffin, burned continuously for seven months, needed no recharging, and would have burned on till the substance disintegrated, had the laboratory not been destroyed by lightning. Suit was brought against him in the New York State Supreme Court. Many of his statements were proved false or were at variance with known scientific laws. Two disinterested illuminating engineers, Cyprian O. Maillaux and Clayton H. Sharp, after investigating the plant at Harrison, N. J., reported: "Nothing was shown which would convince us that the apparatus has any practical application, or that it has any industrial or commercial value."