THE EVOLUTION OF THE BICYCLE.Fig. 1.—The hobby horse or dandy horse, the forerunner of the bicycle, which was patented in France in 1818 by Charles, Baron von Drais. Fig. 2.—The so-called "Bone Shaker" invented about 1865 by Pierre Lallement. Fig. 3.—"Phantom" bicycle introduced in England about 1869, its most important improvement consisting of wire spokes in tension in place of rigid spokes. Fig. 4.—"Bantam" bicycle introduced in 1893. Its peculiarity is an epicyclic gearing through which the wheel is made to revolve more rapidly than the cranks. Fig. 5.—An early safety bicycle introduced in 1876. The crank and lever driving apparatus is similar to that of a machine made by Kirkpatrick MacMillan in 1839. Fig. 6.—"Kangaroo" bicycle patented in England by W. Hillman in 1884. The peculiarity consists in the use of a chain gearing to increase the speed of the wheel. The principle is precisely that of the modern bicycle, though the application of the chain to the front wheel made a cumbersome apparatus.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE BICYCLE.Fig. 1.—The hobby horse or dandy horse, the forerunner of the bicycle, which was patented in France in 1818 by Charles, Baron von Drais. Fig. 2.—The so-called "Bone Shaker" invented about 1865 by Pierre Lallement. Fig. 3.—"Phantom" bicycle introduced in England about 1869, its most important improvement consisting of wire spokes in tension in place of rigid spokes. Fig. 4.—"Bantam" bicycle introduced in 1893. Its peculiarity is an epicyclic gearing through which the wheel is made to revolve more rapidly than the cranks. Fig. 5.—An early safety bicycle introduced in 1876. The crank and lever driving apparatus is similar to that of a machine made by Kirkpatrick MacMillan in 1839. Fig. 6.—"Kangaroo" bicycle patented in England by W. Hillman in 1884. The peculiarity consists in the use of a chain gearing to increase the speed of the wheel. The principle is precisely that of the modern bicycle, though the application of the chain to the front wheel made a cumbersome apparatus.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE BICYCLE.
Fig. 1.—The hobby horse or dandy horse, the forerunner of the bicycle, which was patented in France in 1818 by Charles, Baron von Drais. Fig. 2.—The so-called "Bone Shaker" invented about 1865 by Pierre Lallement. Fig. 3.—"Phantom" bicycle introduced in England about 1869, its most important improvement consisting of wire spokes in tension in place of rigid spokes. Fig. 4.—"Bantam" bicycle introduced in 1893. Its peculiarity is an epicyclic gearing through which the wheel is made to revolve more rapidly than the cranks. Fig. 5.—An early safety bicycle introduced in 1876. The crank and lever driving apparatus is similar to that of a machine made by Kirkpatrick MacMillan in 1839. Fig. 6.—"Kangaroo" bicycle patented in England by W. Hillman in 1884. The peculiarity consists in the use of a chain gearing to increase the speed of the wheel. The principle is precisely that of the modern bicycle, though the application of the chain to the front wheel made a cumbersome apparatus.
The vehicle that effected this sudden eclipse of the bicycle is, as everyone knows, that form of power-driven carriage known in England as the motor car, and in France and America as the automobile. The first form of this vehicle to gain popularity was a tricycle driven by a small steam motor. But almostimmediately the recently devised gas engine was called into requisition, and after that the development of the automobile was only a matter of detail. But, as so often happens with practical inventions, there are disputed questions of priority regarding the application of the gasoline engine to this particular use. The engine itself was perfected, as we have elsewhere seen, about 1876, by the German, Dr. Otto.
It appears that in 1879 an American, Mr. George B. Selden, applied for a patent designed to cover the use of the internal combustion engine as a motor for road vehicles. Owing to technical complications the patent was not actually issued until the year 1895. Meantime at least as early as 1885 Herr Daimler in Germany had used the gasoline motor for the practical propulsion of a tricycle; and not long after that date the right to use his patents had been acquired in France by Messrs. Panhard and Levassor. These men soon applied the Daimler motor to four-wheeled vehicles of various types, and almost at a bound the automobile as we know it was developed. Early in the '90's the custom of having annual road races was introduced, and before the century had closed the automobile was everywhere a familiar object on the roads of Europe and America.
While the introduction of the automobile is thus a comparatively recent event, it should be known that the idea of using mechanical power to propel a road vehicle is by no means peculiar to our generation. Practical working automobiles were constructed long before any person now living was born. The veryfirst person to construct such a vehicle was probably the Frenchman, Cugnot, who manufactured a steam-driven wagon, using the old Newcomen type of engine, in the very year—by a curious coincidence—in which James Watt took out his first patent for a perfected steam engine; that is to say, in the year 1769.
Cugnot's automobile was a heavy four-wheeled affair intended for military service. It actually progressed along the road at the rate of three or four miles an hour. But the problem of carrying fuel and water had not been solved, and either for that reason or because the authorities in charge lacked imagination and did not regard the device as offering advantages over traction by horses, nothing came of Cugnot's effort except the scientific demonstration that the idea of a self-propelled vehicle was not merely the dream of a visionary. A second automobile truck of similar design, made by Cugnot a year or two later, may be seen to this day in the Museum of Arts and Measures in Paris.
A few years later—namely in 1785—an Englishman, William Murdoch by name, whose interest in steam engines is evidenced by the fact that he was in the employ of Bolton and Watt, manufactured a small tricycle driven by a Watt engine. This vehicle, running under its own power, developed a good degree of speed; and had not Murdoch's employers forbidden him to continue his experiments, the practical automobile might perhaps have gained popularity an entire century earlier than it did.
THE EXTREMES OF AUTOMOBILE DEVELOPMENT.At the left, William Murdock's automobile of about the year 1781. Murdock made several experimental models which worked successfully, but strangely enough Bolton and Watt, his employers, discouraged his efforts and induced him ultimately to abandon the invention, which nevertheless had demonstrated the possibility of propelling a vehicle by steam power. At the right, the original model of Richard Trevethick's road locomotive, constructed in 1797. The success of this model led Trevethick to construct a steam carriage which was successfully tried on the roads in England in 1801. The small picture in the upper corner shows the modern craft that is the outgrowth of these crude vehicles—the winning automobile in the Vanderbilt race on Long Island in 1909.
THE EXTREMES OF AUTOMOBILE DEVELOPMENT.At the left, William Murdock's automobile of about the year 1781. Murdock made several experimental models which worked successfully, but strangely enough Bolton and Watt, his employers, discouraged his efforts and induced him ultimately to abandon the invention, which nevertheless had demonstrated the possibility of propelling a vehicle by steam power. At the right, the original model of Richard Trevethick's road locomotive, constructed in 1797. The success of this model led Trevethick to construct a steam carriage which was successfully tried on the roads in England in 1801. The small picture in the upper corner shows the modern craft that is the outgrowth of these crude vehicles—the winning automobile in the Vanderbilt race on Long Island in 1909.
THE EXTREMES OF AUTOMOBILE DEVELOPMENT.
At the left, William Murdock's automobile of about the year 1781. Murdock made several experimental models which worked successfully, but strangely enough Bolton and Watt, his employers, discouraged his efforts and induced him ultimately to abandon the invention, which nevertheless had demonstrated the possibility of propelling a vehicle by steam power. At the right, the original model of Richard Trevethick's road locomotive, constructed in 1797. The success of this model led Trevethick to construct a steam carriage which was successfully tried on the roads in England in 1801. The small picture in the upper corner shows the modern craft that is the outgrowth of these crude vehicles—the winning automobile in the Vanderbilt race on Long Island in 1909.
As the case stands, however, the automobile of Murdochfailed as signally as had that of Cugnot to gain general recognition. But it is quite possible that a knowledge of the device had come to the attention of another Englishman, Richard Trevithick by name, who was at once a practical experimenter of great skill and a man of fertile imagination. Trevithick, himself the inventor of a high-pressure steam engine, adjusted his engine to a large road vehicle, and in the year 1804 exhibited this automobile on the roads of Cornwall, and subsequently in London, where it would probably have made its way had not the inventor been an extremely erratic genius, who presently shut up his coach and turned his attention to another form of vehicle. This, it will be observed, was full twenty-five years before that memorable date on which Stephenson launched his famousRocket. Nothing came of Trevithick's experiment at the moment, beyond the demonstration of a principle—which indeed was much; but it was not long before various other inventors took up the idea, and as early as 1824 a number of automobiles, some of them weighing as much as three or four tons, were in successful operation on the highways of England. Some of these even gave regular passenger service, and attained the unprecedented speed of twelve or fourteen miles an hour. All this, it will be observed, was before the first locomotive running on rails had attracted any attention. Stephenson had indeed begun his experiments, but up to this time they had been confined exclusively to tramways in connection with collieries.
In the year 1829 Stephenson made his famousdemonstrations with theRocket, a locomotive running on rails, which attained a speed of thirty miles an hour, contrary to all the predictions of the wiseacres, who had declared the inventor a lunatic for hoping to attain even ten miles. We have already noted that the railway on which the test was made was not built with the expectation of utilizing steam power, that being regarded as a dreamer's vision. Lord Darlington prevented the construction of the road for a time because it chanced to run near his fox covers; and legislative permission was finally secured only with the proviso that the railway was to avoid the region of the preserves. Stephenson with difficulty secured permission to make an experiment on the railway with his engine, in competition with other would-be inventors; and it was his unexpected success that turned the scale in favor of steam power. But even the startling success of the Rocket did not make a great impression upon the British public, the incident being given but slight notice in the periodicals of the day, and no mention being made of it in theAnnual Register.
All this is of interest as showing the attitude of a conservative public toward the steam locomotive running on a railway, and as partially explaining the antagonism to self-propelled road vehicles which found, most unfortunately, an exponent in no less a personage than the Duke of Wellington, then prime minister. The opinion and attitude of the duke were made evident in 1829, in connection with a steam automobile invented by a Mr. Gurney, which was capable of running on an ordinary road at a rate of at least ten milesan hour. The duke was old, and age had strengthened his inherent conservatism. He lent a ready ear to the claims—largely instigated, no doubt, by persons interested in horse traffic—that the automobile on an ordinary road was a menace to public safety, and no doubt his influence had a large share in helping on the unfavorable public opinion and the adverse legislation which were presently to block the further progress of the motor car.
Doubtless also the amazing success of the railway locomotive tended to attract the attention of the public away from the automobile, and thus made possible the passage of restrictive laws. In any event, the motor car, notwithstanding its demonstrated possibilities, virtually passed from the scene at about the time when the railway locomotive made its spectacular entrance. That public interest in the matter did not subside immediately, however, is evidenced by the fact that such a book as Gordon'sTreatise on Elementary Locomotion by Means of Steam Carriages on Common Roadspassed through three editions between the years 1832 and 1836.
Indeed, notwithstanding legislative rebuffs, here and there an inventor kept up his experiments, and in 1861 the automobile had attained so much prominence as to be given parliamentary attention. Four years later, in 1865, an extraordinary law was passed which deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest monuments of legislative folly ever recorded in connectionwith an economic question. This law provided that, in the case of any locomotive moving on a public highway, the number of persons required to drive the engine should be increased to three, and that the vehicle should be preceded by a man with a red flag.
The latter provision suggests at first sight that the British legislator had here been moved to curiously un-British facetiousness; but there was really no such intent, as another provision of the law, limiting the maximum speed to four miles an hour, sufficiently testifies.
Other laws of similar tenor supported this one, and the validity of these decrees was finally sustained through an appeal to the Court of Queen's Bench, which brought forth the decision that the law applied to every type of self-propelled vehicle from the traction engine to the Bateman steam tricycle. Naturally this decision gave the quietus to automobile—or, to use the more English word, motor car—progress in Great Britain.
AN ENGLISH STEAM COACH OF 1827 AND A NEW YORK TAXICAB OF 1909.The steam coach constructed in 1827 by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was the prototype of several others which entered upon regular and successful service between various English cities, and which are said to have maintained an average speed of about 12 miles and a maximum speed of a little over 20 miles an hour. The above figure reproduced from a contemporary lithograph shows the carriage that operated between London and Bath. It weighed about 2 tons and carried six inside and 12 outside passengers.
AN ENGLISH STEAM COACH OF 1827 AND A NEW YORK TAXICAB OF 1909.The steam coach constructed in 1827 by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was the prototype of several others which entered upon regular and successful service between various English cities, and which are said to have maintained an average speed of about 12 miles and a maximum speed of a little over 20 miles an hour. The above figure reproduced from a contemporary lithograph shows the carriage that operated between London and Bath. It weighed about 2 tons and carried six inside and 12 outside passengers.
AN ENGLISH STEAM COACH OF 1827 AND A NEW YORK TAXICAB OF 1909.
The steam coach constructed in 1827 by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was the prototype of several others which entered upon regular and successful service between various English cities, and which are said to have maintained an average speed of about 12 miles and a maximum speed of a little over 20 miles an hour. The above figure reproduced from a contemporary lithograph shows the carriage that operated between London and Bath. It weighed about 2 tons and carried six inside and 12 outside passengers.
It appears, then, that the idea of an automobile travelling on an ordinary highway preceded that of the locomotive railway. It was, indeed, by far the more natural idea of the two, since tramways were at that time but little used outside of collieries. And it seems scarcely open to doubt that the repressive legislation was directly responsible for deflecting the progress of mechanical invention away from what seemed the more natural direction of development. It is always hazardous in such a case to attempt to guess what might-have-been under different circumstances; but considering the practical results already achieved asearly as 1824, one can scarcely avoid the conviction that had legislation favored, instead of opposing, the inventor, the automobile might have been developed in Great Britain as rapidly as railway traffic; in which event the middle of the nineteenth century would have seen the world at least as near the horseless age as we are in reality at the close of the first decade of the twentieth century. What this would have meant in its economic bearings on civilization during the past fifty years, the least imaginative reader can in some measure picture for himself.
In opposition to this view it might be urged that the real progress of the automobile has taken place since 1885, when the Daimler oil engine was substituted for the steam engine in connection with motor vehicles. But in reply to this it must be remembered that the workable gas engine had been invented as early as 1860, and that the Otto engine, of which the Daimler is a modification, was patented as early as 1876. These developments, it will be noted, took place at just about the time when the new interest in the automobile had been aroused, as evidenced by the repressive British legislation just referred to. It can be but little in question that had the early interest in the British automobile been maintained, inventive genius would long since have provided a suitable motor. There was no incentive for the English inventor during those long years when the automobile was under legislative ban; and in the meantime the idea of the highway automobile seems not to have taken possession of other nations.
When that idea did make its way, it was very soon put into tangible operation, as everybody knows. And the fact that England made no progress whatever in this line until the repressive laws were repealed in 1896, whereas France, Germany, and America had leaped far ahead in the meantime, is in itself demonstrative. Moreover, as regards the question of a motor for the automobile, it should not be forgotten that the steam-engine is by no means obsolete. The victories of Mr. Ross' machine at Ormonde in 1905, and of the Stanley steamer in 1906 (a mile in 28-1/5 seconds), show that steam is distinctly a factor, notwithstanding the popularity of the gasoline engine. The steam motor might have served an admirable purpose until such time as a better power had been developed.
However, it is futile to dwell on might-have-beens. Let us rather consider for a moment the spectacular development of the automobile with particular reference to its striking capacities as an eliminator of space.
A mile in 34-1/5 seconds. That is the automobile record established at Ormonde Beach in January, 1905. The record mile was made by Mr. H. L. Bowden, of Boston, with a machine of peculiar construction. It consisted essentially of two four-cylinder motors adjusted to one machine, giving an engine of 120 horse-power. The machine weighed 2,650 pounds, exceeding thus by more than four hundred pounds the usually prescribed limits of weight. The record, therefore,stood as a performance in a class by itself. But that is something that interests only the specialist. For the general public it suffices that an automobile propelled by a gasoline engine covered a mile in 34-1/5 seconds, or at the rate of one hundred and five miles an hour.
This record was made on Wednesday, January 25, 1905. A little earlier on the same day the previous automobile record of a mile in thirty-nine seconds—made at Ormonde by Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., in 1904—had been twice broken; first by Mr. Louis Ross, who made the mile in his 40 horse-power steam auto of "freak" construction in thirty-eight seconds; and by Mr. Arthur McDonald, driving a 90 horse-power car belonging to Mr. S. F. Edge. Mr. McDonald's record was a mile in 34-2/5 seconds, and this stood for a time as the new record for cars of regulation weight.
It thus appears that Mr. Vanderbilt's record was reduced first by one second, then by 4-1/5 seconds, and finally by 4-2/5 seconds on the same day. Obviously the conditions were peculiarly favorable on that day, or else a very marked improvement in the construction of racing automobiles had taken place within a single year. The latter is doubtless the true explanation, since, according to all reports, the conditions at Ormonde Beach that year were not peculiarly favorable, but rather the reverse. The fact, too, that the five mile record was reduced to the low figure of three minutes seventeen seconds—this also by Mr. Arthur McDonald—on the day preceding that on which themile record was so completely smashed, corroborates the idea of improved mechanism rather than improved conditions. In any event, the jump from 39 to 34-1/5 seconds is a notable one; as will be evident from a simple computation which shows that the record holders of 1905 would have run away from the champion of 1904 at the rate of no less than nineteen feet for each second of the mile.
Let us pass at once—omitting transition stages—from these records to the new mark set on March 16th, 1910, at Ormonde Beach by Mr. Barney Oldfield. Driving a Benz automobile of two hundred horse-power, he compassed the mile in 27.33 seconds. The new record has a peculiar interest, not merely because it is the fastest mile ever made by an automobile, but because it is in all probability the fastest mile ever travelled by a human being who lived to tell the tale. A few unfortunates, falling from balloons, or from mountain cliffs, may have passed through space at a yet more appalling speed; but they lost consciousness, never to regain it, long before the mile was compassed. The automobile driver retains his senses throughout his breakneck mile—they are keenly on the alert indeed—and comes away unscathed to tell the story of what must be a truly thrilling experience.
A RACING AUTOMOBILE.In this 200-horse-power Benz car Barney Oldfield reduced the world's mile record to 27. 33 seconds—a speed of 131.72 miles an hour—and the two-mile record to 55.87 seconds. The mile record was made at Ormonde Beach, Florida, March 16, 1910; the two-mile record at the same place a few days later.
A RACING AUTOMOBILE.In this 200-horse-power Benz car Barney Oldfield reduced the world's mile record to 27. 33 seconds—a speed of 131.72 miles an hour—and the two-mile record to 55.87 seconds. The mile record was made at Ormonde Beach, Florida, March 16, 1910; the two-mile record at the same place a few days later.
A RACING AUTOMOBILE.
In this 200-horse-power Benz car Barney Oldfield reduced the world's mile record to 27. 33 seconds—a speed of 131.72 miles an hour—and the two-mile record to 55.87 seconds. The mile record was made at Ormonde Beach, Florida, March 16, 1910; the two-mile record at the same place a few days later.
Nor is it merely in contrast with other human experiences that the new performance takes on "record" proportions. It is at least doubtful whether any member of the animal kingdom ever passed through a mile of space at such a speed as that attained by Mr. Oldfield. The fastest quadruped on the globe is almostunquestionably the thoroughbred horse. But the fastest mile ever compassed by a horse—Salvator's straightway dash in 1:35-1/2—is a snail's pace in comparison with Mr. Oldfield's speed. Salvator covered a little over fifty-five feet per second; the racing motor covered a trifle over 193 feet—thus gaining 138 feet in each second.
The trotting horse at its best—a mile in 1:58-1/2—is of course much slower still; Lou Dillon's record mile being made at the rate of 44-1/2 feet per second. Dan Patch, the swiftest pacer, in his mile in 1:56 made just one foot per second more than the trotter. Both pacer and trotter, it should be added, made their records with the aid of a wind-shield, without which their best performances are some seconds slower.
If we make comparisons with different varieties of man-made records, we find that the swiftest human runner covers his mile at the rate of about twenty-one feet per second; the skater brings this up to about thirty-four feet; and the bicyclist attains the acme of muscle-motor speed with his eighty feet per second. In the case of the bicyclist, the wind-shield pace-maker on the auto-cycle plays an important part. But even so the cyclist would be left behind one hundred and thirteen feet each second by the flying automobile.
All these types of record maker, therefore, are quite outclassed. If we could not find any real competition for the automobile in the animate world, we must seek it in bird-land. Here, it might be supposed, the space devourer would find a match. But it is not quite certain that such is the case. The old-time books onnatural history tell us, to be sure, of flight speeds that make the new records seem slow. They credited the European swift, for example, with two hundred and fifty miles an hour. But more recent observers, made cautious by the scientific spirit of our age, are disposed to discredit such estimates, which confessedly are little better than guesses.
The only officially timed bird flights are the flights of homing pigeons; and here the record credits the homing bird with only one hundred miles an hour. This means 124 feet a second, as against the motor's 193. According to these figures, the automobile could give the pigeon a start of almost two thousand feet and yet sweep forward and overtake it in its flight, before it passed the mile-post. Perhaps the comparison is not quite fair, since no doubt the pigeon may perform some individual miles of its journey at more than the average speed; but it may well be doubted whether its maximum ever reaches the mile-rate of 27.33 seconds.
It is within the possibilities, however, that some other birds have even surpassed this speed. The falcon, for example, is probably a swifter bird than the pigeon, at least for short distances. Some one indeed has credited the hawks with a speed of one hundred and fifty miles an hour. But this, I feel sure, is a great exaggeration. I once saw a hen harrier pursue a prairie-chicken, without seeming to gain appreciably for a long distance; yet the prairie-chicken is by no means among the speediest of birds. Many of our ducks, for example, quite outclass it; indeed I shouldbe disposed to admit that the teal or the canvasback at full speed might give the automobile a race.
There is, to be sure, one way in which the bird might get the better of a machine, thanks to its capacity to rise to a height. This would be by taking a sloping course downward. The little shore-lark often gives an exhibition of the possibilities open to the bird in this direction. After rising to a cloudlike height it soars about for a time singing, then suddenly sweeps downward, and, closing its wings, launches itself directly toward the earth, falling with meteoric speed till it almost reaches the surface, when it makes a parachute of its wings and swoops away in safety. During this performance the little lark is, I veritably believe, the swiftest-moving animate thing in all the world. But there is a reason why the bird could not increase its speed indefinitely by imitating the lark's feat in a modified form, and this is the obstacle of atmospheric pressure. Air moving at the rate of sixty feet a second constitutes a serious storm; at ninety feet it becomes a tornado, and at one hundred and fifty feet it is a tornado at its worst—a storm that tears up trees and overthrows houses, and against which no man can stand any more than that he could breast the current of Niagara. Now, of course, it is all one whether the air moves at this rate against you or whether you move at a corresponding rate against the air—action and reaction being equal. Therefore a very serious check is put upon the bird's flight; and it is this consideration which makes it seem doubtful whether any bird, except when aided bya strong wind, can attain such speeds as have been suggested.
Of course, atmospheric pressure affects the automobile no less than the bird. In record-breaking speed tests of the automobile, machine and driver are in effect subjected to the influence of a veritable tornado. Theoretically it seems almost incredible that any power could drive a ton of metal against the air at such a speed; practically we see the feat accomplished. But the automobilist has tales to tell of the power of the wind against his face that are easily credible. Even at ordinary speed in a touring-car, as most of us can testify, the wind blows a gale, veritably forcing tears from the eyes of the novice and blowing them back over his ears. To modify the antagonism of the wind, the constructors of racing motor cars adopt a model suggested originally by the body of a bird or of a fish, and long since made familiar by the shipbuilder.
Most of the automobiles, as everybody is aware, are propelled by gasoline engines. This is not their least wonderful feature. To the ordinary observer it seems quite incredible that a little whiff of air mixed with the fumes of a few drops of gasoline should produce a power that can drive pistons with such force as to throw forward what is virtually a bullet weighing more than a ton.
The power that propels this amazing projectile consisted in the aggregate of a few cubic feet of gaseousvapors. The forward motion of the piston sucked a whiff of the gasoline vapor and air into the cylinder; the backward motion of the piston compressed this gas; an electric spark ignited it; the heat of the electric spark enabled the gasoline molecules to unite with the oxygen molecules with explosive suddenness; the conflagration thus started spread instantly to other parts of the compressed gas; the myriad particles of the gas rebounding from one another at inconceivable speed, pressed with the aggregate power of multitudes upon the cylinder, and drove it back with terrific force; then an escape valve opened; the return thrust of the piston drove out the exploded gas, and one revolution of the engine was complete.
Over and over again this cycle was repeated; each revolution requiring for its performance but a bare fraction of the time required to describe it. The thing is simple enough in practice, but it is a marvelous mechanism when you stop to think of it. That such power should be latent in a seemingly harmless whiff of gas is one of Nature's miracles. And that man should have constructed an engine so nicely adjusted in all its parts as to utilize this power is little less than a miracle of mechanics.
A word should be said about another interesting mechanism that pertains not indeed to the speed of the automobile, but to an accurate record of that speed. That is an electrical timing-device with which absolute accuracy of timing is assured. A moment's reflection will show that it would be quite impossible to time the automobile moving at record speed by theold stop-watch method. The nervous impulse through which the mandate of the brain is conveyed to the hand, and thus made to operate on the stop-watch, travels along the nerve of the arm at the rate of not much more than a hundred feet a second. The delay thus involved, added to the time required for the brain itself to act on the message from the eye, is distinctly appreciable, and every one is aware that individuals differ as to their reaction time.
The practical result, therefore, is that timers are often at variance to the extent of as much as two-fifths of a second. Now in two-fifths of a second, as we have seen, the record motor car covers a distance of over 77 feet. Obviously such latitude in measurement could not be permitted. Hence an electric device has been elaborated which tests the speed with absolute accuracy, recording it automatically on a strip of tape. Therefore the fractional seconds are now stated in hundredths instead of in mere quarters or fifths, and we may be confident—as we could not always be regarding the old-time records—that the different fractions of a second represent an actual difference of speed.
It may be of interest to make a further comparison between the speed of the record automobile and the fastest speed ever attained by a railway locomotive—namely, a mile in thirty seconds. The gap is by no means an insignificant one. A mile in thirty seconds means 176 feet a second. This would allow the champion automobile a lead of over seventeen feet each second; and at the end of a mile the locomotivewould be distanced by 1040 feet. It is interesting to visualize the procession that the automobile would leave behind if placed in competition with the various kinds of champions whose feats have been mentioned. As the automobile crossed the line the locomotive would be almost one-fifth of a mile in the rear; 1,900 feet farther back would come the homing pigeon; after a long gap Salvator, the first runner, would come straggling along, having covered little more than one-fourth of a mile; Lou Dillon would be just beyond her first fifth of a mile; the fastest cyclist would be placed between the racer and the trotter; while Hutchins, the swiftest runner at the distance, would have gone only 240 yards from the tape.
For distances greater than two miles, the locomotive record has not as yet been surpassed by the automobile. A locomotive on the Plant system, for example, is credited with a run of five miles in two and one-half minutes (in 1901). But, of course, there is nothing except the mere matter of speed that makes the locomotive engineer's performance comparable to that of the chauffeur. The engineer is driving a machine that runs on a fixed track. He has to do little more than keep up steam and open the throttle. The chauffeur must pick his course, for at any moment a soft spot in the sand may tend to deflect him. How appalling may be the result of a slight deflection with a machine going at great speed has been illustrated by the tragic accidents that have marred the success of many important racing-events, and have led to the oft-repeated question as to whether, after all, such speed tests are worthwhile. It is a question that everyone must answer for himself. The dangers are obvious; but, on the other hand, most athletic competitions have an element of danger; and enthusiasts may well contend that speed tests make for progress, and are largely responsible for the great mechanical improvement that is in evidence.
THEUnited States has been preëminent in the development of street railways of all kinds, from the earliest type of horse-car to the modern city and interurban electric cars. Nevertheless, very few of the great general underlying principles upon which these numerous inventions are based have been discovered upon this side of the Atlantic. American inventors have simply excelled in applying the known general principles to practical mechanisms. But although the American inventors have largely monopolized this field of progress, the names of many Europeans also are connected with it. In several instances these foreign inventors, as naturalized American citizens, have done their work in America, being attracted to this country by the exceptional opportunities offered.
In recent years the city of New York has not shown conspicuous activity in adopting innovations and improvements on its street-railway lines. Nevertheless, New York was the first city in the world to have a passenger street railway. This, built in the early 20's, and running along Fourth Avenue, had rails made of straps of iron laid on stone ties. On this primitive line anomnibus horse-car, called theJohn Mason, was operated. This car was built on the lines of the early railway carriages, having three compartments, with doors opening at the sides. It was, in short, an early type of the side-door cars now used so universally on all European railways. The driver's seat was high in the air as in the case of the ordinary omnibus, and there were seats on the top for passengers.
For several years this primitive road remained the only street railway in existence. But it did not prove a particularly good business venture, and for some time capitalists were wary of investing their money for the construction of other lines. Twenty years later, however, a somewhat similar road, considerably improved, was built on Sixth Avenue. This proved to be a financial success; other lines were soon constructed, and the era of street railways opened.
The great advantage of these horse-car lines over the system of omnibuses then in use lay in the fact that greater loads could be hauled with the same expenditure of horse-power, regardless of weather conditions. The contrast in this respect was particularly marked in American cities where the streets, almost without exception, were badly paved.
By 1850, several cities in the United States had installed street railways; and by 1870 over a hundred lines had been built. Between 1870 and 1890 this number had been increased to over seven hundred, not taking into account the numerous extensions that had been made to many of the older lines.
Even in the early days of street-railway construction the extravagance of the method of horse-power traction was fully appreciated, and the numerous improvements in steam-engines stimulated attempts to adapt the locomotive in some form to city railways. But there were many difficulties in the use of the ordinary, or specially constructed, locomotives in the crowded thoroughfares of the larger cities. It was practically impossible to eliminate their smoke; and their puffing and wheezing, which frightened horses, caused numerous accidents. But even if these defects could be corrected, the locomotive was known to be an expensive form of motive power, when applied to a single short car, carrying at most only a few passengers and making frequent stops, as was necessary in street-car traffic. The inventors, therefore, looked about for other methods of applying steam power. But it was not until 1873 that this idea took the practical form of the cable road, on which single cars could be operated by means of underground cables travelling in slotted tubes, and propelled from a stationary power-plant.
The first practical cable system was made by Andrew S. Hallidie, and his associates, who planned and put into operation the first cable line in San Francisco. It proved to be entirely successful, and was imitated almost immediately in most of the larger cities of the United States, and in some European cities. Within a decade the number of cable railways installed had so reduced the number of horses necessary for operatingstreet-car lines all over the country that there was an appreciable depression in the market prices of such horses.
The importance of this method of transportation is shown in the fact that between the years 1873 and 1890 more than a thousand different patents directly connected with the operation of cable roads were issued by the United States Patent Office. But by 1890 electric traction had become practical, and the issuing of patents for cable lines ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Before the close of the century practically every important cable line in the United States had changed its motive power to electricity. Thus in a brief quarter of a century this method of street-car traction had come into existence, revolutionized all hitherto known methods, and become obsolete.
In most of the earlier attempts to solve the problem of electrical propulsion the motor vehicles were constructed on a self-contained plan—that is, the power was generated on the locomotive itself, just as in the case of the steam locomotive. As early as 1835 Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith of Brandon, Vermont, constructed such a motor operated by cells, and built a small circular railway in Springfield, Massachusetts, on which he drove this electro-magnetic engine. This miniature railroad was of no practical importance, but it has the distinction of being the pioneer electric road.
Shortly after this, Prof. Moses G. Farmer, a distinguished American inventor and investigator, constructed an electro-magnetic locomotive, which drew a little car, and carried passengers, on a track a foot and a half wide. The locomotive used about fifty Grove cells, which developed a relatively small amount of energy at an enormous cost.
"In 1850–51," says Martin, "Mr. Thomas Hall, of Boston, exhibited a small working-motor on a track forty feet long, at the Mechanics' Charitable Fair in Boston, and while this was a mere toy, and used but a couple of cells of battery, it sufficed to illustrate the principles of a motor or locomotive with a single trial car. About this time (1847) an interesting demonstration was also made with a small working-model, one of the features of which has been most instrumental in the success of the modern electric methods, that of the utilization of the track as part of the return circuit for the current. Doctor Colton, once a famous dentist in New York City, and noted for his early application of laughing-gas in that work, was associated with Mr. Lilly in the construction and operation of a small model locomotive which ran around a circular track. The rails were insulated from each other, each connecting with one pole of the battery. The current from the battery was taken up by the wheels, whence it passed to the magnets, upon whose alternating attraction and repulsion motion depended; then it returned to the other rail, connected the other pole of the battery, and thus completed the circuit necessary for the flow of the current. In like manner in a great majority in use atpresent, the current passes from one power-house to circuits of one polarity, through the trolley pole to the motor or electro-magnetic propelling system, thence through the wheels to the track, which completes the circuit by being connected to the other pole or side of the dynamo at the power-house. The principles are obviously identical, but it took more than a quarter of a century to develop the proper method of application in all its details.
"The most serious and sustained attempt in the early period to operate a self-sustained vehicle or car—which would correspond with the storage-battery cars—was that due to Prof. C. C. Page, of the Smithsonian Institution. About 1850, Professor Page devoted considerable time to the development of electric engines or motors, in which the reciprocating action of a system of magnets and solenoids or armatures was applied by crank-shafts to driving a fly-wheel, to which rotary motion was thus imparted. This reciprocal motion, as in steam-engines, was one of the prevailing features of the early electric-motor work in this country and in Europe; but it was not long before its general inapplicability was realized, and it was abandoned for the simpler and more direct rotation of the armature before or between the poles of electro-magnets.
"On April 29, 1857, with an electric locomotive on which he had installed a large reciprocating motor developing over 16 horse-power, Professor Page made a trial trip along the track of the Washington and Baltimore Railroad, starting from Washington. In order to obtain current for energization, the motor wasequipped with one hundred cells of Grove nitric-acid battery, each having as one element a platinum plate eleven inches square, dipped in the acid. Bladensburg, a distance of about five and one-quarter miles, was reached in thirty-nine minutes, and a maximum speed of nineteen miles an hour was attained; the entire trip to and from Bladensburg occupied one hour and fifty-eight minutes. But many disasters happened to the batteries. Some of the cells cracked wide open, and jolts due to inequalities of track threw the batteries out of working order. These experiments must have been extremely costly, and no little discouragement among people in general attended this failure; but Professor Page was not daunted, and for some years continued his work on electric motors, displaying great ingenuity, but not able, apparently, to give up the reciprocating principle."
The invention of the commercial dynamo, shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century, opened the era of practical electric-railway construction on both sides of the Atlantic. The German experimenters, Siemens and Halske, and later the American, Stephen D. Field, paved the way by numerous experiments and discoveries. It was not until about 1880, however, that the idea of using a third rail for transmitting the current was conceived. Hitherto, most of the inventors had attempted to use one rail as a receiving part of the circuit to the motor, the other rail completing the return part of the circuit. And it was several years after the idea of the third rail had germinated before the attempts to utilize one of the traction rails for conveying the current was abandoned.
In 1880, Mr. Thomas A. Edison, at Menlo Park, New Jersey, perfected a series of electric-railway motors and locomotives that were actually employed in hauling freight and passengers. The following year Mr. Edison made a contract with Mr. Henry Villard, which stipulated that the inventor was to construct an electric railway at least two miles and a half in length, which was to be equipped with two locomotives and three cars, one locomotive for freight and one for passengers, the passenger locomotive to have a capacity of sixty miles an hour. It was agreed that if the experiment with this railway proved successful Mr. Villard was to reimburse Mr. Edison for the actual outlay, and to install at least fifty miles of electric road in the wheat regions of the Northwest.
The electric locomotives built by Mr. Edison were constructed along the usual lines of steam locomotives, with cab, headlight, and cowcatcher, the motive power being applied from the motors to the axle by means of friction pulleys. This method was soon abandoned, as the pulleys slipped a great deal before the locomotive actually started. A system of belts which was substituted proved more satisfactory. The current was conveyed to the motor through the track, and was supplied to the road by underground cables connecting from the dynamo-room of Mr. Edison's laboratory. The rails were insulated from the ties by coatings of Japan varnish, and by placing them on pads made of muslin impregnated with tar.
From the very first this road gave promise of success. The tireless genius of Edison was constantly finding and correcting defects, and there was every prospect that in a few months a practical and economical electric railway would be an accomplished fact. Then came the financial crash of the Northern Pacific Railway, involving the fortune of Mr. Villard, and tying the hands of the inventor at Menlo Park for the time being.
The year following, however, Mr. Field and Mr. Edison combined their forces and formed a company for perfecting and constructing electric locomotives and railways. In the same year an electric railway was put in operation at the Chicago Railway Exposition, the chief promoters of this enterprise being Messrs. Field, F. B. Rae, and C. O. Mailloux. In the gallery of the building a circular track, something like a third of a mile in length, was laid, and on this an electric locomotive namedThe Judgehauled a single car which carried over twenty-six thousand passengers in the month of June. In the autumn of the same year,The Judgewas used for hauling passengers on a track at the Louisville Exposition. It was capable of attaining a speed of twelve miles an hour, and its average speed was eight miles. It was twelve feet long over all, weighed something like three tons, and, like Edison's locomotive, was equipped with cowcatcher, headlight, and cab. The current was taken from a surface, or feed rail, by means of bundles of phosphor-bronze wire, so arranged that a good clean contact would be made on each side of the rail whether the car was moving forward or backward.
At the same time an Englishman named Leo Daft, then living in America, was making some important experiments with motors for the purpose of driving machinery, these motors being operated from central power-stations located at distant points. Mr. Daft constructed an electric locomotive, and in November, 1883, constructed what was known as the Saratoga and Mount MacGregor Railroad. This railroad was twelve miles in length and included many steep grades. The locomotive, which hauled a regular passenger-car, received the current from a central rail. The year following Mr. Daft built and equipped a small road on one of the long piers of Coney Island, which carried something like forty thousand passengers in one season. It was an improvement over the Siemens electric railway established in Germany in 1881—which, however, was the first road ever established.
The following year the inventor began the equipment of the Baltimore Union Passenger Railway Company, a line that ran a distance of about two miles and reached an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet above the city of Baltimore. This road was put into regular operation in 1886, and was the second electric street railway in America for carrying on regular passenger service.
The Baltimore Union Railway had several novel and important features, one of them being the equipment of part of the line with an overhead-trolley service, the practical importance of which had been demonstrated shortly before by Van Depoele. The projector, Mr.Daft, also built several other lines in different parts of the country, constantly improving upon his earlier efforts, sometimes using two overhead trolley wires, with two trolley contacts, thus doing away with the use of the track as a means of current supply, or for use as part of the circuit. Although in recent years double overhead trolleys have largely disappeared, some of them are still in use both in America and in Europe.
Van Depoele was a Belgian who had come to America in 1869. Although primarily a cabinet-maker, he had a great liking for the study of electricity, and devoted all his spare time and money to efforts to solve the problem of practical street-car propulsion. In 1883, at the Industrial Exposition at Chicago, he operated a car by electricity, using an overhead-trolley system somewhat similar to Daft's. By 1885, he had made sufficient progress to construct a line one mile long for carrying passengers from the railway station to the Annual Exhibition grounds at Toronto, Canada. On a single track he operated three cars and a motor, carrying an average of ten thousand passengers daily, his train sometimes attaining a speed of thirty miles an hour. For receiving the current he used an underrunning trolley and pole very similar to the form now in common use, this being one of the first instances of employing this particular method of receiving the current. In this system an insulated track was used for returning the current.
Van Depoele's next venture was the equipment of an electric railway at South Bend, Indiana, on which five separate cars were operated at one time—a thing supposedby many to be impossible. The cars of this road were equipped with motors placed under the cars instead of above them, thus saving valuable seating-space. In place of the underrunning trolley and pole, however, the current was taken from the overhead wire by means of a flexible cable. Later Van Depoele invented an underrunning trolley and pole, taking out the original patents. His claims to priority were contested eventually, but they were sustained by the United States courts.
At this time there were at least a score of inventors whose work added something of importance to the solution of the problem of electric traction. But without belittling others, it is probably only justice to say that the work of Frank J. Sprague, a one-time lieutenant in the United States Navy, marks the beginning of the modern era of street railways. In 1888, after a period of struggle and a series of disheartening disasters, Mr. Sprague and his associates opened an electric line for the Union Passenger Railway of Richmond, Va., which "forms a landmark in the history of this industrial development." Over a line of road with grades at that time considered impossible, thirty cars were put into use at the same time, the contract for the equipment calling for its completion in ninety days. The success of this enterprise, when on the opening day more electric cars were operated than in all the rest of America together, settled forever the question of the practicality of electric street railways, as well as many of the questions of the practical application of the current, thanks to Sprague's inventive genius.
This road was an overhead trolley-wire system, with an underrunning trolley held in place by the now-familiar trolley pole. The number of difficulties that had to be solved in perfecting this apparently simple piece of apparatus is shown by the statement of Mr. Sprague that "probably not less than fifty modifications of trolley wheels and poles were used before what is known as the 'universal movement' type was adopted."
In this connection the origin of the word "trolley" is interesting. It seems to have been corrupted from the word "troller" by the workmen of a Kansas City car-line. On this line an overhead wire was used, the travelling carriage taking the current from the wire being known as the "troller." The employees of the road, however, shortly corrupted "troller" into "trolley"; and "trolley" it has remained ever since.
As in the case of Van Depoele, whose perfection of the underrunning trolley was contested legally, Sprague's great contribution to electric traction, the suspension of the motor directly upon the axle, had finally to be sustained by the United States courts. Sprague's method was to hang the motor under the car directly upon the axle, by an extension or solid bearing attached directly to the motor. This plan of constructing the motor, together with numerous other improvements, principally in the direction of lightness, simplicity, and adaptability, soon superseded all pre-existing methods of construction. Thus Van Depoele's method of taking the current from the wire, and Sprague's method of utilizing it in the propulsion of the car, must be regarded as epoch-marking steps in the history of electric traction. Sprague'sinvention demonstrated the validity of his contention, now universally accepted, that motors should be placed under each car instead of being used on locomotives.
From the earliest attempts at solving the question of electric traction, efforts were made to produce some form of storage battery whereby the cars might be made independent of a distant generating plant. The advantages of a self-contained vehicle are so obvious that it is not surprising to find the inventors persistent in their attempts at producing practical cars of this type. Such battery cars would not require the dangerous, expensive, and cumbrous system of overhead wires, or the more sightly but also more expensive system of conduits. With such a system of cars the elaborate mains and feeders for bringing the current to the track from the power-house, and for effecting the return circuit, could be dispensed with. Moreover, the independent action of such cars over a system where the power is furnished from a single source, where the stoppage of the current stops every car along the line, is inestimable.
Between the years 1880 and 1883 many storage-battery cars were built and put in service both in European and American cities. Probably the most important one of these lines was that which was built by the Belgian, Mr. E. Julien, in New York city, in 1887–8. On the Fourth Avenue road something like a dozen storage-battery cars were put in operation for a considerabletime, and later, improved modifications of these cars were operated in Philadelphia under the direction of Mr. Anthony Rackenzaun, of Vienna. But despite the apparent simplicity of the storage-battery idea, innumerable difficulties were perpetually presenting themselves in its practical application. Despite the disheartening results, however, storage-battery cars were not entirely abandoned in practice until 1903, New York city being the last to surrender, as it had been about the last to adopt them.
But in February, 1910, the storage-battery street car again made its appearance on trial in New York—not the old heavy type of unsatisfactory car, but an entirely new and lighter creation of Thomas A. Edison, who had been striving for years to solve the storage-battery problem. This car, which had been tested on the Orange, New Jersey, street-car line on January 20th, 1910, maintained a speed of fifteen miles an hour in actual practice, and ran a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles without re-charging the batteries.
There are some novel features about the car itself, but the all-important one is the peculiar and novel storage battery which it has taken Mr. Edison some nine years to perfect. In an imperfect form this battery was given a trial in 1903, and much was expected of it because it was not only lighter than the usual form of storage battery, but it promised more permanency because an alkali was used in place of an acid as an electrolyte.
In this battery the positive element, which consisted of nickel oxide interspersed with layers of graphite, was packed in perforated nickel tubes. The negative elementwas iron oxide, with potassium hydrate as the electrolyte. This battery showed no bad effects from over-charging or from being rapidly discharged, but it was found that the graphite soon became oxidized and interfered with the working of the battery. This defect was corrected by substituting chemically pure nickel for the graphite, but another was soon discovered. Under the pressure of the oxide of nickel the square tubes containing the nickel were frequently injured so that the powdered nickel oxide was sifted down on the pure nickel layers and insulated them.
The only solution of this difficulty seemed to be to pack the nickel in strong round tubes four inches long and about the size of a lead pencil, the sides of the tubes being finely perforated. But the expense of producing such tubes by ordinary methods was prohibitive. A machine was finally invented, however, which made the tubes economically by using spirally wound ribbons of metal, the edges being fastened together during the coiling process. By the use of these tubes the battery was so far perfected that it was given extensive trials in 1908 on electric vehicles; and as these tests proved satisfactory, Mr. Edison began the construction of a specially designed street car equipped with two 5-horse-power 110-volt motors of very light construction. The car weighs complete about five tons, and the batteries are stored under the seats running along each side.
This car was tested continuously for three weeks on one of the New York cross-town lines and performed its work so satisfactorily and economically that the management of the line decided to give the system a permanenttrial. The regular daily run of this car averaged something over sixty-six miles, but this by no means exhausted the capacity of the batteries; and it is estimated that it could easily have run at least one-quarter farther without re-charging. The surprising feature of these tests was the low cost of running. The total cost of electric power for the day's run was about thirty cents, or 4.3 mills for each mile. The ordinary New York street car costs on an average about five cents per mile for electrical energy; but on the other hand, the carrying capacity of these cars is almost twice that of the Edison car.
The actual cost of running the car, however, was only one of its many advantages. The fact that no underground conduits have to be laid or overhead wires erected and maintained makes the initial cost of installing the line far less than by any other system. The reduction in the cost of maintenance of the line is also an important item, as it is estimated that the cost of repairs on conduit lines is about $15,000 annually per mile.
But the most convincing proof that Mr. Edison has really produced a practical storage battery car lies in the fact that, after testing his car for three weeks in actual traffic, the managers of the street-car line ordered sixteen similar cars for operation over their road.
The introduction of electricity facilitated the construction of monorail systems of roads, which had long been the dream of railroad constructors, since this powercould be applied with so much more flexibility. The defects of the parallel rail system are apparent both in construction of the roadbed and the operating of trains. It is almost impossible to lay and maintain the rails in exact parallels, and even more difficult to keep each rail at the proper height at all points. Both these factors enter very largely into the determination of the speed that a train can make over such tracks, any very great variation from the parallel causing derailment, while slight depressions or elevations of either rail cause violent and dangerous rocking of the cars travelling at high speed.
In any monorail system the first of these difficulties, the deviation of the rail from the parallel, is, of course, eliminated; and it is found that on a single rail the elevations and depressions are not serious obstacles. Moreover, the cost of construction of a single-rail track must obviously be less than for a double-rail track, and the power necessary to operate cars over such a track far less. But until the invention of the gyrocar (which is referred to at length in the following chapter) the methods of balancing the car on a single rail presented difficulties which quite offset the advantages of the monorail system. Some of these methods are unique and a few of them are practical in actual operation.
In Germany a suspension monorail system is in operation, the cars being suspended from an overhead track. But obviously such a system, which requires elaborate and expensive steel trestle-work along every fork of the road, is not adapted to the use of long-distance roads except in thickly populated districts. A less expensiveand highly satisfactory system is the one invented by Mr. Howard Hansel Tunis and used at the Jamestown Exhibition in 1907.
In this system the wheels, arranged in tandem, have double flanges which keep them on the single-rail track, and the cars are prevented from toppling over by overhead guides. These guides must be supported on a frame-work, but as there is little tendency to sway on a single-rail track, they can be relatively light structures. It is the cost of these frames, however, that practically offsets the low cost of road-bed construction, so that, everything considered, the mere matter of initial cost has no very great advantage over the ordinary double-rail road. But the cost of operating is considerably less than the older type, and this road would undoubtedly come rapidly into popularity but for the fact that such gyrocars as the ones invented in England and Germany are self-sustaining on the rail, doing away with the expensive overhead frame-work construction, and are likely to become practical factors in the problem of transportation.
In 1909 an electric aerial monorail up the Wetterhorn in the Alps was put into operation. On this line a car suspended on two cables, one above the other and without supports except at the upper and lower terminals, rises at an angle of forty-five degrees through a distance of 1,250 feet. There are two sets of these cables, each carrying a car so arranged as to work in alternate directions simultaneously, this counter-balancing effecting a great saving in power. The power-plant is located at the upper end of the ascent, and consists of windingdrums actuated by electricity which raise and lower the cars by means of cables. On the cars themselves, therefore, there is no power, but each car is equipped with brakes powerful enough to stop and hold it notwithstanding the steepness of the incline.
There is nothing particularly novel in the principles involved in this aerial road, but it is the first of its kind to be built for passenger traffic. Similar less pretentious roads have been in use for freight transportation for several years. But the success of this road means the building of others on inaccessible mountain inclines where the laying of ordinary roadbeds is out of the question, and the operating of cog roads too expensive.
ONthe 8th of May, 1907, Mr. Louis Brennan exhibited, at asoiréeof the Royal Society in London, a remarkable piece of mechanism, which stirred the imagination of every beholder, and—next morning—as reported by the newspapers, aroused the amazed interest of the world. This invention consists of a car run on a single rail, standing erect like a bicycle when in motion; but, unlike the bicycle, being equally stable when at rest.
It is a car that could cross the gorge of Niagara on a tight-rope, like Blondin himself, but with far greater security; a car that shows many strange properties, seeming to defy not gravitation alone but the simplest laws of motion. For example, if a weight is placed on one edge of the car that side rises higher instead of being lowered.
If you push against the side with your hand, the mysterious creature—you feel that it must be endowed with life—is actually felt to push back as if resenting the affront.
Similarly, if the wind blows against the car, it veers over toward the wind. If the track on which it runs—consisting of an ordinary gas-pipe or of a cable of wire—is curved, even very sharply, the car follows the curve without difficulty, and, in defiance of ordinary laws ofmotion, actually leans inward as a bicycle rider leans under the same circumstances, instead of being careened outward as one might expect.
A curious mechanism, surely, this new car, with its four wheels set in line, bicycle fashion, running thus steadily. But strangest of all it seemed when it poised and stood perfectly still on its tight-rope, as no Blondin could ever do. As stably poised it stood there as if it had two rails beneath it instead of a single wire; and there was nothing about it to suggest an explanation of the miracle, except that there came from within the car the murmur of whirling wheels.
The mysterious wheels in question would be found, if we could look within the structure of the car, to be two in number, arranged quite close together on each side of the centre of the car. They are two small fly-wheels, in closed cases, revolving in opposite directions, each propelled by an electric motor. These are the wonder-workers. They constitute the two-lobed brain or, if you prefer, the double-chambered heart of the strange organism. All the world has learned to call them gyroscopes. The vehicle that they balance may conveniently be termed a gyrocar—a name that has the sanction of the inventor himself.
Let it be understood once for all that a gyroscope is merely a body whirling about an axis. A top such as every child plays with is a gyroscope; a hoop such as every child rolls is a gyroscope; the wheels of bicycles, carriages, or railway-cars are gyroscopes; and the earth itself, whirling about its axis, is a gyroscope. You can make a gyroscope of your own body if you choose towhirl about, like a ballet-dancer. In a word, the gyroscope is the most common thing imaginable. Indeed, if I wished to startle the reader with a seeming paradox, I might say without transcending the bounds of truth that, in the last analysis, there is probably nothing known to us in the universe but an infinitude of gyroscopes—atoms and molecules at one end of the scale; planets and suns at the other—all are whirling bodies. Still there are gyroscopes and gyroscopes, as we shall see.
Now a word about gyroscopic action. If you have rolled a hoop or spun a top you have unwittingly learned some practical lessons on the subject which, had you possessed Mr. Brennan's imagination and ingenuity, might have enabled you to anticipate him in the invention of the gyrocar. Harking back to the days when you rolled hoops, you will recall that the child who most excelled in the art was the one that could make the hoop go fastest. The hoop itself might be merely a wheel of wire, which would fall over instantly if not in motion; but if given a push it assumed an upright position and maintained it with security, so long as it was impelled forward. It seemed able, so long as it whirled about, to defy the ordinary laws of gravity. A bicycle in motion gives an even more striking illustration of the same phenomenon. And best of all, a spinning-top. Everyone knows how this familiar toy, which topples over instantly when at rest and can in no wise be balanced on its point, rises up triumphant when whirled about, and stands erect, poised in a way that would seem simply miraculousto all of us, had we not all spun tops at an age when the world was so full of wonders that we failed to marvel at any of them.
All these familiar things illustrate one of the principles of gyroscopic action which Mr. Brennan has put to account in developing his wonderful car—the fact, namely, that every revolving body tends to maintain its chief axis in a fixed direction, and resents—if I may be permitted to use this expressive word—having that direction changed. The same principle is illustrated on a stupendous scale by our revolving earth, which maintains the same tilt year after year as it whirls on its great journey, notwithstanding the fact that the sun and the moon are tugging constantly at its protuberant equatorial region in a way that would quickly change its direction if it were not spinning.
But note, please, that whereas the whirling body assumes a certain rigidity in space as regards the direction in which its axle points, the mere translation of the body itself through space in any direction is not interfered with in the least, provided the axle is kept parallel with its original position.
You may test this if you like in a very simple way. Remove one of the wheels of your bicycle, and carry it about the room, holding it by the axle while it is spinning rapidly. You will discover that it requires no more force to carry it when spinning than when at rest, provided you do not attempt to tip it from its plane of rotation, but that if you do attempt so to tip it, the wheel seems positively to resist, exerting a force of which it did not show a trace when at rest. A large top, arrangedwithin the kind of frames or hoops called gimbals, if you can secure such a one, will show you the same phenomenon; it will resist having its axis diverted from the direction it chanced to have when it was set spinning.
If you ask why the spinning wheel exerts this power, it may not be easy to give an answer. The simplest things are hardest to explain. No man knows why and how gravitation acts; no one knows why a body at rest tends always to remain at rest until some force is applied to it; nor why when a body is once in motion it tends always to move on at the same rate of speed until some counter-force stops it. Such are the observed facts; they are facts that underlie all the principles of mechanics; but they are matters of observation, not of explanation or argument. And the fact that a revolving body tends to maintain its axis in a fixed position is a fact of the same category.
So far as we can explain it at all, we may, perhaps, say that the inertia which the matter composing the wheel shares with all other matter is accentuated by the fact that its whirling particles all tend at successive instants to fly in different directions under stress of centrifugal force. At any given instant each individual particle tending to fly off in a particular direction may be likened to a man pulling at a rope in that direction.
If you imagine an infinite number of men circled about a pole to which ropes are attached, and evenly distributed, each one pulling with equal force, it will be clear that the joint effort of the multitude would result in fixing the pole rigidly at the centre. The harder the multitude pulled, so long as they remainedevenly distributed about the circle, the more rigid the pole would become. But if, on the other hand, all the men were to stop pulling and slacken the ropes, the pole would at once fall over. The pole, under such circumstances, would represent the axis of the revolving wheel, which acquired increased stability in exact proportion to the increased velocity of its revolutions, and therefore of the increased force with which its particles tend to fly off into space.
But be the explanation what it may, the fact that the axis of a revolving wheel acquires stability and tends to maintain its fixed position in space is indisputable; and it is this fact which determines primarily the action of the little revolving wheels of the gyroscopes that balance Mr. Brennan's car. There are certain very important additional principles involved that I shall refer to in a moment, but first let us glance at the car itself and see how the gyroscopes are arranged. We shall find them fastened within the frame-work of the car, at its longitudinal centre, in such a way that their axles are parallel to the axles of the ordinary car-wheels when the car stands in a normal position. Granted that the gyroscopes are thus transverse and normally horizontal, and at right angles to the track, the exact location of the mechanism within the car is immaterial. But the two gyroscopes must revolve in opposite directions for a reason to be given presently.