Every-day Science: Volume VII. The Conquest of Time and Space

n, but unfortunately we have no means of knowing in what age or country the innovation was effected. We only know that the Chinese have used wheelbarrows and carts from ti

h rims of metal. The introduction of the wagon spring, however, was a comparatively modern innovation. The use of springs very considerably reduces the resistance, thus adding to the efficiency of wheeled vehi

iteral sense all its roads led to Rome. The Roman roadbed was constructed of several layers of stone, and it was one of the most resistant and permanent structures ever devised. As late as the sixteenth century of our era there were no roads worthy of the name in England except the remains of those constructed many cent

agons in England was only four miles an hour; whereas the stage coaches moved over the improved roadbeds of the nineteenth century at an average speed of about eight miles an hour, which was sometimes increased to eleven miles. Af

PMENT OF T

of the automobile had been practically forgotten, and that subsequently it lost its popularity almost over night when the automobile came to its own. Viewing the subject retrospectively, perhaps the most singular thing is that both vehicles wer

0 CONTRASTED WITH THE

sh dandies. Our illustration reproduces a contemporary print. The (1909)

simply by thrusting the feet against the ground. In effect the rider of the hobby horse ran with a stride greatly lengthened through the partial support afforded by the saddle, and with correspondingly increased speed. He could, of course, on

ngly, by Pierre Lallament, a Frenchman, in 1866. His machine came to be known in England as the bone shaker, and doubtless it deserved its name, for as yet neither the wire suspension wheel nor the rubber tire had been invented. Both these improvements were quickly introduced, however; the suspension wheel by Mr. E. A. Cowper, in 1868. The first rubber tires, used about 1870, were solid,

"header" on encountering any obstacle in the road was one that seemed to the average person to out-measure the pleasure or benefit to be derived from rapid transit thus attained. The safety bicycle, however, practically eliminated this danger. It was, moreover, comparatively easy to balance; and not long after its introductio

s. But its popularity was too suddenly acquired to be permanent, and at the very moment when it was most used, another vehicle was suddenly developed wh

TION OF T

es 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

G OF THE

opularity was a tricycle driven by a small steam motor. But almost immediately 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 happ

ly 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

. Practical working automobiles were constructed long before any person now living was born. The very first person to construct such a vehicle was probably the Frenchman, Cugnot, who manufactured a steam-

nd 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 th

lton 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 Mu

OF AUTOMOBILE

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

, 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 famous Rocket. 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, an

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 th

pinion 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 miles an hour. The duke was old, and age had strengthened his inherent conservatism. He lent a ready ear to the claims-larg

ar, 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 im

NARY PIECE O

ater, in 1865, an extraordinary law was passed which deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest monuments of legislative folly ever recorded in connection with an economic question. This law provided th

d to curiously un-British facetiousness; but there was really no such intent, as another pr

n's Bench, which brought forth the decision that the law applied to every type of self-propelled vehicle from the traction engine to the Batem

CH OF 1827 AND A NEW

glish 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 reprodu

way 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 as early 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

o 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 intere

ed 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

der for a moment the spectacular development of the automobile with par

PECTS OF AUTO

r 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

rbilt, 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 McD

ue 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 the mile record was so completely s

y 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 appa

NG AUT

-a speed of 131.72 miles an hour-and the two-mile record to 55.87 seconds. The mile record was mad

e at such a speed as that attained by Mr. Oldfield. The fastest quadruped on the globe is almost unquestionably the thoroughbred horse. But the fastest mile ever compassed by a horse-Salvator's straightway dash in

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 tr

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 wi

rer would find a match. But it is not quite certain that such is the case. The old-time books on natural history tell us, to be sure, of flight speeds that make the new records seem slow. They credited the European swift,

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 n

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 pr

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

n 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,

TRANSFORMAT

the ordinary observer it seems quite incredible that a little whiff of air mixed with the fumes of a few drops of gasoline shou

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

e 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 Na

ow that it would be quite impossible to time the automobile moving at record speed by the old 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

ously 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

e end of a mile the locomotive would 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

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 h