Chapter XII: Introduction (5)

There is no way of determining the exact amount of increase in the weight of engines during the last decade, but the figures of some of the great manufacturing establishments will give a fair idea of this increase in a general way. In one of these establishments the average weight of a locomotive turned out ten years ago was 92,000 pounds for the engine alone, without the tender. At the present time the engines being manufactured by the same firm average 129,000 pounds, an increase of 37,000 pounds, or something over forty per cent. This average weight, however, gives but an inadequate conception of the size of the largest locomotives now being manufactured. The "hundred-ton" engine has become a commonplace. In 1909 a locomotive weighing, with its tenders, 300 tons was manufactured for passenger traffic on the Santa Fé lines.

In America there seems to be no limit to the sizes that may be reached; or at least up to the present time this limit has not been attained. In England and several of the Continental countries a great difficulty has been found to exist in the unlimited size of locomotives, in the fact that the bridges and tunnels of these railroads are, almost without exception, so low that any very great vertical increase in the size of the engine is out of the question without reconstructing many miles of bridges and tunnels at an enormous cost.

The increased demand for greater speed has also caused a marked increase in the amount of steam pressure per square inch in the boilers. In 1870 the average was about 130 pounds; by 1890 this had been increased to about 160 pounds; while at the present time steam is used frequently at a pressure of 225 pounds. Naturally this increase in pressure compels the use of heavier steel boiler plates. In 1890 the usual thickness of the steel sheets was one-half inch; but at the present time it is no unusual thing to use plates seven-eighths of an inch in thickness.

But probably the most important improvement in locomotive construction in recent years is the introduction of the compounding principle in the use of steam--a system whereby practically the entire energy of the steam is utilized, instead of a considerable portion of it being a dead loss, as in the older type of engine. As every one knows, the passage of the steam through a single cylinder of an engine does not exhaust its entire energy. In the compounding system this exhausted steam is made to pass through one or more cylinders after coming from the first, the energy of all these cylinders being utilized for the production of power.

The application of this principle of compounding is not new even in the field of locomotive construction. As early as 1846 patents for a compound locomotive were taken out in the United States, and such an engine built in 1867; but it is only since 1890 that compound locomotives have become popular in this country. In these compound locomotives the two cylinders are of unequal diameter, so proportioned "that the steam at high pressure in the smaller cylinder exerts upon the piston approximately the same force that is exerted by steam at a lower pressure in the larger cylinder. Steam is admitted first into the smaller cylinder, where it expends a portion of its initial energy, and then passes into the larger cylinder, where it performs an equal amount of work by exerting a diminished pressure upon a larger surface. This is the principle of compounding, the relative sizes and positions of the cylinders being varied according to the conditions to be met by the engine, or the ideas of the designer or builder, or of the purchaser. While in the marine and stationary engine the compound principle has been carried with success and economy to three and four stages of expansion in the use of steam, it has not been found practicable to go beyond two stages in compound locomotives."

In a pamphlet issued recently by one of the leading locomotive works of the country, some points of interest concerning the compound locomotive were stated concisely as follows:

"In stationary-engine practice the chief measure of the boiler efficiency is the economical consumption of coal. In most stationary engines the boilers are fired independently, and the draft is formed from causes entirely separate and beyond the control of the escape of steam from the cylinders. Hence any economy shown by the boilers must of necessity be separate and distinct from that which may be effected by the engine itself. In a locomotive, however, the amount of work depends entirely upon the weight on the driving wheels, the cylinder dimensions being proportioned to this weight, and, whether the locomotive is compound or single expansion, no larger boiler can be provided, after allowing for the wheels, frame and mechanism, than the total limit of weight permits. The heating surface and grate areas in both compound and single-expansion locomotives of the same class are practically the same, and the evaporative efficiency of both locomotives is chiefly determined by the action of the exhaust, which must be of sufficient intensity in both cases to generate the amount of steam necessary for utilizing to the best advantage the weight on the driving wheels. This is a feature that does not appear in any stationary engine, so that the compound locomotive cannot be judged by stationary standards, and the only true comparison to be made is between locomotives of similar construction and weight, equipped in one case with compound and in the other with single-expansion cylinders.

"No locomotive, compound or single-expansion, will haul more than its adhesion will allow. The weight on driving wheels is the limiting factor in the problem which confronts the locomotive engineer. Power can, of course, be increased by building a larger engine and augmenting this weight but in the present construction of tracks and bridges the limit of driving wheel load has almost been reached. Hence in modern locomotive practice the goal before the designer and engineer is to obtain maximum efficiency for the minimum weight admissible.

"It is not claimed for compound locomotives that a heavier train can be hauled at a given speed than with a single-expansion locomotive of similar weight and class; but the compound will, at very slow speed, on heavy grades, keep a train moving where a single-expansion will slip and stall. This is due to the pressure on the crank-pins of the compound being more uniform throughout the stroke than in the case of the single-expansion locomotive, and also to the fact that, when needed, live steam can be admitted to the low-pressure cylinders."

Of course, the principal reason for compounding the locomotive is to economize steam, and this is unquestionably accomplished; but nevertheless the comparative economy of compound and single-expansion locomotives was for some time a mooted question. Numerous tests have been made with these two classes of engines, and the widest ranges of differences were shown in many instances. In some cases the compounds seem to show a saving of some forty per cent. in fuel; but this is by no means a determinative factor in the daily use of an engine. It is found that repairs on the compound are more difficult to make, and consequently more expensive than on the single-expansion engines; but on the whole it is very generally conceded that the compound saves its owners from ten to twenty-five per cent. over the older type.

The rapid increase of the size, and consequent coal-consuming capacity, of the modern locomotive has added another problem to engineering--that of keeping the yawning maw of the fire-box supplied with coal. There is a limit to the amount of work that the fireman can do, and the great engines in use at present tax even the strongest fireman to the utmost. If the size or speed of locomotives is increased very materially in the future it will be necessary to have two men, instead of one, as firemen, or to use mechanical stokers, or to find some other kind of fuel. In point of fact the mechanical stoker has been recently tried with success, and this will probably help in solving the problem. But there is also the strong probability that the use of liquid fuel will become more and more popular. At the present time many locomotives in the West and Southwest, as well as in Europe and in Asia, have been equipped with burners for the consumption of crude petroleum. No modification in the construction of the locomotive is required for this change of fuel except some slight alteration in the arrangement of the brickwork of the fire-box, and the introduction of the burners. These, however, are simple arrangements that throw into the fire-box, a spray of steam and vaporized oil, which burns freely and generates an intense and steady heat. With this kind of fuel the fireman need not be considered, as the largest engine thus equipped may be "fired" with far less labor than is required on the smallest coal-burning, narrow-gauge locomotive.

THE WESTINGHOUSE AIR BRAKE

The application of steam as a motive power for running trains of cars solved one great problem; but it created another. The second one was the problem of how to stop the trains once they had started. On short trains made up of the light cars used at first, the hand brakes were sufficiently effective for practical purposes. But as trains were increased in length and weight and were run at high speeds, it became imperative to find some means of stopping such trains quickly and with certainty.

With a hand brake working on each pair of trucks, as on passenger coaches, it was possible to make reasonably quick stops when there were enough members of the train crew to work all the brakes simultaneously. But in practice it was found impossible to maintain this ideal condition. For emergency stops the brakemen were summoned by signals of the whistle given by the engineer, and there was necessarily some little interval of time after this signal before the most alert crew could begin the relatively slow process of applying the brakes.

The engineer himself could give valuable aid in stopping the train by reversing his engine, the locomotive acting as a brake to check the oncoming cars. But this check acted only at the forward part of the train, and being applied suddenly, caused the rear cars to rush against the forward cars with terrific force, sometimes driving in the bumpers and wrecking the train. Obviously an ideal system of brakes must be one that acted upon all the cars of the train simultaneously and under control of the engineer; and presently such a system was invented by Mr. George Westinghouse.

Other inventors had tried to produce a practical system of brakes, such as those using steam as a working force, or systems of hand-wound springs; but Mr. Westinghouse utilized compressed air, and from the first his brakes proved effective.

His first air brake, operated successfully in 1869, was the "straight air brake" type--one that has now been replaced almost universally by the automatic. In this brake system there was an air reservoir on the locomotive, and steam was used for making the compression. From this reservoir a line of gas pipe ran through the cab of the engine beneath the tender and under each car, the space between the cars being bridged by rubber tubes and easily-adjusted couplings. This line of pipe, called the train pipe, was connected near the centre of each car with a cylinder which contained a piston with a stem which acted upon the brake shoes by means of a series of levers and connecting rods.

In the cab, placed conveniently for the engineer, was a valve by means of which he could cause the compressed air to flow into the train pipe and thus act upon the brake cylinders of the cars. This could be done gradually for making a slow stop, or with full force as the case required, and the brakes could be released by turning the valve to a point which opened a vent and allowed the air to escape.

The effect of this invention was revolutionary. Stopping the train was no longer dependent upon manual labor applied intermittently at different points, but was placed entirely in the hands of the engineer who applied the required power almost simultaneously at all points along his line of cars. Thus the brakeman was relieved of one of his perilous tasks, which on freight trains took a heavy toll in loss of lives.

This relatively simple, and usually effective, system had two grave defects. The first of these lay in the fact that if there was a leak--even a very small one--anywhere along the line of the train pipe or the brake cylinders, the brakes would not work, the compressed air being exhausted into the atmosphere instead of acting on the brake cylinders. The common accident of having his train "break in two" rendered the engineer powerless to stop the cars, and disastrous "runaways" sometimes resulted. The second defect, which became more and more apparent as the length of trains was increased, was the impossibility of applying the air to the brakes of the rear cars as quickly as to those near the engine, since the compressed air could not travel the length of the train pipe instantaneously, on account of the frictional resistance.

These defects were quickly recognized by Mr. Westinghouse, and in 1876, seven years after he applied his first invention, he produced his automatic air brake which overcame them effectually. In this brake the train pipe and the air reservoir were retained as in the straight air brake system, but in addition each car was equipped with a storage reservoir of sufficient size to supply the brake cylinder. In place of the older arrangement in which the train pipe simply retained air at atmospheric pressure when not in use, the new system kept the air in the train pipe under a considerable pressure at all times when the brake was not in use. And, reversing the conditions of the straight air brake, the engineer in order to apply the brakes let out the air in the train pipe instead of forcing air into it, a "triple valve" on each car performing the work of operating the brake cylinder automatically.

The advantage of this system over the older one is obvious. Whereas the detachment of a portion of the train, or a leak in any part of the air brake system heretofore had left the engineer helpless, exactly the reverse condition was produced in the new system. Any leakage of air, either from a break or a defect, caused every brake on the entire train to be applied to the wheels and brought the train to a stop. Moreover, with the new system it was now possible to equip each car with a valve which would lessen the pressure of air in the train pipe so that the train could be brought to a stop by the trainmen in the rear or intermediate coaches as readily as by the engineer.

This system worked perfectly on passenger trains; but on long freight trains the resistance to the passage of the escaping air through the train tube was so great that if an emergency required the full force of the brake to be applied suddenly, the brakes of the rear cars did not come into use until several seconds after those of the forward cars. The result was that the momentum of the rear cars caused them to strike the forward cars with great violence. But Mr. Westinghouse overcame this defect by an ingenious use of the triple valve mechanism of each car, whereby the application of the emergency brake by the engineer caused the air in the train pipe on each car to be discharged simultaneously into the brake cylinder. In this manner the discharge of air not only allowed the brakes to act, but assisted them in doing so. This was only the case, however, when the emergency application of the brake was made, this system of venting on each car into the brake cylinder not being brought into play when ordinary stops were made. Thus the engineer in this quick-action automatic air brake has really two brakes at his command, one for making ordinary stops, the other for emergencies.

In 1891 a so-called high-speed air brake was perfected, this brake being really a modified quick-action automatic brake. This modification consists of the addition of an automatic pressure-reducing valve connected with each brake cylinder. In the high-speed air brake as applied when the train is running rapidly, the highest possible pressure is applied at once to the wheels, but this pressure is lessened by the automatic pressure-reducing valves as the speed diminishes. This method of applying the brakes is the most effective way of getting the full benefit of their stopping power. This high-speed brake, therefore, represents the highest perfection in train-stopping devices.

We have referred here specifically to the air brake as used on steam railroads. In another chapter the subject has been touched upon in connection with electric railroads. In such brakes the compression of the air is accomplished by electricity instead of steam, but the general principles involved are the same as those just described.

It should not be understood that the Westinghouse air brake was the only one, or the only type of brake, devised and brought to practical perfection. For a time a vacuum brake, which utilized atmospheric pressure, offered keen rivalry. But eventually the type of brake perfected by Mr. Westinghouse, modified in certain details in the various countries of Europe and America, gained precedence, which it still retains.

AUTOMATIC COUPLINGS

The perfection of the air brake removed one great source of danger that menaced the crews of freight trains. There still remained another almost as great, particularly in the matter of maiming its victims, when not actually killing them. This was the old method of coupling freight cars as practiced in America. There were few old-time trainmen, indeed, who could show a complete set of full length digits, the buffers of the old-fashioned couplings being responsible for the lost and shortened members.

The freight brakeman has to make scores of couplings on every trip. And he literally took his life in his hands upon each and every occasion of making a coupling by the old method.

This old form of couplings consisted of two buffers--one on each car--joined together by an iron link about fifteen inches long, a movable pin inserted at either end holding the link in place and thus joining the cars. When a coupling was to be made the brakeman raised the pin in the buffer of the stationary car and tilted it at an angle in the pin-hole at the top of the buffer so that, while it remained raised, the jar of the striking buffers at the moment of coupling caused it to fall into place and complete the coupling. The link was left hanging in the moving car which was being shunted in to be coupled; but in this position the projecting end was so low that it would miss the hole in the opposite buffer, and thus fail to make the coupling, unless raised and inserted just at the moment before the buffers came together.

This raising and inserting of the link was the dangerous part of making a coupling. It could only be done by the brakeman while standing between the cars. And he must raise the link, insert it, and remove his hand in a fraction of a second if the car was moving at a fair rate of speed, otherwise his fingers or hand would be caught between the buffers and crushed. And a crushed hand or arm meant subsequent amputation, for the force of the collision between the buffers crushed the bones beyond repair.

There was a way in which the coupling could be made whereby the hand was not endangered. This was by using a stick for raising and guiding the link into the buffer. Some railroads at first furnished sticks for this purpose. But no brakeman would stoop to use them. Had he done so he would have been hooted and jeered off the road by his train mates. And so his pride made him risk his limbs and his life, and fostered the recklessness of the old-time brakeman.

But in 1879 Mr. Eli Janney, of Pittsburg, patented an automatic car-coupler that was both simple and effective; and in 1887 the Master Car Builders' Association accepted this type of coupler. A little later the U. S. Government, influenced by the appalling loss of life among the brakemen, passed laws compelling all cars to be equipped with some form of automatic coupling device, and naturally the Janney coupling was the one adopted. In using this coupling the brakeman did not have to step into the dangerous position between the cars, either for making the coupling, or disconnecting the car. The act of coupling was done automatically, while the uncoupling was effected by the use of a lever operated from the side of the car.

A somewhat technical description of this coupling is as follows:

"The Janney coupling consists of a steel jaw fitted on one side with a knuckle or L-shaped lever turning on a vertical pin; this knuckle when being swung inward lifts a locking pin which subsequently drops and so prevents the return of the knuckle. An identical coupler is fitted to the end of the adjacent vehicle, and, so long as both or either of the knuckles are open when the vehicles come into contact, coupling will be effected; to uncouple, it is only necessary to raise either of the locking pins, by means of a chain or lever at the side of the vehicle. The knuckles have each a hole in them to permit of the use of the old link and pin coupler, when such a fitting is met with. At first, this coupling gave some trouble through the locking pins occasionally creeping upward, but in the larger model, which represents the later form, there is an automatic locking pawl that prevents this motion; owing, however, to the pawl being attached to the lifting shackle, it in no way interferes with the pin being raised when disconnecting."

Even before the invention of the Janney coupling a semi-automatic coupling device had been used extensively on passenger cars. But this device which in effect was that of two crooked fingers hooked together, allowed the ends of the coaches to swing and roll in a manner most disagreeable to many passengers. The Janney couplings corrected this, since these couplings in their improved form hold the ends of the cars as in a vice.

A COMPARISON--THE OLD AND THE NEW

Stephenson's locomotive and its tender, when loaded to full capacity with fuel and water, weighed seven and three-quarter tons. The locomotive itself was a trifle over seven feet long. In 1909 the Southern Pacific Railway purchased a Mallet Compound locomotive which, with its tender, weighs three hundred tons, or approximately forty times the weight of the little _Rocket_. This great locomotive is over sixty-seven feet long, or some nine times the length of the _Rocket_, and will haul more than twelve hundred tons back of the tender.

The lower figure represents a longitudinal section of a modern French locomotive, for comparison with the sections of the famous engines of 1829. The weight of the "Rocket," with its four-wheel tender which carried 264 gallons of water and 450 pounds of coke was 4¼ tons. The French locomotive with its tender in working order, carrying 3300 gallons of water and five tons of coal, weighs 99 tons, and the length of the engine and tender is 56.3 feet.]

The cylinders of the _Rocket_ were eight inches in diameter, with a seventeen inch stroke; the high-pressure cylinders of this Mallet locomotive are twenty-six inches in diameter, and the low-pressure cylinders are forty inches. But curiously enough the driving wheels of the two engines show little discrepancy, those of the _Rocket_ being fifty-six inches in diameter, as against fifty-seven for those of the larger engine. The total heating surface of the _Rocket_ was one hundred and thirty-eight square feet, that of the new locomotive 6,393 square feet. To heat this great surface oil is used for fuel, so that the task for the fireman is lighter than on many locomotives less than one-half the size.

On this locomotive there are two sets of cylinders driving two sets of driving wheels on each side, making a total of sixteen drivers in all. From the size of these drivers it is evident that the engine is designed for strength rather than speed, although of course relatively high speed can be attained if desired. On the section of road over which it operates there is a maximum grade of one hundred and sixteen feet per mile, and it was for negotiating such grades with full loads that the locomotive was designed.

V

FROM CART TO AUTOMOBILE

The use of the wheel as a means of reducing friction dates from prehistoric times. The introduction of this device must have marked a veritable revolution in transportation, 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 time immemorial, and that sundry very ancient pictures and sculptures of the Egyptians and Babylonians prove that these peoples were entirely familiar with wheeled vehicles.

The earliest form of wheel was doubtless a solid disk, and such a wheel is still in use in many places in the East; but the wheels of the Assyrian chariot were spoked after the modern fashion, and provided with 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 vehicles; but the reduction is not very obvious unless the roads are tolerably good, nor is it probable that the ancient nations could readily have measured the effect even had the idea of springs suggested itself.

As regards good roads, these are, to be sure, no modern invention, since the Romans had carried the art of road-building to a very high degree of perfection. The integrity of the Roman Empire depended very largely upon the highways that linked all parts of its circumference with the Imperial centre; and in a perfectly literal 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 centuries before by the Roman occupants. It was not until well toward the close of the eighteenth century that Macadam and Telford devised methods of road-making whereby broken stone and gravel, pounded to form a smooth surface, gave the modern world roadbeds that were in any way comparable to those early ones of the Romans.

This development of road-building corresponded, naturally enough, with an advance in the art of carriage building, and the increased popularity of stage coaches. We are told that about 1650 the average rate of speed of the stage wagons 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. After about the year 1836, however, the stage coach was rapidly displaced by the steam railway, and the interest in roadbeds somewhat abated until brought again prominently to public attention by the users of bicycles and automobiles.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BICYCLE

It is rather surprising to learn that in point of time the automobile antedates the bicycle. Yet such, as we shall see in a moment, is the fact. Every one is aware, however, that the bicycle came into popularity at a time when the very existence 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 were so long delayed in making their way to public favor. There were, however, sundry very practical obstacles placed in the way of the larger vehicle; and the bicycle was not at first a device calculated to prove attractive to the average wayfarer.

For a brief period about 1820 the hobby horse was very popular with English dandies. Our illustration reproduces a contemporary print. The (1909) motor cycle shown in the small picture is compassing a mile in 40 seconds.]

The very earliest bicycle appears to have been the so-called hobby horse or dandy horse introduced about the year 1818 by Baron von Drais in France. It was a primitive vehicle, the user of which half rode and half ran, propulsion being effected 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 occasion coast down hill or on a level surface when considerable momentum had been acquired, and supports for his feet were provided to facilitate this end. At first the machine promised to become popular, but it was soon ridiculed out of court.

Something like twenty years later--that is to say about the year 1840--a treadle-bicycle was invented by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, an English blacksmith. The machine did not become popular, however, and it was not until simple cranks were fitted to the front wheel of the bicycle that this form of vehicle came into anything like general use. This very simple expedient was first suggested, seemingly, 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, and it was not until 1888 that the Irishman, Mr. J. B. Dunlap, introduced the pneumatic tire. Meantime the geared bicycle, with which every one is nowadays familiar, had been introduced in 1879 by Mr. H. J. Lawson and brought to the familiar form of the "safety" in 1885 by Mr. Starley. The combination of low wheels geared to any desired speed with pneumatic tires was the finishing stroke.

The problem of making the bicycle a relatively speedy vehicle had indeed been solved by the use of a large wheel--sometimes sixty inches in diameter--operated by a simple crank after the manner of the early machine of Lallament; but while bicycles of this type attained a considerable measure of popularity, the danger of taking a "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 introduction in perfected form, with pneumatic tires, it had made an appeal to which all the world responded. For a few years the safety bicycle was the most conspicuous of vehicles on every country road, and partisans of outdoor life believed that the health and stamina of the generation were to be increased immensely by the new vehicle.

Nor were these anticipations altogether visionary, as undoubtedly the bicycle did do much to improve the average health of nearly all classes of citizens. 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 which was to lead to its practical abandonment by the great mass of people for whom it might have been supposed to afford a means of permanent recreation.

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 COMING OF THE AUTOMOBILE

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 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 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 very first 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.

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 Murdoch failed 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 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, 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 famous demonstrations with the _Rocket_, 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 the _Annual 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 miles an 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's _Treatise on Elementary Locomotion by Means of Steam Carriages on Common Roads_ passed through three editions between the years 1832 and 1836.

AN EXTRAORDINARY PIECE OF LEGISLATION

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 connection with 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.

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 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 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.

SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF AUTOMOBILE RACING

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 the mile 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.

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 almost unquestionably the thoroughbred horse. But the fastest mile ever compassed by a horse--Salvator's straightway dash in 1:35½--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 1:58½--is of course much slower still; Lou Dillon's record mile being made at the rate of 44½ 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 on natural 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.