Chapter II: Part 2

There can be no doubt that many of these systems have been stimulated into life or into renewed vigor by the success of ‘Christian Science’; this is particularly noticeable in the introduction of absent treatment as a plank in their diverse platforms. This ingenious method of restoring the health of their patients and their own exchequers appealed to all the band of healing occultists from Spiritualist to Vibrationist, as easily adaptable to their several systems. In much the same way Mesmer, more than a hundred years ago, administered to the practice which had exhausted the capacity of his personal attention by magnetizing trees and selling magnetized water. The absent treatment represents the occult ‘extension movement’; and unencumbered by the hampering restrictions of physical forces, superior even to wireless telegraphy, carries its influence into the remotest homes. From ocean to ocean and from North to South these absent healers set apart some hour of the day when they mentally convey their healing word to the scattered members of their flock. On the payment of a small fee you are made acquainted with the ‘soul-communion time-table’ for your longitude and may know when to meet the healing vibrations as they pass by. Others disdain any such temporal details and assure a cure merely on payment of the fee; the healer will know sympathetically when and how to transmit the curative impulses. Poverty and bad habits as well as disease readily succumb to the magic of the absent treatment. Here is the hysterical edict of one of them: ‘Join the Success Circle.’ ... “The Centre of that Circle is my omnipotent WORD. Daily I speak it. Its vibrations radiate more and more powerfully day by day.... As the sun sends out vibrations ... so my WORD radiates Success to 10,000 lives as easily as to one.”

It is impossible to appreciate fully the extravagances of these occult healers unless one makes a sufficient sacrifice of time and patience to read over a considerable sample of the periodical publications with which American occultism is abundantly provided. And when one has accomplished this task he is still at sea to account for the readers and believers who support these various systems so undreamt of in our philosophy. It would really seem that there is no combination of ideas too absurd to fail entirely of a following. Carlyle without special provocation concluded that there were about forty million persons in England, mostly fools; what would have been his comment in the face of this vast array of human folly! If it be urged in rejoinder that beneath all this rubbish heap a true jewel lies buried, that the wonderful cures and the practical success of these various systems indicate their dependence upon an essential and valuable factor in the cure of disease and the formation of habits, it is possible with reservation to assent and with emphasis to demur. Such success, in so far as it is rightly reported, exemplifies the truly remarkable function of the mental factor in the control of normal as of disordered physiological functions. This truth has been recognized and utilized in unobtrusive ways for many generations, and within recent years has received substantial elaboration from carefully conducted experiments and observations. Specifically the therapeutic action of suggestion, both in its more usual forms and as hypnotic suggestion, has shown to what unexpected extent such action may proceed in susceptible individuals. The well-informed and capable physician requires no instruction on this point; his medical education furnishes him with the means of determining the symptoms of true organic disorder, of functional derangement and of the modifications of these under the more or less unconscious interference of an unfortunate nervous system. It is quite as human for the physician as for other mortals to err, and there is doubtless as wide a range among them as among other pursuits, of ability, tact and insight. ‘But when all is said and done’ the fundamental fact remains that the utilization of the mental factor in the alleviation of disease will be best administered by those who are specifically trained in the knowledge of bodily and mental symptoms of disease. Such application of an established scientific principle may prove to be a jewel of worth in the hands of him who knows how to cut and set it. The difference between truth and error, between science and superstition, between what is beneficent to mankind and what is pernicious, frequently lies in the interpretation and the spirit as much as or more than in the fact. The utilization of mental influences in health and disease becomes the one or the other according to the wisdom and the truth and the insight into the real relations of things that guide its application. As far removed as chemistry from alchemy, as astronomy from astrology, as the doctrine of the localization of function in the brain from phrenology, as ‘animal magnetism’ from hypnotic suggestion, are the crude and perverse notions of Christian Scientist or Metaphysical Healer removed from the rational application of the influence of the mind over the body.

The growth and development of the occult forms an interesting problem in the psychology of belief. The motives that induce the will to believe in the several doctrines that have been passed in review are certainly not more easy to detect and to describe than would be the case in reference to the many other general problems--philosophical, scientific, religious, social, political or educational--on which the right to an opinion seems to be regarded as an inalienable heritage of humanity or at least of democracy. Professor James tells us that often “our faith is faith in some one else’s faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.” Certainly the waves of popularity of one cult and another reflect the potent influence of contagion in the formation of opinion and the direction of conduct. When we look upon the popular delusions of the past through the achromatic glasses which historical remoteness from present conditions enables us to adjust to our eyes, we marvel that humanity could have been so grossly misled, that obvious relations and fallacies could have been so stupidly overlooked, that worthless and prejudiced evidence could have been accepted as sound and significant. But the opinions to which we incline are all colored o’er with the deep tinge of emotional reality, which is the living expression of our interest in them or our inclination toward them. What they require is a more vigorous infusion of the pale cast of thought; for the problem of the occult and the temptations to belief which it holds out are such as can be met only by a vigorous and critical application of a scientific logic. As logical acumen predominates over superficial plausibility, as belief comes to be formed and evidence estimated according to its intrinsic value rather than according to its emotional acceptability, the propagandum of the occult will meet with greater resistance and aversion.

The fixation of belief proceeds under the influence of both general and special forces; the formation of a belief is at once a personal and a social reaction--a reaction to the evidence which recorded and personal experience presents and to the beliefs current in our environment, and this reaction is further modified by the temperament of the reagent. And although individual beliefs, however complex, are neither matters of chance nor are their causes altogether past finding out, yet some of their contributing factors are so vague and so inaccessible that they are most profitably considered as particular results of more or less clearly discerned general principles; and in many respects there is more valid interest in the general principles than in the particular results. It is interesting and it may be profitable to investigate why this area is wooded with oak and that with maple, but it is somewhat idle to speculate why this particular tree happens to be a maple rather than an oak, even if it chances to stand on our property, and to have an interest to us beyond all other trees. It is this false concentration of the attention to the personal and individual result that is responsible for much unwarranted belief in the occult. It is likely that no single influence is more potent in this direction than this unfortunate over-interest in one’s own personality and the consequent demand for a precise explanation of one’s individual experiences. This habit seems to me a positive vice, and I am glad to find support in Professor James: “The chronic belief of mankind that events may happen for the sake of their personal significance is an abomination.” Carried over to the field of subjective experiences, this habit sees in coincidences peculiarly significant omens and portents, not definitely and superstitiously, it may be, but sufficiently to obscure the consideration of the experience in any other than a personal light. The victim of this habit will remain logically unfit to survive the struggle against the occult. Only when the general problem is recognized as more significant for the guidance of belief than the attempted explicit personal explanations will these problems stand out in their true relations. It is interesting to note that the partaking of mince-pie at evening may induce bad dreams, but it is hardly profitable to speculate deeply why my dream took the form of a leering demon with the impolite habit of squatting on my chest. The stuff that dreams are made of is not susceptible of that type of analysis. The most generous allowance must be made for coincidences and irrelevancies, and it must be constantly remembered that the obscure phenomena of psychology, and, indeed, the phenomena of more thoroughly established and intrinsically more definite sciences, cannot be expected to pass the test of detailed and concrete combinations of circumstances. In other classes of knowledge the temptation to demand such explicit explanations of observations and experiences is not so strong because of the absence of an equally strong personal interest; but that clearly does not affect the logical status of the problem. The reply to this argument I can readily anticipate; and I confess that my admiration of Hamlet is somewhat dulled by reason of that ill-advised remark to Horatio about there being more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. The occultist always seizes upon that citation to refute the scientist. He prints it as his motto on his books and journals, and regards it as a slow poison that will in time effect the destruction of the rabble of scientists and reveal the truth of his own Psycho-Harmonic Science or Heliocentric Astrology. It is one thing to be open-minded and to realize the incompleteness of scientific knowledge and to appreciate how often what was ignored by one generation has become the science of the next; and it is a very different thing to be impressed with coincidences and dreams and premonitions, and to regard them as giving the keynote to the conceptions of nature and reality, and to look upon science as a misdirected effort. Such differences of attitude depend frequently upon a difference of temperament as well as upon intellectual discernment; the man or the woman who flies to the things not dreamt of in our philosophy quite commonly does not understand the things which our philosophy very creditably accounts for. The two types of mind are different, and (I am again citing Professor James) “the scientific-academic mind and the feminine-mystical mind shy from each other’s facts just as they fly from each other’s temper and spirit.”

Certain special influences combine with these fundamental differences of attitude to favor the spread of belief in the occult; and of these the character of the beliefs as of the believers furnish some evidence. At various stages of the discussion I have referred to the deceptive nature of the argument by analogy; to the dominating sympathy with a conclusion and the resulting assimilation and overestimation of apparent evidence in its favor; to the frequent failure to understand that the formation of valid opinion and the interpretation of evidence in any field of inquiry require somewhat of expert training and special aptitude, obviously so in technical matters, but only moderately less so in matters misleadingly regarded as general; to bias and superstition, to the weakness that bends easily to the influences of contagion, to unfortunate educational limitations and perversions and, not the least, to a defective grounding in the nature of scientific fact and proof. The mystery attaching to the behavior of the magnet led Mesmer to call his curative influence ‘animal magnetism’--a conception that still prevails among latter-day occultists. The principle of sympathetic vibration, in obedience to which a tuning-fork takes up the vibrations of another in unison with it, is violently transferred to imaginary brain vibrations and to still more imaginary telepathic currents. The X-ray and wireless telegraphy are certain to be utilized in corroboration of unproven modes of mental action, and will be regarded as the key to clairvoyance and rapport, just as well-known electrical phenomena have given rise to the notions of positive and negative temperaments and mediumistic polar attraction and repulsion. All this results from the absurd application of analogies; for analogies even when appropriate are little more than suggestive or at least corroborative of relations or conceptions which owe their main support to other and more sturdy evidence. Analogy under careful supervision may make a useful apprentice, but endless havoc results when the servant plays the part of the master.

No better illustrations could be desired of the effects of mental prepossession and the resulting distortion of evidence and of logical insight, than those afforded by Spiritualism and Christian Science. In both these movements the assimilation of a religious trend has been of inestimable importance to their dissemination. Surely it is not merely or mainly the evidences obtainable in the séance chamber, nor the irresistible accumulation of cures by argument and thought-healings, that account for the organized gatherings of Spiritualists and the costly temples and thriving congregations of Christ Scientist. It is the presentation of a practical doctrine of immortality and of the spiritual nature of disease in conjunction with an accepted religious system, that is responsible for these vast results. The ‘Key to the Scriptures’ has immeasurably reinforced the ‘Science and Health,’ and brought believers to a new form of Christianity who never would have been converted to a new system of medicine presented on purely intellectual grounds. Rationality is doubtless a characteristic tendency of humanity, but logicality is an acquired possession and one by no means firmly established in the race at large. So long as we are reproved by the discipline of nature and that rather promptly, we tend to act in accordance with the established relations of things; and that is rationality. But the more remote connections between antecedent and consequent and the development of habits of thought which shall lead to reliable conclusions in complex situations; and again, the ability to distinguish between the plausible and the true, the firmness to support principle in the face of paradox and seeming non-conformity, to think clearly and consistently in the absence of the practical reproof of nature--that is logicality. It is only as the result of a prolonged and conscientious training aided by an extensive experience and a knowledge of the historical experience of the race, that the inherent rational tendencies develop into established logical habits and principles of belief. For many this development remains stunted or arrested; and they continue as children of a larger growth, leaning much on others, rarely venturing abroad alone and wisely confining their excursions to familiar ground. When they unfortunately become possessed with the desire to travel, their lack of appreciation of the sights which their journeys bring before them gives to their reports the same degree of reliability and value as attaches to the much ridiculed comments of the philistine _nouveaux riches_.

For these sufficient reasons it is Utopian to look forward to the day when the occult shall have disappeared, and the lion and the lamb shall feed and grow strong on the same nourishment. Doubtless new forms and phases of the occult will arise to take the place of the old as their popularity declines; and the world will be the more interesting and more characteristically a human dwelling-place for containing all sorts and conditions of minds. None the less it is the plain duty and privilege of each generation to utilize every opportunity to dispel error and superstition, and to oppose the dissemination of irrational beliefs. It is particularly the obligation of the torch-bearers of science to illuminate the path of progress and to transmit the light to their successors with undiminished power and brilliancy; this flame must burn both as a beacon-light to guide the wayfarer along the highways of advance and as a warning against the will-of-the-wisps that shine seductively in the bye-ways. The safest and most efficient antidote to the spread of the pernicious tendencies inherent in the occult lies in the cultivation of a wholesome and whole-souled interest in the genuine and profitable problems of nature and of life, and in the cultivation with it of a steadfast adherence to common sense and to a true logical perspective of the significance and value of things. These qualities, fortunately for our forefathers, are not the prerogative of the modern; and, fortunately for posterity, are likely to remain characteristic of the scientific and antagonistic to the occult.

BIRDS AS FLYING MACHINES.

BY FREDERICK A. LUCAS.

From the day of Solomon onward the way of a bird in the air has been a subject of general interest, and the attention given to the problem of aerial navigation of late years has caused the flight of birds to be carefully studied in the hope that it might throw some light on the subject. There have been many conceptions, not to say misconceptions, regarding the flight of birds; it has been assumed that their muscles exerted a power quite beyond that of other animals, that the air sacs of some birds and the hollow bones of others gave them a degree of lightness quite unattainable by the use of ordinary materials, while some have even gone so far as to suggest the presence of some mysterious power, something like Stockton’s negative gravity, whereby birds could set at naught the law of gravitation and rise at will like a balloon. The strength of a bird’s muscles, of some birds’ muscles at least, is not to be underrated; a hawk will plant its talons in a bird of nearly its own size and weight and bear the victim bodily away, and an osprey will carry a fish for a long distance. But a tiger has been known to fell a bullock with a single blow of the paw, to carry a man as a cat would carry a rat and to drag an Indian buffalo heavier than himself. On the other hand, some of the petrels, birds which can pass a day or so on the wing with ease, cannot rise from the water after a hearty meal, and the humming-bird, unsurpassed in aerial evolutions, may be trapped in a spider’s web. This shows no great power, and long ago Marey found that the pulling force of a hawk’s great breast muscle, applied through the humerus, amounted to 1,298 grams per square centimeter, something like seven pounds to the square inch; not a very heavy pull. So it seems fair to assume that while the power exerted by a bird is great, it is very far from marvelous, probably far less in proportion to size than the engine of Maxim’s great aeroplane, or the naphtha motor of Professor Langley, which weighs less than ten pounds per horse power. We may get a fair idea of what this means by remembering that a bald eagle weighs from nine to fifteen pounds and that he exerts but a small fraction of a horse power.

Turning to the question of the part played by the air sacs it may be said that their value is not proved; some of the fastest birds get along without them, while birds of the most labored flight are sometimes well provided. In birds like the gannet and brown pelican the air sacs and cellular tissue about the body undoubtedly serve as buffers to break the shock of a headlong plunge into the water from a height of a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet. Or, again, they equalize the internal and external pressure when a soaring bird drops suddenly from a great height, or still more often aid in oxygenating the blood.

The hollow bones of birds are frequently cited as beautiful instances of providential mechanics in building the strongest and largest possible limb with the least expenditure of material, and this is largely true. And yet birds like ducks, which cleave the air with the speed of an express train, have the long bones filled with marrow or saturated with fat, while the lumbering hornbill that fairly hurtles over the tree tops has one of the most completely pneumatic skeletons imaginable, permeated with air to the very toe tips; and the ungainly pelican is nearly as well off. Still it is but fair to say that the frigate bird and turkey buzzards, creatures which are most at ease when on the wing, have extremely light and hollow bones, but comparing one bird with another the paramount importance of a pneumatic skeleton to a bird is not as evident as that of a pneumatic tire to a bicycle.

While it may not be easy to disprove Herr Gätke’s assertion that birds sustain themselves in the air by the exercise of some power beyond our own, it is pretty safe to assume that they do not, and it would seem that the burden of proof should lie with those who take the affirmative side of the question.

If we have nothing to learn from birds in the way of building an engine that shall exert great power for its size and weight we may still have something to gain in the matter of speed, although here the popular idea is apt to be exaggerated. We often read that ducks fly at the rate of a mile a minute, or that the swallow has a speed of two hundred miles an hour, but it is very difficult to lay hands upon any facts that will sustain these assertions.

So, too, homing pigeons are frequently stated to have travelled for long distances at the rate of sixty miles an hour, but some of the published records show that one hundred and twenty miles in two hours and a quarter is unusually fast traveling, and this is at the rate of only nine-tenths of a mile per minute, a speed not unusual for express trains. However, it may be said that actual observations show that ducks do travel from forty to fifty miles an hour, and any sportsman will readily believe that under some conditions they attain a velocity of a mile and a quarter a minute, although a confession of faith is not a demonstration of an assured fact.

So far the lesson taught by the bird is that a machine of low power may attain a very considerable speed and it remains to be seen if there is anything to be learned concerning methods of flight. Broadly speaking, there are two, possibly three, distinct modes of flight, by repeated strokes of the wings and by soaring or sailing, although we find every intermediate stage between the two, or combinations of flapping and sailing, and as a matter of fact no bird can entirely dispense with strokes of the wing.

The humming-bird represents the perfection of one method, the frigate bird of the other, and in his own line each is unrivaled. These two modes of flight are associated with equally distinct modifications of structure, and just as we have every intermediate state of flight between flapping and soaring so the two structural extremes are merged into one another. The humming-bird flies as the Irishman played the fiddle, by main strength, the frigate bird relies on his skill in taking advantage of every varying current of air, and the skeleton of the one indicates great muscular power while that of the other shows its absence. No other bird has such proportionately great muscles as the humming-bird, the keel of the sternum or breast bone from which these muscles arise runs from one end of the body to the other while at the same time it projects downward like the keel of a modern racing yacht. These muscles drive at the rate of several hundred strokes a minute a pair of small, rigid wings, the outermost bones of which are very long while the innermost are very short, a feature calculated to give the greatest amount of motion at the tip of the wing with the least movement of the bones of the upper arm, to which the driving muscles are attached. Another peculiar feature is that the outermost feathers, the flight feathers or primaries, are long and strong, while the innermost, those attached to the forearm, are few and weak; so far as flight is concerned the bird could dispense with these secondaries and not feel their loss. Finally the heart, which we may look upon as the boiler that supplies steam for this machinery, is large and powerful, as is necessary for such a high-pressure engine as the little humming-bird. It is hardly to him that we would look for aid in constructing a flying machine, the expenditure of force is too great for the results attained, the space required for boiler and engine leaves no room for carrying freight.

As just intimated the frigate bird is exactly the reverse of his tiny relative; the body is a mere appendage to a pair of wings, while the breast muscles are so small as to show at a glance that of all flying creatures the frigate bird is the one which has most successfully solved the problem of the conservation of energy and can obtain the greatest amount of power with the least expenditure of muscle.

There is also a great difference between the hummer and the frigate bird, or between flapping and sailing birds generally, in the complexity of what may be termed the muscles of adjustment, the little muscles that run from the shoulder to the elbow and forearm and, among other duties, are concerned in keeping free from wrinkles that portion of the wing which lies between the shoulder and the wrist, forming a triangular flap with the base forming the front edge of the wing and the apex lying in the elbow joint.

The wing of the frigate bird, too, is quite the opposite of that of the hummer, for it is the inner portion of the wing, the upper arm and forearm, which is elongated, and instead of the six feeble secondaries of the humming-bird there are no less than twenty-four; instead of a short, stiff, rounded wing we have one that is long, flexible and pointed. Instead of a wing driven at the rate of several hundred strokes a minute there is a wing that may be held outstretched and apparently motionless for minutes at a time, the muscles of the frigate bird being almost as constantly in repose as those of the other are perpetually in motion.

If the frigate bird represents the highest type of soaring flight two more familiar birds, the turkey buzzard and albatross, are not far behind, and these represent two methods of sailing flight and two distinct modifications in the type of wings. The albatross is continually on the move, ever quartering the water as a well-trained setter does the ground, and yet with all this movement rarely mounting higher than fifty feet above the water and never wheeling in great circles in mid-air. This bird has that type of wing which best fulfills the conditions necessary for an aeroplane, being long and narrow, so that while a fully grown albatross may spread from ten to twelve feet from tip to tip, this wing is not more than nine inches wide. This spread of wing, like that of the frigate bird, is gained by the elongation of the inner bones of the wing and by increasing the number of secondaries, there being about forty of these feathers in the wing of the albatross.

The turkey buzzard is emphatically a high flyer, wheeling slowly about, half a mile or a mile above the earth, while his cousin, the condor, so Humboldt tells us, has been seen above the summit of Chimborazo. If any bird knows how to utilize every breath of wind to the utmost that bird is the albatross, and it is equally a delight and a marvel to see this bird apparently setting at naught all natural laws as he sails with outstretched pinions almost into the eye of the wind or hangs just off the lee quarter of a ship reeling off ten or twelve knots an hour. In this last trick, however, the gull is almost equally expert, evidently making use of the draft from the sails as well as of the eddies caused by the passage of the vessel.

It has long been evident that if man is to navigate the air it must be done after the method of the albatross rather than that of the humming-bird, by the aeroplane and not by any device to imitate the strokes of a bird’s wings, for not only do the largest birds and those of the longest flight for the most part sail or soar, but it is apparent that the limit of size in a vibrating wing must soon be reached, since in a strong wind with its varying eddies it would be quite out of the question to manipulate such a piece of mechanism.

But in spite of the fact that sailing flight calls for the exercise of comparatively little muscular power, the structure of the skeleton suggests that the wing of a soaring or sailing bird needs a particularly strong point of support, for birds which sail or soar have the bones which sustain the direct pull of the wing strengthened or braced as other birds do not. The shoulder joint of a bird is formed by the shoulder blade and coracoid, this last being the bone which is attached to the breast bone and on which comes the direct pull of the wing, and in front of the coracoids, running downwards towards the sternum, is the wishbone or furcula, corresponding to our collar bones or clavicles. It is evident that the greater the length of the coracoid the less able would it be to resist the strain brought upon it, and it is also evident that the simultaneous downward stroke of the wings must have a tendency to force the coracoids inwards, or towards one another. Obviously the greater the strain the greater the need of strengthening or bracing the coracoid to resist it, and there are in the shoulder girdle of a bird various devices looking towards this end. In some birds, the albatross, for example, the coracoid is short and stout, while in others extra bracing is obtained from the wishbone.

In the humming-bird the wishbone is light and weak and so short that it does not come near the sternum; the pigeon, a bird of powerful flight, is little better off, for the wishbone is so long and slender that it does little or nothing towards strengthening the shoulder joint, and in both these birds which fly by rapid wing strokes the entire pull of the wing is taken by the coracoid. In the frigate bird, on the contrary, the wishbone is not only strong, but it rests upon and is firmly soldered to the breastbone, while at its upper end it fuses with the coracoid, thus making the firmest possible support to the wing. The cranes, which soar well, also have the wishbone united with sternum, and in the albatrosses and petrels the wishbone touches the breastbone and is so curved forward as to gain strength in this way while, as previously noted, the strength of the coracoid is increased by its shortness. The turkey buzzard and birds of prey, some of which both soar and flap, have the wishbone strengthened by having more material added to make the furcula thick and strong while at the same time it is shaped like a wide U instead of a V.

Either there is more force exerted in sailing than is at first sight apparent or else extra strength is called for in making sudden turns, or when it becomes necessary, as it does more or less frequently, to take a sudden wing stroke. As wings are levers of the third order the longer the wing the more force is required to move it and more strength is needed at the fulcrum or shoulder joint, and since sailing birds have long wings the need of strength is evident.

Neither birds nor any creatures that live or have lived afford us any criterion as to the limit of size that must be placed on an aeroplane. The largest of whales is weak and insignificant beside an ocean liner, and the condor and albatross, with their spread of ten or twelve feet and weight of ten to twenty pounds, tell us nothing of what may be the possibilities of size and weight.

Among the various problems confronting the would-be navigator of the air is that of at times making headway against a medium moving at the rate of ten, twenty, or thirty miles an hour, sometimes even more, a difficulty that neither locomotive nor steamer is called upon to meet. True, an aeroplane would, to use a technical term, probably lie within two and one-half points of the wind and could thus advantageously beat to windward, but any deviation from a straight course means loss of time, and nowadays time is everything.

The mode of propulsion may be, undoubtedly will be, as entirely different from a wing as the propeller is unlike the tail of a fish, and as the study of fish has thrown little or no light on the problems of the proper form or best motor for a ship, it is doubtful if the study of birds will do more for the aerodrome. Nor does it seem likely that a study of the bird will suggest any new devices in the way of joints, braces, or rudders, for what must be discouraging to those engaged in solving the problems of flight is the utter inadequacy of the bird’s wing, from a mechanical standpoint, for the work it is called upon to do, for in all its articulations there is a freedom of movement, an amount of play that would be inadmissible in any machine. The shoulder, elbow and wrist joints are but loose affairs, depending for their efficiency on the pull of the muscles; subtract the element of life from the wing of a bird and it becomes at once limp and useless. And herein is the key to the bird’s success as a flying machine; it has _life_, and while the wing may reveal certain principles of balancing, it cannot teach us all the art, for it is done instinctively. The bird has back of it untold ages of experience and its actions during flight demand no thought; the muscles respond instinctively to each change in the pressure and direction of the wind, and the bird need take no thought as to how it shall fly.

Mr. Chanute has taken the greatest step yet made towards overcoming the difficulty of responding to changes in the velocity of the fickle air, but whether or not it will be possible to construct apparatus that will not only adjust itself to changes in the force of the wind, but to eddies and changes in direction as well, remains to be seen, the more that it must act not on planes six feet in length, but on surfaces infinitely larger. The proper method of constructing the wings of an aeroplane so as to insure stability and utilize the power of the wind to the best advantage, and some hints as to balancing and steering are the main assistance that we seem likely to gain from a study of the structure and flight of birds.

ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILES.

BY WM. BAXTER, JR.

As electricity has been so successful in the street railway, where it has superseded all other forms of motive power, it might naturally be supposed that it would do equally well in the automobile; but when the difference in the conditions is taken into consideration it will be found that such a conclusion is not justified. In the street railway systems the cars run continuously over the same route, and on that account the electric current required to operate the motors can be conveyed to them from a central power station by means of wires. With the automobile the case is very different; the vehicle has no fixed course, but is required to go everywhere, and the current must be supplied from a source carried by it. If primary batteries could be made so as to furnish electric currents at a low cost, then the electric carriage would be in the same position as those operated by steam or gasoline, and it could go wherever the proper chemicals to renew the battery could be obtained. But as there are no such primary batteries, the only way in which the current can be supplied is by the use of storage batteries, and these cannot give out any more energy than is put into them, and in practice cannot give quite as much. Thus if the capacity of the battery is sufficient to run the vehicle forty miles when this distance has been traversed the propelling power will be exhausted, and the batteries will have to be recharged before the carriage can go any further. If the recharging could be done in a few minutes, the storage battery would be as good as a primary battery that would generate electricity economically; but as it requires three or more hours, the electrical vehicle cannot be used for long runs, unless the user is willing to make long stops each time the battery has to be recharged. Even then an electric vehicle could not go everywhere, for it would be compelled to follow routes along which facilities for recharging the batteries could be found. From this fact it can be seen that the electric automobile carriage cannot cover the same field as the steam or the gasoline (in the present state of electrical development). Within the limits to which it is applicable, however, it can perform its work in the most satisfactory manner, and, in fact, no possible objection can be raised against it. Its operation is noiseless and vibration of the vehicle is impossible. There is no heat to inconvenience the passengers, no disagreeable smell, no escaping steam. Any desired speed can be obtained, although, of course, a heavy delivery wagon cannot be used also as a racer. The power can be made sufficient to propel any desired load up any grade, including grades far steeper than any to be encountered on streets or highways.

The only point in which the electric vehicle suffers in comparison with the others is in the weight. The capacity of a storage battery is proportional to its weight, and if it is made light, the power derived from it will be small or the time during which it is furnished will be short. To furnish one horse power for one hour requires about one hundred pounds of battery, so that if the average consumption of energy is at the rate of two horse power, one thousand pounds of battery will keep the vehicle in motion for five hours. The weight of batteries used in automobiles ranges from four or five hundred to about two thousand pounds, and the distance traversed without recharging varies from twenty-five to ninety miles, so that the radius of action of electric vehicles can be said to vary from about twelve to forty-five miles from the charging station.

The general arrangement of an electric carriage can be understood from Fig. 1. The rectangle shown in broken lines at _A_ represents the storage battery. The circle _B_ under the seat represents the controlling switch. The motor is at _C_ and imparts motion to the axle or wheels through the gearing contained in the casing _D_. When the carriage is stopped the controller _B_ is turned into such a position that all electrical connections between the battery and the motor _C_ are broken. To start the vehicle the controller _B_ is turned so as to make the necessary electrical connections between the battery _A_ and the motor _C_, and then the electric current passes from the battery through the controlling switch to the motor, and thence back to the controller and the battery. The heavy broken lines indicate the path of the current and the arrows show the direction. The velocity of the motor and the speed of the carriage are varied by varying the strength of the current, and this is effected by the movement of the controlling switch _B_. There are many ways in which the movement of this switch can vary the strength of the current, but an explanation of any one of them would be dry and rather technical; hence it is sufficient to say that whatever the arrangement of the connections of the controller with the other parts of the system, their relation is such that by the movement of the switch handle the speed of the motor is changed from zero to the maximum velocity.

In the majority of American vehicles the motion of the motor is transmitted to the wheels by means of spur gearing. In some cases a single motor is used, in others two; and in one or two designs that have come to public notice, four motors are employed, one for each wheel of the carriage. Fig. 2 illustrates what is commonly called a double reduction gear for single motor equipment. The outline _A_ represents the motor, _B_ being the shaft. Upon this shaft is mounted a small pinion which meshes into a larger wheel on the intermediate shaft _C_. This shaft carries a pinion which meshes into the wheel _D_ mounted upon the axle of the vehicle.

Fig. 3 illustrates a single reduction double motor equipment, the motors being located at _AA_. In this arrangement the pinion on the end of the motor shaft meshes directly into a large gear secured to the carriage wheel, thus dispensing with the intermediate shaft _C_ of the previous figure. The single reduction gear is the more simple in construction, but the motors run at a lower velocity, and on that account must be larger for the same capacity. With the double motor construction each wheel is driven independently and the axle _C_, in Fig. 3, remains stationary, as in any ordinary vehicle; but in a single motor equipment, arranged as in Fig. 2, the wheels are fastened to the axle and the latter rotates. When a carriage runs round a short curve the outer wheels will revolve faster than the inner ones, if free to move independently, as in Fig. 3. If they are rigidly attached to the axle, as in Fig. 2, one or the other will have to slide over the ground, and this is decidedly objectionable with rubber tires. To prevent this slipping of the wheels in rounding curves, the axles, in designs following the construction of Fig. 2, are made in two parts, and the gear _D_ is arranged so as to drive the two halves, imparting to each one the proper velocity. Gear wheels of this kind are called compensating gears; they are made in many designs, but the most common form is that illustrated in Fig. 4. In this drawing _A_ is the gear _D_ of Fig. 2, and _BB_ are bevel gears which are mounted upon studs _C_, which are virtually the spokes of wheel _AA_. Large bevel gears _E_ and _F_ are placed on either side of _A_ _E_, being secured to _G_, which is one-half of the axle, and _F_ and _H_, which is the other half. If the carriage is running in a straight line, the two parts of the axle _G_ and _H_ will revolve at the same velocity and the gears _BB_ will not revolve around the studs _C_, but in rounding a curve one of the halves of the axle will revolve faster than the other and then the gears _B_ will rotate round the studs _C_. The compensating gear is not a feature peculiar to electric vehicles; it is used on all kinds of automobiles when the construction is such as to require it.

If a compensating gear is placed upon the axle the latter, instead of supporting its end of the vehicle, will itself have to be supported, for as it is cut in two at the center, it has no supporting strength. By placing the compensating gear on another shaft this difficulty can be overcome. Fig. 5 shows the construction used by the Columbia Company in its single motor equipment. In this arrangement the motor casing is made of sufficient length to reach from one side of the vehicle to the other. The armature and field magnets of the motor, which are the parts that develop the power, are located at _A_ and the compensating gear is placed at _B_. The motor armature is mounted upon a hollow shaft, which is connected with the compensating gear. The shafts _D_ and _C_, upon which are mounted the pinions _E_ and _F_, are turned by the side wheels of the compensating gear, and therefore will run at such velocities as the motion of the carriage wheels may require.

Fig. 6 shows a Columbia Victoria provided with a single motor equipment arranged in accordance with the diagram, Fig. 5. Fig. 7 shows another Columbia vehicle in which a double motor equipment is employed. The position of the motor, with reference to the carriage wheel, in the single motor design, is shown in Fig. 8. The gear attached to the carriage wheel is used also as a brake wheel, a friction band being located so as to bear against the periphery, while the pinion on the end of the motor shaft meshes into teeth on the inner side of the rim. This single motor design is also used in the omnibus made by the Columbia Company, a number of which are now in regular service on Fifth avenue, New York. These omnibuses, which are illustrated in Fig. 9, seat eight passengers, and are able to carry as many as are willing to crowd into them. One feature of the electric motor which fits it admirably for automobile service is the fact that for a short time it can put forth an effort far greater than its normal capacity, and it can do this at all times, without any special preparation. Owing to this feature it is practically impossible to stall the vehicle. If the wheels run into a rut or sink into a mud hole, the motor will be able to turn them around, and if they do not slip the carriage will be moved ahead.

The management of the vehicle is exceedingly simple and entirely free from care, the driver having nothing to tax his mind but the steering lever and the handle of the controlling switch. As the moving parts all have a rotatory motion and are perfectly balanced, there is no possibility of vibration, and there is an entire absence of heat or disagreeable odors.

Any one who has observed the action of a two-horse team will have noticed that, unless the pavement is very smooth, the tongue continually swings from side to side, and occasionally with a considerable amount of violence. It will be evident from this fact that if the front axle of an automobile were the same as that of a horse vehicle, the driver would have an unpleasant task, to say the least, in holding the steering lever in position, and should one of the wheels drop into a rut, the handle would be jerked violently out of his hand and the vehicle would sheer off to one side, possibly with serious results. To avoid this difficulty the front wheels of horseless carriages are arranged so as to swing round on a center close to the hub, if not actually within it. The most common construction is illustrated in Fig. 10, the first being a view of the axle and wheels as seen from the front, and the second a view from above. On the left-hand side of Fig. 10, _A_ is the axle proper, and _BB_ are the portions upon which the wheels are placed. The central part _A_ is held rigidly to the body of the vehicle or to the truck which carries it, and the ends _BB_ are swung round the studs _PP_ in a manner more clearly indicated on the right-hand side. Here the levers _CC_ are shown, and these extend from the side of _BB_. The right-angle lever _E_ is connected with the steering lever _G_ by means of rod _F_, hence, when _G_ is moved, rod _D_ moves, and thus levers _CC_ are rotated round the studs _PP_, and in that way the supporting studs _BB_ which carry the wheels are turned. As the studs _PP_ are not exactly in line with the plane passing through the center of the rim of the wheel, there is a slight tendency to jerk the steering handle round when a wheel drops into a hole in the pavement, but the leverage of _B_ being very short, this tendency is so small as to be hardly noticeable.

Fig. 10 illustrates the general principle upon which the front axle is designed, but the construction of the swivel joints _P_ is far more elaborate, as can be seen from Fig. 11, which illustrates the actual design employed in the vehicles just described. Looking at Fig. 9, it will be noticed that the front axle consists of two bars, one of which runs in a straight line from side to side, while the other is curved with the convex side upward. In Fig. 11 _B_ is the end of the upper curved rod and _C_ is the lower straight one. These two rods are secured into the casting _A_, which holds the part _D_ upon which the wheel is carried, _D_ being the part _B_ at the left side of Fig. 10. The end _E_ which is broken off in the drawing extends through the hub of the wheel and is provided with ball bearings so as to run without friction. The upper end _F_, of _D_, is arranged so as to be held by a ball bearing, as shown, against the end of _J_. By means of an adjusting screw _I_ at the lower end, the parts are brought into proper position with reference to each other. The shaded portion _H_ is the lever _C_ at the right side of Fig. 10.

The left-hand end of Fig. 12 shows a design for front axle wheels which is one of the many modifications of the general arrangement just described. In this construction the wheel swings round the stud _C_, which is placed within the hub, and in a line, or nearly so, with the center of the rim. The rod _A_ is the axle and _F_ is the lever extending from the inner part of the wheel hub by means of which the steering is effected. The left-hand side of Fig. 12 is a view as seen from the front and the right-hand side shows the device as seen from above. In this last drawing it will be observed that as the lever _F_ is attached to the inner portion of the wheel hub, if it is moved to one side or the other of axle _A_, by pulling or pushing on rod _G_, the wheel will be swung round. The advantage of designs of this type is that there is no strain whatever brought to bear upon the steering handle, and the objection is that the wheel hub is made much larger and the whole construction is somewhat more complicated.

The arrangement of the front axle, so as to swing the wheels round a center close to the hub or within it, as described in the foregoing paragraphs, is used on all types of automobiles and is not a distinguishing feature of the electric carriage. In some of the lighter vehicles the front wheels are held in forks of a design substantially the same as that of the front wheel of the ordinary bicycle, the tops of the forks being connected with each other by means of a rod, as in the lower part of Fig. 10, so as to obtain simultaneous movement of the two wheels by the movement of a single steering handle.