 Section 7 of the Romance of Modern Mechanism. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tina Ding. The Romance of Modern Mechanism. By Archbalt Williams. Chapter 6. Internal combustion engines. Oil engines. Engines worked with producer gas. Blast furnace gas engines. If carbon and oxygen be made to combine chemically, the process is accompanied by the phenomenon called heat. If heat be applied to a liquid or gas in a confined space, it causes a violent separation of its molecules and power is developed. In the case of a steam engine, the fuel is coal, carbon in a more or less pure form. The fluid, water. By burning the fuel under a boiler, a gas is formed, which, if confined, rapidly increases the pressure on the walls of the confining vessel. If allowed to pass into a cylinder, the molecules of steam struggling to get as far as possible from one another will do useful work on the piston connected by rods to a revolving crank. We here see the combustion of fuel external to the cylinder that is under the boiler, and the fuel and fluid kept apart out of actual contact. In the gas or oil vapor engine, the fuel is brought into contact with the fluid, which does the work mixed with it and burned inside the cylinder. Therefore, these engines are termed internal combustion engines. Supposing that a little gum powder were placed in a cylinder of which the piston had been pushed almost as far in as it would go, and that the powder were fired by electricity, the charcoal would unite with the oxygen contained in the salt pier and form a large volume of gas. This gas being heated by the ignition would instantaneously expand and drive out the piston violently. A very similar thing happens at each explosion of an internal combustion engine. Into the cylinder is drawn a charge of gas containing carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, and also a proportion of air. This charge is squeezed by the inward movement of the piston. Its temperature is raised by the compression and at the proper moment it is ignited. The oxygen and carbon seize on one another and burn or combine the heat being increased by the combustion of the hydrogen. The air atoms are expanded by the heat and the work is done on the piston. But the explosion is much gentler than in the case of gum powder. During recent years, the internal combustion engine has been making rapid progress, ousting steam power from many positions in which it once rained supreme. We see it propelling vehicles along roads and rails, driving boats through the water and doing duty in generating stations and smelting works to turn dynamos or drive airpumps, not to mention the thousand other forms of usefulness, which were they enumerated here would feel several pages. A decade ago, an internal combustion engine of 100 horsepower was a wonder. Today, single engines are built to develop 3,000 horsepower and in a few years, even this enormous capacity will doubtless be increased. It is interesting to note that the rival systems, gas and steam, were being experimented with at the same time by Robert Street and James Watt, respectively. While Watt applied his genius to the useful development of the power latent in boiling water, Street in 1794 took out letters patented for an engine to be worked by the explosions caused by vaporizing spirits of turpentine on a hot metal surface, mixing the vapor with air in a cylinder, exploding the mixture and using the explosion to move a piston. With this and subsequent designs, the mixture was pumped in from a separate cylinder under slight pleasure. Lenoir in 1860 conceived the idea of making the piston suck in the charge, so abolishing the need of a separate pump, and many engines built under his patents were long in use, though if judged by modern standards they were very wasteful of fuel. Two years later, Alphonse Baudet Roches proposed the further improvement of utilizing the cylinder, not only as a suction pump, but also as a compressor, since he saw that a compressed mixture would ignite very much more readily than one not under pressure. Roches held the secret of success in his grasp, and failed to turn it to practical account. The Otto cycle invented by Dr. Otto in 1876 is really only Roches' suggestion materialized. The large majority of internal combustion engines employed this cycle of operations, so we may state its exact meaning. One, a mixture of explosive gas and air is drawn into the cylinder by the piston as it passes outwards, that is in the direction of the crank, through the inlet valve. Two, the valve closes, and the returning piston compresses the mixture. Three, the mixture is fired as the piston commences its second journey outwards and gives the power stroke. Four, the piston returning again ejects the exploded mixture through the outlet or exhaust valve, which began to open towards the end of the third stroke. Briefly stated, the cycle is suction, compression, explosion, expulsion. One impulse being given during each cycle, which occupies two complete revolutions of the flywheel. Since the first, second, and third operations all absorb energy, the wheel must be heavy enough to store sufficient momentum during the power stroke to carry the piston through all its three other duties. Year by year, the compression of the mixture has been increased and improvements have been made in the methods of governing the speed of the engine so that it may be suitable for work in which the load is constantly varying. By doubling, traveling, and quadrupling the cylinders, the drive is rendered more and more steady and the elasticity of a steam engine more nearly approached. The internal combustion engine has arrived so late because in the earlier part of last century, conditions were not favorable to its development. Illuminating gas had not come into general use and such coal gas as was made was expensive. The great oil fields of America and Russia had not been discovered. But while the proper fuels for this type of motor were absent, coal, the food of the steam engine, lay ready to hand and informs which, though useless for many purposes, could be advantageously burnt under a boiler. Now the situation has altered. Gas is abundant. An oil of the right sort costs only a few pence a gallon. Inventors and manufacturers have grasped the opportunity. Today, over 3 million horsepower is developed continuously by the internal combustion engine. Steam would not have met so formidable a rival had not that rival had some great advantages to offer. What are these? Well, first enter a factory driven by steam power and carefully note what you see. Then visit a large gas or oil engine plant. You will conclude that the latter scores on many points. There are no stokers required. No boiler threatened possible explosions. The heat is less. The dust and dirt are less. The space occupied by the engines is less. There is no noise, some smoke to be led away through tall and expensive chimneys. If work is stopped for an hour or a day, there are no fires to be banked or drawn, involving waste in either case. Above all, the gas engine is more efficient. Or, if you like to express the same thing in other words, more economical. If you use only one horsepower for one hour a day, it doesn't much matter whether that horsepower hour costs four pennies or five pennies. But in a factory where a thousand horsepower is required all day long, the extra pens make a big total. If, therefore, the proprietor finds that a shillings worth of gas or oil does a quarter as much work again as a shillings worth of coal, and that either form a fuel is easily obtained, you may be sure that, so far as economy is concerned, he will make up his mind without difficulty as to the class of engine to be employed. A pound of coal burnt under the best type of steam engine gives but 10% of its heating value in useful work. A good oil engine gives 20 to 25%, and in special types, the figures are set to rise to 35 to 40%. We may notice another point vis that while a steam engine must be kept as hot as possible to be efficient, an internal combustion engine must be cooled. In the former case, no advantage beyond increased efficiency results. But in the latter, the water passed around the cylinders to take up the surplus heat has a value for warming the building or for manufacturing processes. Putting one thing with another, experts agree that the explosion engine is the prime mover of the future. Steam has apparently been developed almost to its limit. Its rival is but half grown, though already a giant. Some internal combustion engines use petroleum as their fuel, converting it into gas before it is mixed with air to form the charge. Others use coal gas drawn from the lighting mains. Poor gas made in special plants for power purposes or natural gas issuing from the ground. Natural gas occurs in very large quantities in the United States where it is conveyed through pipes under pressure for hundreds of miles and distributed among factories and houses for driving machinery, heating and cooking. In England and Europe, the petroleum engine and coal gas engine have been most utilized, but of late the employment of smelting furnace gases formerly blown into the air and wasted and off producer gas has come into great favor with manufacturers. The latest development is the suction gas engine which makes its own gas by drying steam and air through glowing fuel during the suction stroke. We will consider the various types under separate headings devoted one to the oil fuel engine, two the producer gas engine and the suction gas engine, three blast furnace gas engines with reference to the installations used in connection with the last two. All explosion engines, accepting the very small types employed on motorcycles have a water jacket round the cylinders to absorb some of the heat of combustion which would otherwise render the metal so hot as to make proper lubrication impossible and also would unduly expand the incoming charge of gas and air before compression. The ideal engine would take in a full charge of code mixture which would receive no heat from the walls of the cylinder and during the explosion would pass no heat through the walls. In other words, the ideal metal for the cylinders would be one absolutely non-receptive of heat. In the absence of this, engineers are obliged to make a compromise and to keep the cylinder at such a temperature that it can be lubricated fittingly while not becoming so cold as to absorb too much of the heat of the explosion. Oil engines, these fall into two main classes. A, those using light volatile mineral oils such as petrol and benzene and alcohol, a vegetable product. B, those using heavy oils such as paraffin oil, kerosene and the denser constituents of rock oil left in the stills after the kerosene has been driven off. American petroleum is rich in burning oil and petrol. Russian in the very heavy residue called astakhti Given the proper apparatus for vaporization, mineral oils of any density can be used in the explosion engine. The first class is so well known as the mover of motor vehicles and boats that we need not linger here on it. It may, however, be remarked that engines using the easily vaporized oils are not of large powers since the fuel is too expensive to make them valuable for installations where large units of power are needed. They have been adopted for locomotives on account of their lightness and the ease with which they can be started. Petrol vaporizes at ordinary temperatures so that air merely passed over the spirit absorbs sufficient vapor to form an explosive mixture. The jet cooperator, now generally employed, makes the mixture more positive by atomizing the spirit as it passes through a very fine nozzle into the mixing chamber under the suction from the cylinder. On account of their small size, spirit engines work at very high speeds as compared with the large oil or gas engine. Thus, while a 2,000 horsepower courting gas engine develops full power at 85 revolutions a minute, the tiny cycle motor must be driven at 2,000 to 3,000 revolutions. Speaking generally, as the size increases, the speed decreases. Of heavy oil engines, there are some dozens of well-tried types. They differ in their methods of affecting the following operations. One, the feeding of the oil fuel to the engine. Two, the conversion of the oil into vapor. Three, the ignition of the charge. Four, the governing of speed. All these engines have a vaporizer or chamber wherein the oil is converted into gas by the action of heat. When starting up the engine, this chamber must be heated by a specially designed lamp, similar in principle to that used by house painters for burning oat paint off wood or metal. Let us now consider the operations enumerated above in some detail. One, the oil supply. Fuel is transferred from the storage tank to the vaporizer, either by the action of gravity through a regulating device to prevent flooding or by means of a small pump or by the suction of the piston, which lifts the liquid. In some engines, the air and gas enter the cylinder through a single valve and others through separate valves. Two, vaporization. As already remarked, the vaporizing chamber must be heated to start the engine. When work has begun, the lamp may be removed if the engine is so designed that the chamber stores up sufficient heat in its walls from each explosion to vaporize the charge for the next power stroke. The cross-leaf engine has a lamp continuously burning. The horn speed aegroid depends upon the storage of heat from explosions in the chamber opening into the cylinder. The best designs are fairly equally divided between the two systems. Three, ignition of the compressed charge is affected in one of four ways. By bringing the charge at the end of the compression stroke into contact with a closed tube projecting from the cylinder and heated outside by a continuously burning lamp. By the heat stored in some part of the combustion chamber, that is that portion of the cylinder is sucked by the piston. By an electric spark or by the mere heat of compression. The second and third methods are confined to comparatively few makes and the diesel oil engine of which more presently has a monopoly of the fourth. Four, governing. All engines which turn machinery in intermittent work such as that of a sawmill or electric generating plant connected with the number of motors must be very carefully guarded from overrunning. Imagine the effect on an engine which is putting out its whole strength and getting full charges of fuel if the belt suddenly slipped off and it were allowed its head. A burst flywheel would be only one of the results. The steam engine is easily controlled by the centrifugal action of a ball garverner which as the speed increases gradually spreads its balls and lifts a lever connected with a valve in the steam supply pipe. Owing to its elastic nature steam will do useful work if admitted in small quantities to the cylinder. But a difficulty arises with the internal combustion engine if the supply of mixture is similarly throttled because a loss of quantity means loss of compression and bad ignition. Many oil engines are therefore governed by apparatus which, when the speed exceeds a certain limit cuts off the supply altogether either by throwing the oil pump temporarily out of action or by lifting the exhaust valve so that the movement of the piston causes no suction the hit and miss method as it is called. The means adopted depends on the design of the engine and it must be said that though all the devices commonly used affect their purpose none are perfect this being due rather to the nature of an internal explosion engine than to any lack of ingenuity on the part of the inventors. The stadiest running is probably given with the throttle control which diminishes the supply. On motor cars this method has practically ousted the hit and miss governed exhaust valve but in stationary engines we more commonly find the speed controlled by robbing the mixture of the explosive gas in inverse proportion to the amount of the work required from the engine. The diesel oil engine on account of some features peculiar to it is treated separately. In 1901 an expert wrote of it that the engine has not attained any commercial position. Herr Rudolf Diesel the inventor has however won a high place for his prime mover among those which consume liquid fuel on account of its extraordinary economy. The makers claim as the result of many tests that with the crude rock oil costing in bulk about two pences a gallon which it uses a horsepower can be developed for one hour by this engine for one tenth of a penny. The daily fuel bill for a 100 horsepower engine running 10 hours per day would therefore be eight shillings for pences. To compete with a diesel engine a steam installation would have to be of the very highest class of triple expansion type of not less than 400 horsepower and using every hour per horsepower only one and three-quarter pounds of coal at nine shillings per ton. Very few large steam engines work under conditions so favorable and with small sizes three to four pounds of coal would be burned for every horsepower hour. The diesel differs from other internal combustion engines in the following respects. One, it works with very much higher compression. Two, the ignition is spontaneous resulting from the high compression of the charge alone. Three, the fuel is not admitted into the cylinder until the power stroke begins and enters in the form of a fine spray. Four, the combustion of the fuel is much slower and therefore gives a more continuous and elastic push to the piston. The engine works on the ordinary auto cycle. To start it, air compressed in a separate vessel is injected into the cylinder. The piston flies out and on its return squeezes the air to about 500 pounds to the square inch thus rendering it incandescent. Just as the piston begins to move out again a valve in the cylinder head opens and a jet of pulverized oil is squirted in by air compressed to 100 pounds per square inch more than the pressure in the cylinder. The vapor meeting the hot air burns but comparatively slowly the pressure in the cylinder during the stroke decreasing much more gradually than in other engines. Governing is affected by regulation of the amount of oil admitted into the cylinder. In spite of its high compression this engine runs with very little vibration. The rider saw a penny stand unmoved on its edge on the top of a cylinder in which the piston was reciprocating 500 times a minute. Engines worked by producer gas. These engines are worked by a special gas generated in an apparatus called a producer. If air is forced through incandescent carbon in a closed furnace its oxygen unites with the carbon and forms carbonic acid gas known chemically as CO2 because every molecule of the gas contains one atom of carbon and two of oxygen. This gas being the product of combustion does not burn that is combined with more oxygen but as it passes up through the glowing coke, coal, or other fuel it absorbs another carbon atom into every molecule and we have C2O2 or 2CO which we know as carbon monoxide. This gas may be seen burning on the top of an open fire with a very pale blue flame as it once more combines with oxygen to form carbonic acid gas. The carbon monoxide is valuable as a heating agent and when mixed with air forms an explosive mixture. If along with the air sent into our furnace there goes a proportion of steam further chemical action results. The oxygen of the steam combines with carbon to form carbon monoxide and sets free the hydrogen. The latter gas when it combines with oxygen in combustion causes intense heat so that if from the furnace we can draw off carbon monoxide and hydrogen we shall be able to get a mixture which during combustion can set up great heat in the cylinder of an engine. In 1878 Mr. Emerson Dawson invented an apparatus for manufacturing a gas suitable for power plant the gas being known as producer or poor gas. The last term referring to its pourness in hydrogen as compared with coal and other gases. Hydrogen is a desirable ingredient in an explosive charge. It must not form a large proportion since under compression it renders the mixture in which it takes part dangerously combustible and liable to spontaneous ignition before the piston has finished the compression stroke. Water gas very rich in hydrogen by a very similar process is therefore not suitable for internal combustion engines. There are many types of producers but they fall under two main heads that is the pressure and the suction. The pressure producer contains the following essential parts. The generator a vertical furnace fed from the top through an airtight trap and shut off below from the outside atmosphere by having its foot immersed in water. Any fuel or ashes which fall through the bars into the water can be abstracted without spoiling the drought. Air and steam are forced into the generator and pass up through the fuel with the chemical results already described. The gases then flow into a cooler enclosed in a water jacket through which water circulates and on into a scrubber where they must find their way upwards through a coke kept dripping with water from overhead jets. The water collects impurities of all sorts and the gas is then ready for storage or for immediate use in the engines. A pound of anthracite coal thus burnt will yield enough gas to develop one horsepower for one hour. Suction gas plants. With these gas is not stored in larger quantities than are needed for the immediate work of the engine. In fact the engine itself during its suction strokes cause air and steam through a very small furnace coolers and scrubbers direct into the cylinder. The furnace is therefore fed with air and water not by pressure from outside but by suction from inside, hence the name suction producer. At the present time suction gas engines are being built for use on ships since a pound of fuel thus consumed will drive a vessel further than if burnt under a steam boiler. Very possibly the big ocean liners of 20 years hence may be fitted with such engines in the place of the triple and quadruple expansion steam machinery now doing the work. Blast furnace gas engines. Every iron blast furnace is very similar in construction and action to the generator of a producer gas plant. Into it are fed through a hopper situated in the top layers of ore, coal or coke and limestone. At the bottom enters a blast of air heated by passing through a stove of fire brick raised to a high temperature by the carbon monoxide gas coming off from the furnace. When the stove has been well heated the gas supply is shut off from it and switched to the engine house to create power for driving the huge blowers. The gas contains practically no hydrogen as the air sent through the furnace is dry but since it will stand high compression it is very suitable for use in large engines. Formally all the gas from the furnace was expelled into the open air and absolutely wasted then it was utilized to heat the forced drought to the furnace next to burn under boilers and last of all at the suggestion of Mr. B. H. Thrait to operate internal combustion engines for blowing purposes in the furnace. In the furnace we now see the biggest gas engines in the world installed where gas is created in the largest quantities and an interesting cycle of action results. The engine pumps the air the air blows the furnace and melts the iron out of the ore the furnace creates the gas to pump more air so engines and furnace mutually help each other instead of all the obligation being on the one side when a few years ago the method was first introduced engines were damaged by the presence of dust carried with the gas from the furnace Mr. B. H. Thrait has however perfected means for the separation of this matter and blast furnace gas is coming into general use in England and on the continent. Some idea of the power which has been going to waste in iron works for decades past may be gathered from a report of Professor Hubert after experiments made in 1900 he says that engines of large size do not use more than 100 qubit feet of average blast furnace gas per effective horsepower hour which is less than one fourth of the consumption of gas required to develop the same power from boilers and good marten condensing steam engines so that there is an immense surplus of power to be obtained from a blast furnace if the blowing engines are worked by the gas it generates a surplus which can be still further increased if the gas is properly cleaned it is estimated that for every 100 tons of coke used in an ordinary Cleveland blast furnace after making ample allowance for gas for the stoves and power for the lifts pumps etc. and for gas from the necessary blowing engines there is a surplus of at least 1500 horsepower so that by economizing gas by cleaning and developing the necessary power by gas engines every furnace owner would have a very large surplus of power for his steel or other works or for selling in the form of electricity yet all this gas had been formally turned loose for the breezes to warm their fingers at truly as an observant writer has recorded the site of a special plant being put up near a blast furnace to manufacture gas for the blowing engines suggests the pumping of water uphill in order to get water power West Garth and Richardson of Middlesbrough the John Cochlear company of Saran, Belgium and the Delir-Vegny company of New York are among the chief makers of the largest gas engines in the world ranging up to 3,750 horsepower each these immense engines some with flywheels 30 feet in diameter and cylinders spacious enough for men to stand erect in work blowers for furnaces or drive dynamos at the works of the manufacturers mentioned the engines helped to make the steel and turn the machinery for the creation of brother monsters this use of a byproduct of industry is remarkable but it can be paralleled furnace slag once cast away as useless is now recognized to be a valuable manure or is converted into bricks, tiles, cement and other building materials again the former waste from the coal gas purifier assumes importance as the origin of aniline dice and the the same if made to work an engine would give more lighting power in the shape of electric current supplying incandescent lamps and of section seven section eight of the romance of modern mechanism this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Stephen Seidel the romance of modern mechanism by Archibald Williams chapter seven motor cars the motor omnibus railway motor cars the development of the motor car has been phenomenal early in 1896 the only mechanically moved vehicles to be seen on our roads were the traction engine preceded by a man bearing a red flag the steam roller and in the towns a few trams today the motor is apparent everywhere dodging through street traffic erasing the dust of country roads and lanes or lumbering along with its load of merchandise at a steady gait as a purely speed machine the motor car has practically reached its limit with a hundred horsepower or more crowded into a vehicle scaling only a ton the record rate of travel has approached two miles in a minute on specially prepared and peculiarly suitable tracks even up steep hills such a monster will career at nearly 80 miles an hour next to the racing car comes the touring car engine to give 60 miles an hour on the level in the more powerful types or a much lower speed in the car intended for quieter travel and for people who are not prepared to face a big bill for upkeep the luxury of the age has invaded the design of automobiles till a gorgeously decorated and comfortably furnished cabin of the railway has found a counterpart in the motor caravan with its accommodation for sleeping and feeding while the town dweller rolls along an electric londelé screened from wind and weather the tourist may explore the roads of the world well housed and lulling at ease behind the windows of his 2000 guinea machine on which the engineer and carriage builder have lavished their utmost skill the taunt of unreliability once leveled and justice at the motor car is fast losing its force owing to the vast improvements in design and details which manufacturers have been stimulated to make the motor car industry has a great future before it and the prizes therein are such as to tempt both inventor and engineer every week scores of patents are granted for devices which aim at the perfection of some part of a car its tires its wheels or its engines until standard types for all grades of motor vehicles have been established this restless flow of ideas will continue its volume is the most striking proof of the vitality of the industry the uses to which the motor vehicle has been put are legion on railways the motor carriage is catering for local traffic on the roads the motor omnibus is steadily increasing its numbers tradesmen of all sorts and persons concerned with the distribution of commodities find that the petrol or steam moved car or lorry has very decided advantages over horse traction our postal authorities have adopted the motor mail van the war office looks to the motor to solve some of its transportation difficulties in short the motor age has arrived which will relatively to the railway age play much the same part as that epic did to the horse age at the ultimate effects of the change we can only guess but we see already in the great acceleration of travel wherever the motor is employed that many social institutions are about to be revolutionized but for the determined opposition in the thirties of the last century to the steam omnibus we should doubtless live today in a very different manner our population would be scattered more broadcast over the country instead of being herded in huge towns many railways would have remained unbuilt but our roads would be kept in much better condition special tracks having been built for the rapid travel of the motor we have only to look to a country now in the course of development to see that the road which leads everywhere will in combination with the motor vehicle eventually supplant or at any rate render unnecessary the costly network of railways which must be a network of very fine mesh to meet the needs of a civilized community in the scope of a few pages it is impossible to cover even a tithe of the field occupied by the ubiquitous motor car and we must therefore restrict ourselves to a glance at the manufacture of its mechanism and a few short excursions into those developments which promise most to alter our modes of life we will begin with a trip over one of the largest motor factories in the world selecting that of Messers Dion and Bhutan whose names are inseparable from the history of the modern motor car they may justly claim that to deal with the origin rise in progress of the huge business which they have built up would be to give an account in its general lines of all the phases through which the motor especially the petrol motor has passed from its crew to shape to its present state of comparative perfection the count Albert de Dion was in his earlier days little concerned with things mechanical he turned rather to the fashionable pursuit of dueling in which he seems to have made a name but he was not a man to waste his life in such inanities and when one day he was walking down the Paris boulevards his attention was riveted by a little clockwork carriage exposed for sale among other New Year's gifts that moment was fraught with great consequences for an inventive vine had found a proper scope for its energy why, thought he, could not real cars be made to run by some better form of modi power on inquiring he learned that the workman named Bhutan had produced a car the count therefore sought the artisan with whom he worked out the problem which had now become his aim in life hence it is that the names Dion Bhutan are found on thousands of engines all over the world the partner scored their first successes with steam and petrol-driven tricycles built in a small workshop in the avenue Malikovt in Paris the works were then transferred to Poutol which has since developed into the great automobile center of the world and after two more changes found a resting place on the Quai Nacional here close to 3,000 hands are engaged in supplying the world's requirements in motors and cars let us enter the huge block of buildings and watch them at work the drawing office is the brain of the factory within its walls new ideas are being put into practical shape by skilled craftsmen the drawings are sent to the model-making shop where the parts are first fashioned in wood the shop contains dozens of big benches circular saws and planing machines one of them in the form of a revolving drum carrying a number of planes which turns thousands of times a minute and shapes off the rough surface of the blocks of hardwood as if it were so much clay these blocks are cut, planed and turned and then put into the hands of a remarkably skilled class of workmen who, with ruble, caliper and chisel shape out cylinders and other parts to the drawings before them with wonderful patience and exactness after the model has been fashioned the next step is to make a clay mold from the same with a hole in the top through which the molten metal is poured the foundry is most picturesque in allured Rembrandt-esque fashion it is black everywhere the floor, walls and roof are black and the foundry hands look like unwashed penitents and sackcloth and ashes at the end of the building there is a raised brickwork and when the visitor is able to see in the darkness he distinguishes a number of raised lids along the top while here and there are strewn about huge iron ladles like buckets on the foreman giving the word a man steps up on the brickwork and removes the lid on a column of intense white like strikes upward it gives one the impression of coming from the bowels of the earth like a hole opening out in a volcano the man bestrides the aperture down which he drops the ladle at the end of a long pole and then pulling it up again full of straw-colored shining liquid so close to him that we shudder at the idea of it spilling over his legs and feet he pours the molten metal into a big ladle which is seized by two men who pour the liquid into the molds the work is more difficult than it looks for it requires a lot of practice to fill the molds and such a way as to avoid blowholes and flaws that prove such a serious item in foundry practice in the case hardening department next door there are six huge ovens with sliding fronts therein are set parts which have been forged or machined and are subjected to a high temperature while covered in charcoal so that the skin of the metal may absorb carbon at high temperatures and become extremely tough all shafts gears and other moving parts of a car are subjected to this treatment which permits a considerable reduction in the weight of metal used and greatly increases its resistance to wear after being carbonized the material is tempered by immersion in water while of a certain heat judged by the color of the hot metal we now pass to the turning shop where the cylinders are bored out by a grinding disc rapidly rotating on an eccentric shaft which is gradually advanced through the cylinder as it revolves the utmost accuracy to the one ten thousandth part of an inch is necessary in this operation since the bore must be perfectly cylindrical and also have standard size so that any standard piston may exactly fit it after being bored or rather ground the walls of the cylinder are highly polished and the article is ready for testing the workman entrusted with this task her medically closes the ends by inserting the cylinder between the plates of a hydraulic press and pumps in water to a required pressure if there be the slightest crack crevice or hole the water finds its way through and the piece is condemned to the rubby sheet in the motor room are scores of cylinders crank cases and gears ready for finishing here the outside of bored cylinders is touched up by files to remove any marks and rough projections left by the molds the crank cases of aluminum are taken in hand by men who chisel the edges where the two halves fit chipping off the metal with wonderful skill and precision the edges are then ground smooth and after the halves have been accurately fitted the holes for the bolts connecting them are drilled in a special machine which presents a drill to each hole in succession having seen the various operations which a cylinder has to go through we pass into another shop given up to long lines of benches where various motor parts are being completed each piece however small is treated as of the utmost importance since the failure of even a tiny pin may bring the largest car to a standstill we see a man testing pump discs against a standard template to prove their absolute accuracy close by another man is finishing a flywheel chipping off specks of metal to make the balance true we now understand that machine tools cannot utterly displace the human hand and eye the fitters with touches of the file remove matter in such minute quantities that its removal might seem of no consequence but matter in the wrong place is the cause of many breakdowns we should naturally expect that engines cast from the same pattern handled by the same machines finished by the same men would give identical results but as two bicycles of similar make will run differently so do engines of one type develop peculiarities the motors are therefore taken into a testing room and bolted to two rows of benches forty at a time here they run under power for long periods creating a deafening uproar until all parts work sweetly the power of the engines is tested by harnessing them to dynamos and noting the amount of current developed at a certain speed we might linger in the departments where accumulators, sparking plugs and other parts of the electrical apparatus of a car are made or in the laboratory where chemists pry into the results of a new alloy aided by powerful microscopes and marvelously delicate scales but we will stop only to note the powerful machine which is stretching and crushing metal to ascertain its toughness no care in experimenting is spared the chemist pouring over his test tubes plays as important a part in the construction of a car as the foundry man or the turner the machine shop is an object lesson among the tools noted in previous chapters of this book here is a huge planing machine traveling to and fro over a copper bar a crankshaft has been cut out of solid steel by boring holes close together through the thick plate and the two sides of the plate have been broken off leaving the rough shaft with its edges composed of a considerable number of semicircles the shaft is slowly rotated on a lathe and tiny clouds of smoke arise as the tool nicks off pieces of metal to reduce the shaft to a circular shape other machines with high speed tool steel are finishing gear shafts flywheels are being turned and worm shafts cut all these laborious operations are carried out by the machines each under the control of one man whose mind is intent upon the work ready to stop the machine or adjust the material as may be required as a contrast to the heavy machines we will pass to the light automatic tools which are grouped in a gallery the eye is bewildered by the moving mass but the whirling of the pulley shafts and the clicking of the cap stand lays is soothing to the ear while the mind is greatly impressed by the ingenuity of man and suppressing labor by means of machines of which half a dozen can be easily looked after by one hand who has nothing to do but see that they are fed with material a rod of steel is put into a machine and the turret with half a dozen different tools presents first one and then the other to the end of the rod laid in thick oil so that it is rapidly turned bored and shaped into caps nuts bolts and scores of other little accessories required in fitting up a motor car on seeing how all this work is done mechanically and methodically with scarcely any other expense but the capital are required in the upkeep of the machines and in driving them one wonders how the automobile industry could be carried on without this labor-saving mechanism in any event if all these little pieces had to be turned out by hand it is certain that the cost of the motor car would be considerably more than it is even if it did not reach to such a figure as to make it prohibitive to all but wealthy buyers down one side of the gallery the machines are engaged in cutting gears with so much precision that when tested by turning them together on pins on a bench at the end of the gallery it is very rare indeed that any one of them is found defective the installation of automatic tools is one of the largest of its kind in the motor car works if not in any engineering shop and each one has been carefully selected in view of its efficiency for particular classes of work so that we see machines from America, England, France and Germany in the fitting shops the multitude of parts are assembled to form the chassis or mechanical carriage of the car which in a separate shop has added the body for the accommodation of passengers the hole is painted and carefully varnished after it has been out on the road for trials to discover any weak spots in its anatomy then the car is ready for sale when one considers the racketing that a high powered car has to stand and the high speed of its moving parts one can understand why those parts must be made so carefully and precisely and also how this care must conduce to the expense of the finished article it has been said that it is easy to make a good watch but difficult to make a good motor for though they both require an equal amount of exactitude and skill the latter has to stand much more where in proportion when you look at a first grade car bearing a great maker's name you have under your eyes one of the most wonderful pieces of mechanism the world can show we will not leave the day the Ohm Bolton works without a further glance at the human element the company never have a slack time and consequently can employ the same number of people all the year around they pride themselves on the fact that the great majority of the men have been in their employ for several years with the result that they have around them a class of workmen who are steady reliable and above all skillful in the particular work they are engaged upon there are more than 2,600 men and about a hundred women these latter being employed chiefly in the manufacture of sparking plugs and in other departments where there is no night work they are mostly the wives or widows of old workmen and in thus finding employment for them the firm provides for those who would otherwise be left without resource and at the same time earns the gratitude of their employees note the author gratefully acknowledges the help given by Messers de the Ohm Bolton limited in providing the materials for this account of their work the motor omnibus prior to the emancipation of the road automobile in 1896 permission had been granted to corporations to run trams driven by mechanical power through towns the steam tram its engine protected by a case which hid the machinery and the view of restive horses panted up and down our streets drawing one or more vehicles behind it the electric tram presently came over from America and soon established its superiority to the steamer with respect to speed, freedom from smell and smoke, and noiselessness the system generally adopted was that invented in 1887 by Frank J. Sprague in which an overhead cable supported on posts or slung from wires spanning the track carries current to a trolley arm projecting from the vehicle the return current passes through the rails which are made electrically continuous by having their individual lengths either welded together or joined by metal strips in America where wide streets and rapidly growing cities are the rule the electric tramway serves very useful ends the best proof of its utility being the total mileage of the tracks for 1902 show that since 1890 the mileage has increased from 1,261 to 21,920 miles and the number of passengers carried from 2,023,010,202 to 4,813,466,001 or an increase of 137.94% it is interesting to note that electricity has in the United States almost completely ousted steam and animal traction so far as streetcars are concerned since the 5,661 miles once served by animal power have dwindled to 259 and steam can claim only 169 miles of track next to the United States comes Germany as a user of electricity for tractive purposes though she is a very bad second with only about 6,000 miles of track and England takes third place with about 3,000 miles that the British Isles so well provided with railways should be so poorly equipped with tramways is comprehensible when we consider the narrowness of the streets of her largest towns where a good service of public vehicles is most needed the location of a tram line necessitates the tearing up of a street and in many cases the closing of that street to traffic we can hardly imagine the dislocation of businesses that would result from such a blockage of say the strand and high hole board but since it has been calculated that no less than 5 millions of pounds sterling are lost to our great metropolis yearly by the obstructions of gas, water, telegraph and telephone operations that may close a thoroughfare or by the relaying of the road surface which is not a very lengthy matter if properly conducted we might reckon the financial loss resulting from the laying of tram-mails at many millions even were they laid the trouble would not cease for a tram is confined to its track and cannot make way for other traffic thus inadaptability has been the cause of the great outcry lately raised against the way tram-line companies have monopolized the main streets and approaches to many of our largest towns while the electric tram is beneficial to a large class of people as a cheap method of locomotion between home and business it sadly handicaps all owners of vehicles vexatiously delayed by the tram at Brentford, to take a notorious example the double tram-line so completely fills the high street that it is at places impossible for a cart or carriage to remain at the curb-stone another charge level with justice at the tram-line is that the rails in their setting are dangerous to cyclists motorcycles and even heavy vehicles especially in wet weather when the side-slip demon becomes a real terror English municipalities are therefore faced by a serious problem improved locomotion is necessary how can it best be provided by smooth running luxurious well-lighted electric trams traveling over a track late at great expense and a continual nuisance to a large section of the community or by vehicles independent of a central source of power and free to move in any direction according to the needs of traffic where tramways exist those responsible for laying them at the rate of several thousand pounds per mile are naturally reluctant to abandon them but where the fixed track has not yet arrived an alternative method of transport is open to it the automobile omnibus quite recently we have seen in London and other towns a great increase in the number of motor buses which often ply far out into the country from the point of speed they are very superior to the horse vehicle and statistics show they are also less costly to run in proportion to the fares carried while passengers will unanimously acknowledge their greater comfort to change from the ancient rattling two horse conveyance which jolts us on rough roads and occasionally sends a thrill up the spine when the brakes are applied to the roomy steam or petrol driven bus which overtakes and threads its way through the slower traffic is a pleasant experience the motor buses are crowded while the horse rivals on the same route trundle along half empty since the one class of vehicle can travel at an average pace of ten miles an hour as against the four miles an hour of the other no wonder that this should be so even if the running costs of a motor bus for a given distance exceed that of an electric tram we must remember that whereas a bus runs on already existing roads an immense amount of capital must be sunk in laying the track for the tram and the interest on this sum has to be added to the total running costs the next decade will probably decide whether automobiles or trams are to serve the needs of the community in districts where at present no efficient service of any kind exists in London motor buses are being placed on the roads by scores and the day cannot be far distance when the horse will disappear from the bus as it is already fast vanishing from the front of the tram both petrol and steam and in some cases a combination of petrol and electricity are used to propel the motor bus it has not yet been decided which form of power yields the best results petrol is probably the cheapest fuel but steam gives the quieter running and could electric storage batteries be made sufficiently light and durable with a strong claim to precedence there has lately appeared a new form of accumulator the van Rothman which promises well since weight for weight it far exceeds in capacity any other type and is so constructed that it will stand a lot of rough usage a car fitted with a van Rothman battery scaling about 1500 pounds has run 200 miles on one charge and it is anticipated that with improvements in motors 1100 pound battery will readily be run 150 miles as against the 50 miles in the case of a lead battery of equal weight there is a large sphere open to the motor bus outside districts where the electric tram would enter into serious competition with it we have before us a sketch map of the great western railway one of the most enterprising systems with regard to its use of motors to speed its rails no less than 30 road services are in operation and their number is being steadily augmented in fact it looks as if in the near future the motor service will largely supplant the branch railway blessed with very few trains a day a motor bus service plying every half hour between town and the nearest important mainline station would be more valuable to the inhabitants than half a dozen trains a day especially if the passenger vehicles were supplemented by lorries for the carriage of luggage and heavy goods in this connection we may notice an invention of Monsieur Renard a motor train of several vehicles towed by a single engine we have all seen the traction engine puffing along with its tail of trucks and been impressed by the weight of the locomotive and also by the manner in which the train occupies a road when passing a corner the weight is necessary to give sufficient grip to move the whole train while the spreading of the vehicles across the thoroughfare on a curve arises from the fact that each vehicle does not follow the path of that preceding it but describes part of a smaller circle Monsieur Renard has in his motor train evaded the need for a heavy tractor by providing every vehicle with a pair of driving wheels and transmitting the power to those wheels by a special flexible propeller shaft which passes from the powerful motor on the leading vehicle under all the other vehicles engaging in succession with mechanism attached to all the driving axles in this manner each car yields its quotem of adhesion for its own propulsion and the necessity for great weight is obviated special couplings ensure that the path taken by the tractor shall be faithfully followed by all its followers a motor train of this description has traveled from Paris to Berlin and drawn to itself a great deal of attention Willett asks a rider in the world's work ultimately displays the conventional traction engine in its heavy trailing wagons every municipality and county council is only too painfully cognizant to the dire effects upon the roads exercised by the cumbrous wheels of these unwieldy locomotives and trains with a renard train however the trailing coaches can be of light construction carried on ordinary wheels which do not cut up or otherwise damage the roadway surface many other advantages inherent in such a train might be enumerated the most important however are the flexibility of the whole train its complete control faster speed without any attendant danger its remarkable braking arrangements by the continuous propeller shaft gearing directly with the driving wheels of each carriage its low cost of maintenance serviceability and instant use and the reduction in the number of men required for the attention of the train while on a journey were the system a success it would find plenty of scope to convey passengers and commodities through districts too sparsely populated to render a railway profitable people would talk about traveling or sending goods by the 1030 motor train just as we now speak of the 1115 to town as a carrier and distributor of males the motor van has already established a position to quote but a couple of instances there are the services between London and Brighton and Liverpool and Manchester in the Isle of Wight motor omnibuses connect all the principal towns and villages as a traveling post office in which by an arrangement with a postmaster general anybody may post letters at recognized stopping places or wherever the vehicle is halted for any purpose in Paris, London, Berlin the motor mail van is a common sight it has even penetrated the interior of India where the Maharaja of Gwalior uses especially fitted steam car for the delivery of private males and as though to show that man alone shall not profit by the new mode of locomotion Paris owns a motor car which conveys lost dogs from the different police station to the dog's home in fact there seems to be no purpose to which a horse drawn vehicle can be put which either has not been or shortly will be invaded by the motor railway motor cars in the early days of railway construction vehicles were used which combined a steam locomotive with an ordinary passenger carriage after being abandoned for many years the steam carriage was revived in 1902 by the London and south western and great western railways for local service and the handling of passenger traffic on branch lines since that year rail motor cars have multiplied some being run by steam others by petrol engines again by electricity generated by petrol engines the first class we need not describe in any detail as it presents no features of peculiar interest the north eastern has had in use two rail motors each 52 feet long with a compartment at each end for the driver and a central saloon to carry 52 passengers an 80 horsepower four cylinder waltzly petrol motor drives a westinghouse electric generator which sends current to a couple of 55 horsepower electric motors geared to the running wheels an air compressor fitted to the rear bogey supplies the westinghouse air brakes while in addition a powerful electric brake is fitted acting on the rails as well as the wheels the coach scales 35 tons the chief advantage of this composite system of power transmission is kept running at a constant speed while the power it develops at the electric motors is regulated by switches which control the action of the armature and field magnets when heavy work must be done the engine is supplied with more gaseous mixture and the generators are so operated as to develop full power in this manner all the variable speed gears and clutches necessary when the petrol motor is connected to the driving wheels are done away the latter system gives however greater economy of fuel and the great northern railway has adopted it in preference to the petrol electric this railway has many small branch lines running through thinly populated districts which though important as feeders of the main tracks are often worked at a loss a satisfactory type of automobile carriage would not only avoid this loss but also largely prevent the competition of road motors the car should be powerful enough to draw an extra van or two on occasion since horses and heavy luggage may sometimes accompany the passengers Messer's dick care and company have built a car which when loaded with its complement of passengers weighs about 16 tons the modi power is supplied by two four cylinder petrol engines of the Daimler type each giving 36 horsepower these are suspended on a special frame independent of that which carries the coach body so that the passengers are not troubled by the vibration of the engines even when the vehicle is at rest the great feature of the car is the lightness of the machinery only two tons in weight though it develops sufficient power to move the carriage at 50 miles per hour after traveling 2000 miles the machinery showed no appreciable signs of wear so that the company considers that it has found a reliable type of motor for the working of the short line between Hatfield and Hertford since one man can drive a petrol car well to a driver and a stoker are necessary on a steam car a considerable reduction in wages will result from the employment of these vehicles engineers find motor trolleys very convenient for inspecting the lines under their care on the London and south railways a trolley driven by a six to eight horsepower engine and provided with a change gear giving six 15 and 30 miles per hour in either direction is at work it seats four persons in the colonies notably in South Africa where coal and wood fuel is scarce or expensive the motor trolley capable of carrying petrol for 300 miles travel is rapidly gaining ground among railway inspectors makers are turning their attention to petrol shunting engines useful in good yards mine sewerage works firm such as Messers Modsley and company of Coventry the Woolsey tool and motor car company Messers Panhard and Levasore Messers care Stewart and company have brought out locomotives of this kind which will draw loads of up to 60 tons the fact that a petrol engine is ready for work at a moment's notice and when is not eating its head off and has no furnace or boiler to require attention is very much in its favor where comparatively light loads have to be hauled end of section 8 section 9 of the romance of modern mechanism this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libervox.org recording by Tina Ding the romance of modern mechanism by Arch Ball Williams chapter 8 the motor of float part 1 pleasure boats motor life boats motor fishing boats a motor fire float the mechanism of the motor boat the two stroke motor motor boats for the navy having made such conquest on land and rendered possible aerial feeds which could scarcely have been performed by steam the explosion motor further vindicates its versatility by its fine exploits in the water at the Paris exhibition of 1889 Gottlieb Daimler the inventor who made the petrol engine extremely valuable as an aid to locomotion showed a small gas driven boat which by most visitors to the exhibition was mistaken for an ordinary steam launch an attracted little interest not deterred by this want of appreciation Mr. Daimler continued to perfect the idea for which with the prophet's eye he saw great possibilities and soon the launches became a fairly common sight on German rivers they were received with some enthusiasm in the United States as being particularly suitable for the inland lakes and waterways with which that country is so abundantly blessed but met with small recognition from the English whom I reasonably have been expected to take great interest in any new nautical invention however English manufacturers have awaked fully to their error and on all sides we see boats built by firms competing for the lead in the industry which in a few years time may reach colossal proportions until quite recently the marine motor was a small affair developing only a few horsepower but because the gas engine and industrial work have been so vastly improved in the last decade it attracted notice as a rival to steam for driving launches and pleasurables and soon asserted itself as a reliable mover of vessels of considerable size to promote the development of the industry to test the endurance of the machine and to show the weak spots of mechanical design trials and races were organized on much the same lines as those which have kept the motor car so prominently before the public races in the Solent across the Channel and across the Mediterranean the speed as in the case of cars has risen very rapidly with a motorboat when in February 1905 a Napier racer did some trial spins over the major mile in the Thames at Long Beach she attained 28.57 miles per hour on the first run on turning the tide was favorable and the figures rose to 30.93 miles per hour while the third improved on this by over a mile her mean speed was 29.925 miles per hour or about two-thirds miles per hour better than the previous record standing to the credit of the American Challenger the letter had however the steel waters of a lake for her venue so that the Napier's performance was actually even more credible than the mere figures would seem to imply at the luncheon which concluded the trial Mr. Yarrow who had built the steel hull said we have an idea of what in advance the adoption of the internal combustion engine really represents I should like to state that if we were asked to guarantee the best speed we could with the boat of the size of Napier 2 fitted with the latest form of steam machinery of as reliable a character as the internal combustion engine in the present boat we should not like to name 15 knots so that it may be taken that the adoption of the internal combustion engine in place of the steam engine for a vessel of this size really represents an additional speed of 10 knots an hour I should hear point out that the speed of the vessel increases rapidly with its size for example in what is termed a second class 60 feet in length the best speed we could obtain would be 20 knots but for a vessel of say 200 feet in length with similar but proportionately larger machinery a speed of 30 knots could be obtained therefore the obtaining of a speed of practically 26 knots in the Yarrow Napier boat only 40 feet in length points to the possibility in the not far distant future of propelling a vessel 220 feet in length at even 45 knots per hour all that remains to be done is to perfect the internal combustion engine so as to enable large sizes to be successfully made boats of 300 horsepower and upwards are being built and the project has been mooted a transatlantic race open to motor boats of all sizes which should be quite self contained and able to carry sufficient fuel to make the passage without taking in fresh supplies in view of the perils that would be risk by all but large craft and in consideration of the prejudice the motor boats might incur in event of any fatalities the automobile club of friends is against the venture and it fell through it is possible however that the scheme may be revived as soon as larger motor boats are afloat since the Atlantic has actually been crossed by a craft of 12 horsepower measuring only 40 feet at the water line this happened in 1902 when captain Newman and his son a boy 12 years old started from New York made Felmouth Harbor after 30 days of anxious travel over the uncertain and sometimes tempestuous ocean the boat named the Abial Abelow carried auxiliary sails of small size and was not by any means built for such a voyage the engine a two cylinder burned kerosene captain Newman received from the New York kerosene oil engine company for his feet the money was well earned though provided with proper navigating instruments which he knew how to use well Newman had a hard time to keep his craft afloat his watch is sometimes lasting two days on end when the weather was bad yet the brave pair won through and probably even more welcome the sense of success achieved and the reward gained was the long two days sleep which they were able to get on reaching Felmouth Harbor pleasure boats we may now consider the pleasure and commercial uses of the motor boat and marine motor as a means of recreation a small dinghy driven by a low powered engine offers great possibilities its cost is low its upkeep small and its handiness very great already a number of such craft are furrowing the surface of the temps Sain Ryan and many other rivers in Europe and America while racing craft are for the wealthy alone many individuals of the class known as the men of moderate means do not mind putting down 70 pounds to 100 pounds for a neat boat the maintenance of which is not nearly so serious a matter as that of a small car tired troubles have no counterpart afloat the marine motor dispenses with change gears water being a much more yielding medium than mother earth the shocks of starting and stopping are not much as to strain machinery then again the cooling of the cylinders is a simple matter with an unlimited amount of water almost washing the engine and as the surface of water does not run uphill a small motor will show to better advantage on the river than on the road thus a five horsepower car will not conveniently carry more than two people if it is expected to climb slopes at more than a crawl a fixed motor of equal power to a boat which accommodates half a dozen persons and it will move them all along at a smart pace as compared with the rate of travel given by oars after all on the river one does not want to travel fast rather to avoid the heart labor which rowing undoubtedly does become with a craft roomy enough to be comfortable for a party the marine motor also scores under the heading of adaptability a wagonette could not be converted into a motor car with any success but a good sized rowboat may easily blossom out as a useful self propelled boat you may buy complete apparatus motor, tanks screw, batteries etc for clamping direct onto the stern and there you are a motor boat while you wait even more sudden still is the conversion affected by the motogodis which may be described as a motor screw and rudder in one the makers are the Bouchette company a well known French firm engine and carburetor petrol tank, coil, accumulator lubricating oil reservoir exhaust box propeller shaft and propeller with guard are all provided so that the outfit requires no additional accessories for mounting imposition at the stern of the boat the complete set is balanced on a standard and carries a steering arm on which the tanks are mounted and also the stern tube and propeller guard which are in one solid piece in addition to the engine in order that no balancing feats shall be required of the person in charge there is on the supporting standard a quadrant in the notches of which a lever on the engine frame engages thus allowing the rigid framework and therefore the propeller shaft to be maintained at any angle to the vertical without trouble the two horsepower engine drives 6 feet long by 4 feet 6 inches beam at 6 and a half miles per hour through still water as the motor go D can be swerved to right or left on its standard it acts as a very efficient rudder while its action takes no way off the boat for people who like an easy life on hot summer days reclining on soft cushions and peeping up through the branches can percharisk streams there is the motor punt which can move in water so shallow that it would strand even a rowboat the Oxford undergraduate of tomorrow will explore the leafy recesses of the share not with a long pole laboriously raised and pushed aft but by the power of a snug little motor throbbing gently at the stern and on the open river we shall see the steam launch replaced by craft having much better accommodation for passengers while free from the dirt and smells which are inseparable from the use of steam power the petrol launch will rival the electric in spaciousness and the steamer in its speed and power size for size some people have an antipathy to this new form of river on account of the risks which accompany the presence of petrol where a motor launch to ignite in say boaters lock on a summer Sunday or at the Henley Regatta there might indeed be a catastrophe the same danger has before now being flaunted in the face of the automobile list on land yet cases of the accidental ignition of cars are very very rare and on the water would be more rare still because the tanks can be more easily examined for leaks still it be hopes every owner of a launch to keep his eye very widely open for leakage because any escaping liquid would create a collection of gas in the bottom of the boat from which it could not escape like the gas forming from drops spilled on the road the future popularity of the motor boat is assured the water site will find it invaluable as a means of carrying him to other parts of the stream the longshoreman will be able to venture much further out to sea than he could while he depended on mussels or wind alone and with much greater certainty of returning up to time a whole network of waterways and countries often far better capped than the roads offering fresh fields for the tourists to conquer river scenery and beautiful scenery more often than not go together the car or cycle may be able to follow the course of a stream from source to mouth yet this is the exception rather than the rule we shoot over the stream in a train or on our machines note that it looks picturesque wonder vaguely wither it flows and whence it comes and continue our journey reckoning little of the charming sites to be seen by anyone who would trust himself to the water hitherto the great difficulty has been one of locomotion in a narrow stream sailing is generally out of the question haulage by men or beast becomes tedious even if possible and rowing day after day presupposes a good physical condition in the motorboat the holiday maker has an ideal craft it occupies little room can carry fuel is sufficient for long distances is unwearing and is economical as regards its running expenses we ought not to be surprised therefore if in a few years the jaded businessman turns as naturally to a spin or trip on the rivers and canals of his country as he now turns to his car and a rush over the dusty highway then we'll begin another error for the disused canal the vegetation choked stream will pay more attention to the paths which nature has water worn in the course of the ages to the scientific explorer also the motor affords valuable help many countries in which roads are practically nonexistent can boast fine rivers fed by innumerable streams what fields of adventure, sport and science would be open to the possessor of a fast launch on the Amazon the Congo the Mackenzie or the Orinoco provided only that he could occasionally replenish his fuel tanks motor lifeboats turning to the more serious side of life we find the marine motor still much in evidence on account of its comparatively short existence it is at present only in the experimental stage many applications and time must pass before its position is fully established take for instance the motor lifeboat lately built for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution here are encountered difficulties of a kind very different from those of a racing craft a lifeboat is most valuable in rough weather which means more or less water often coming aboard if the water reached the machinery troubles with the electrical ignition apparatus would result so the motor must be enclosed in a watertight compartment and if so enclosed it must be specially reliable also since a lifeboat sometimes upsets the machinery needs to be so disposed as not to interfere with her self-riding qualities the list might easily be extended an account of the first motor life saver will interest breeders so we once again have recourse to the chief authority on such topics the motor boat for particulars the boat selected for experiment was an old one formally stationed at Folkstone measuring 38 feet long by 8 feet beam pulling 12 oars double banked and of the usual self-riding type rigged with jib, furlug and mizzen after she had been hauled up in Mr. Guy's yard where some of the aircases under the deck mid ships were taken out a strong mohawkney case measuring 4 feet long by 3 feet wide and as high as the gun walls lined with sheet copper so as to be watertight with a close fitting lid which could be easily removed on shore was fitted in place and the whole of the vital parts of the machinery comprising a 2-cylinder motor of 10 horsepower together with all the necessary pumps, copper rudder, electric equipment et cetera were fitted inside this case the engine drives a 3-bladed propeller through a long shaft with a disconnecting clutch between so that for starting and stopping temporarily the screw can be disconnected from the engine the petrol which serves as fuel for the engine is carried in a metal tank stored away inside the forward end box where it is beyond any possibility of accidental damage sufficient fuel for a continuous run of over 10 hours is carried the engine is started by a handle fitted on the foreside of the case which can be worked by two men the position and size of the engine case is such that only two oars are interfered with but it does not follow that the propelling power of the two displaced men is entirely lost because they can double bank some of the other oars when necessary fitted thus the live boat was tested in all sorts of weather during the month of April and it was found that she could be driven fairly well against a sea by means of the motor alone but when it was used to assist the sails the true use of the motor as an auxiliary became apparent and the boat would work to windward in a way previously unattainable neither the pitching or rolling in a seaway in any weather then obtainable interfered at all with the proper working or starting of the motor which worked steadily and well throughout having been through these preliminary tests she was more severely tried running over the major mile with full crew and stores on board she developed over six knots an hour the men were then replaced by equivalent weights to the thrust and she was capsized by a crane four times her sails sut and the sheets made fast yet she ridded herself without difficulty an interesting feature of the capsize was that the motor stopped automatically when the boat had partly turned over this arrangement prevents her from running away from the crew if they should be pitched out the motor started again after a few turns of the handle so proving that the protecting compartment had kept the water at bay from this account it is obvious that a valuable aid to lifesaving at sea has been found the steam lifeboat propelled by a jet of water squirted out by pumps below the water line is satisfactory so long as the boat keeps upright but in event of an upset others must necessarily be extinguished no such disability attains the petrol-driven craft and we shall be glad to think that the brave fellows who risked their lives in the cause of humanity will be spared the intense physical toil which a long role to winward in the heavy sea entails the general adoption of this new ally will take time and must depend largely the liberality of subscribers to the fine institution responsible for lifeboat maintenance but it is satisfactory to learn that the committee has given the boat in question a practical chance in the open sea by stationing her at New Haven Sussex as a unit in the lifeboat fleet End of section 9