CARRYING MACHINES.
The reflecting observer delights occasionally to shift the scenes of the
present stage and bring to the front the processions of the past. That
famous triumphal one, for instance, of Ptolemy of Philadelphus, at
Alexandria, about 270 B. C., then in the midst of his power and glory,
in which there were chariots and cumbrous wagons drawn by elephants and
goats, antelopes, oryxes, buffaloes, ostriches, gnus and zebras; then a
tribe of the Scythians, when with many scores of oxen they were shifting
their light, big round houses, made of felt cloth and mounted on road
carts, to a new camping place; next a wild, mad dash of the Roman
charioteers around the amphitheatre, or a triumphal march with chariots
of carved ivory bearing aloft the ensigns of victory; and now an army of
the ancient Britons driving through these same charioteers of Cæsar with
their own rude chariots, having sharp hooks and crooked iron blades
extending from their axles; now a “Lady’s Chair” of the fourteenth
century--the state carriage of the time--with a long, wooden-roofed and
windowed body, having a door at each end, resting on a cumbrous frame
without springs, and the axles united rigidly to a long reach; next
comes a line of imposing clumsy state coaches of the sixteenth century,
with bodies provided with pillars to support the roof, and adorned with
curtains of cloth and leather, but still destitute of springs; and here
in stately approach comes a line of more curious and more comfortable
“royal coaches” of the seventeenth century, when springs were for the
first time introduced; and now rumbles forward a line of those famous
old English stage coaches originated in the seventeenth century, which
were two days flying from Oxford to London, a distance of fifty-five
miles; but a scene in the next century shows these ponderous vehicles
greatly improved, and the modern English stage mail-coaches of Palmer in
line. Referring to Palmer’s coaches, Knight says: “Palmer, according to
De Quincey, was twice as great a man as Galileo, because he not only
invented mail-coaches (of more general practical utility than Jupiter’s
satellites), but married the daughter of a duke, and succeeded in
getting the post-office to use them. This revolutionised the whole
business.” The coaches were built with steel springs, windows of great
strength and lightness combined, boots for the baggage, seats for a few
outside passengers, and a guard with a grand uniform, to protect the
mail and stand for the dignity of his majesty’s government.
By the system of changing horses frequently great speed was attained,
and the distance from Edinburgh to London, 400 miles, was made in 40
hours. Other lines of coaches, arranged to carry double the number of
passengers outside than in, fourteen to six, were made heavier, and took
the road more leisurely.
The carts and conveyances of the poor were cumbrous, heavy contrivances,
without springs, mostly two-wheel, heavy carts.
The middle classes at that time were not seen riding in coaches of their
own, but generally on horseback, as the coaches of the rich were too
expensive, and the conveyances of the poor were too rude in
construction, and too painful in operation.
Let the observer now pass to the largest and most varied exhibition of
the best types of modern vehicles of every description that the world
had ever seen, the International Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, and
behold what wonderful changes art, science, invention, and mechanical
skill had wrought in this domain. Here were the carriages of the rich,
constructed of the finest and most appropriate woods that science and
experience had found best adapted for the various parts, requiring the
combination of strength and lightness, the best steel for the springs,
embodying in themselves a world of invention and discovery, and splendid
finish and polish in all parts unknown to former generations.
Here, too, were found vehicles of a great variety for the comfort and
convenience of every family, from the smallest to the largest means.
The farmer and the truckman were especially provided for. One
establishment making an exhibition at that time, employed some six
hundred or seven hundred hands, four hundred horse-power of steam,
turning out sixty wagons a day, or one in every ten minutes of each
working day in the year.
Here England showed her victoria, her broughams, landaus, phætons,
sporting-carts, wagonettes, drays and dog-carts; Canada her splendid
sleighs; France her superb barouches, carriages, double-top sociables,
the celebrated Collinge patent axle-trees and springs; Germany the best
carriage axles, springs and gears; Russia its famous low-wheeled
fast-running carriages; Norway its carryalls, or sulkies, and sleighs
strongly built, and made of wood from those vast forests that ever
abound in strength and beauty. One ancient sleigh there was, demurely
standing by its modern companions, said to have been built in 1625, and
it was still good. America stood foremost in carriage wheels of best
materials and beautiful workmanship, bent rims, turned and finished
spokes, mortised hubs, steel tires, business and farm wagons, carts and
baby carriages. Each trade and field of labour had its own especially
adapted complete and finished vehicle. There were hay wagons and
hearses; beer wagons and ice carts; doctors’ buggies, express wagons,
drays, package delivery wagons; peddlers’ wagons with all the shelves
and compartments of a miniature store, skeleton wagons, and sportsmen’s,
and light and graceful two and four “wheelers.” Beautiful displays of
bent and polished woods, a splendid array of artistic, elegant, and
useful harnesses, and all the traps that go to make modern means of
conveyance by animal power so cheap, convenient, strong and attractive
that civilisation seemed to have reached a stop in principles of
construction of vehicles and in their materials, and since contents
itself in improving details.
To this century is due the development of that class of carriages, the
generic term for which is _Velocipedes_--a word which would imply a
vehicle propelled by the feet, although it has been applied to vehicles
propelled by the hands and steered by the feet. This name originated
with the French, and several Frenchmen patented velocipedes from 1800 to
1821.
Tricycles having three wheels, propelled by the hands and steered with
the feet, were also invented in the early part of the century.
The term _Bicycle_ does not appear to have been used until about 1869.
Although such structures had been referred to in publications before,
yet the modern bicycle appears to have been first practically
constructed in Germany. In 1816 Baron von Drais of Manheim made a
vehicle consisting of two wheels arranged one before the other, and
connected by a bar, the forward wheel axled in a fork which was swiveled
to the front end of the bar and had handles to guide the machine, with a
seat on the bar midway between the two wheels, and arranged so that the
driver should bestride the bar. But there was no support for the rider’s
feet, and the vehicle was propelled by thrusting his feet alternately
against the ground. This machine was called the “Draisine” and
undoubtedly was the progenitor of the modern bicycle. Denis Johnson
patented in England in 1818 a similar vehicle which he named the
“Pedestrian Curricle.” Another style was called the “Dandy Horse.”
Another form was that of Gompertz in England in 1821, who contrived a
segmental rack connected with a frame over the front wheel and engaging
a pinion on the wheel axle. With some improvements added by others, the
vehicle came into quite extensive and popular use in some of the cities
in Europe and America. It was also named the “Dandy” and the “Hobby
Horse.” Treadles were subsequently applied, but after a time the machine
fell into disuse and was apparently forgotten. In 1863, however, the
idea was revived by a Frenchman, Michaux, who added the crank to the
front wheel axle of the “Draisine” (also called the “célérifèré.”) In
1866 Pierre Lallement of France, having adapted the idea of the crank
and pedal movement and obtained a patent, went to America, where after
two years of public indifference the machine suddenly sprung into
favour. In 1869 a popular wave in its favour also spread over part of
Europe, and all classes of people were riding it.
But the wheels had hard tires, the roads and many of the streets were
not smooth, the vehicle got the name of the “bone-breaker” and its use
ceased. During the few years following some new styles of frames were
invented. Thus some very high wheels, with a small wheel in front, or
one behind, wheels with levers in addition to the crank, etc., and then
for a time the art rested again.
Some one then recalled the fact that McMillan, a Scotchman, about
1838-1841, had used two low wheels like the “Draisine” with a driving
gear, and that Dalzell, also of Scotland, had in 1845 made a similar
machine. Parts of these old machines were found and the wheel
reconstructed. Then in the seventies the entire field was thrown open to
women by the invention in England of the “drop frame,” which removed
completely the difficulty as to arrangement of the skirts and thus
doubled the interest in and desire for a comfortable riding machine. But
they were still, to a great degree, “bone-breakers.”
Then J. B. Dunlop, a veterinary surgeon of Belfast, Ireland, in order to
meet the complaints of his son that the wheel was too hard, thought of
the _pneumatic rubber tire_, and applied it with great success. This was
a very notable and original re-invention. A re-invention, because a man
“born before his time” had invented and patented the pneumatic tire more
than forty years before. It was not wanted then and everybody had
forgotten it. This man was Robert William Thomson, a civil engineer of
Adelphi, Middlesex county, England. In 1845 he obtained a patent in
England, and shortly after in the United States. In both patents he
describes how he proposed to make a tire for all kinds of vehicles
consisting of a hollow rubber tube, with an inner mixed canvas and
rubber lining, a tube and a screw cup by which to inflate it, and
several ways for preventing punctures. To obviate the bad results of
punctures he proposed also to make his tire in sectional compartments,
so that if one compartment was punctured the others would still hold
good. He also proposed to use vulcanised rubber, thus utilising the then
very recent discovery of Goodyear of mixing sulphur with soft rubber,
and to apply the same to the canvas lining.
And, now, when the last decade of the century had been reached, and
after a century’s hard work by the inventors, the present wonderful
vehicle, known as the “safety bicycle,” had obtained a successful and
permanent foothold among the vehicles of mankind. Proper proportions,
low wheels, chain-gearing, treadles, pedals and cranks, cushion and
pneumatic tires, drop frames, steel spokes like a spider’s web,
ball-bearings for the crank and axle parts, a spring-supported cushioned
seat which could be raised or lowered, adjustable handles, and the
clearest-brained scientific mechanics to construct all parts from the
best materials and with mathematical exactness--all this has been done.
To these accomplishments have been added a great variety of tires to
prevent wear and puncturing, among which are _self-healing_ tires,
having a lining of viscous or plastic rubber to close up automatically
the air holes. Many ways of clamping the tire to the rim have been
contrived. So have brakes of various descriptions, some consisting of
disks on the driving shaft, brought into frictional contact by a touch
of the toe on the pedal, as a substitute for those applied to the
surface of the tire, known as “spoon brakes”; saddles, speed-gearings,
men’s machines in which by the removal of the upper bar the machine is
converted into one for the use of women; the substitution of the direct
action, consisting of beveled gearing for the sprocket chain, etc., etc.
The ideas of William Thomson as to pneumatic and cushioned tires are
now, after a lapse of fifty years, generally adopted. Even sportsmen
were glad to seize upon them, and wheels of sulkies, provided with the
pneumatic tires, have enabled them to lower the record of trotting
horses. Their use on many other vehicles has accomplished his objects,
“of lessening the power required to draw carriages, rendering the motion
easier, and diminishing the noise.”
It is impossible to overlook the fact in connection with this subject
that the processes and machinery especially invented to make the various
parts of a bicycle are as wonderful as the wheel itself. Counting the
spokes there are, it is estimated, more than 300 different parts in such
a wheel. The best and latest inventions and discoveries in the making of
metals, wood, rubber and leather have been drawn upon in supplying these
useful carriers. And what a revolution they have produced in the making
of good roads, the saving of time, the dispatch of business, and more
than all else, in the increase of the pleasure, the health and the
amusement of mankind!
It was quite natural that when the rubber cushion and pneumatic tires
rounded the pleasure of easy and noiseless riding in vehicles that
_Motor vehicles_ should be revived and improved. So we have the
_Automobiles_ in great variety. Invention has been and is still being
greatly exercised as to the best motive power, in the adaption of
electric motors, oil and gasoline or vapour engines, springs and air
pumps, in attempts to reduce the number of complicated parts, and to
render less strenuous the mental and muscular strain of the operator.
_Traction Engines._--The old road engines that antedated the locomotives
are being revived, and new ideas springing from other arts are being
incorporated in these useful machines to render them more available than
in former generations. Many of the principles and features of motor
vehicles, but on a heavier scale, are being introduced to adapt them to
the drawing of far heavier loads. Late devices comprise a spring link
between the power and the traction wheel to prevent too sudden a start,
and permit a yielding motion; steering devices by which the power of the
engine is used to steer the machine; and application of convenient and
easily-worked brakes.
An example of a modern traction engine may be found attached to one or
more heavy cars adapted for street work, and on which may be found
apparatus for making the mixed materials of which the roadbed is to be
constructed, and all of which is moved along as the road or street
surface is completed. When these fine roads become the possession of a
country light traction engines for passenger traffic will be found
largely supplanting the horse and the steam railroad engines.
_Brakes_, railway and electric, have already been referred to in the
proper chapters. In the latest system of railroading greater attention
has been paid to the lives and limbs of those employed as workmen on the
trains, especially to those of brakemen. And if corporations have been
slow to adopt such merciful devices, legislatures have stepped in to
help the matter. One great source of accidents in this respect has been
due to the necessity of the brakemen entering between the cars while
they are in motion to couple them by hand. This is now being abolished
by _automatic couplers_, by which, when the locking means have been
withdrawn from connection or thrown up, they will be so held until the
cars meet again, when the locking parts on the respective cars will be
automatically thrown and locked, as easily and on the same principle as
the hand of one man may clasp the hand of another.
The comfort of passengers and the safety of freight have also been
greatly increased by the invention of _Buffers_ on railroad cars and
trains to prevent sudden and violent concussion. Fluid pressure car
buffers, in which a constant supply of fluid under pressure is provided
by a pump or train pipe connected to the engine is one of a great
variety.
Another notable improvement in this line is the splendid vestibule
trains, in which the cars are connected to one another by enclosed
passages and which at their meeting ends are provided with yieldingly
supported door-like frames engaging one another by frictional contact,
usually, whereby the shock and rocking of cars are prevented in starting
and stopping, and their oscillation reduced to a minimum.
As collisions and accidents cannot always be prevented, car frames are
now built in which the frames are trussed, and made of rolled steel
plates, angles, and channels, whereby a car body of great resistance to
telescoping or crushing is obtained.