success in his land as in his water vehicles. He was a man of rare
scientific attainments, and his work in ship designing and building put
him in the front rank of naval architects and builders of his day. In
addition to his work, already mentioned, he built a big steamer to
transport railway trains across Lake Constance.
W. H. CHURCH
A physician of Birmingham, England, Dr. W. H. Church gave many years to
the study of steam locomotion. Several patents were secured by him between
1832 and 1835, and in the latter year a common road carriage, built
according to his plans, was brought out.
The Church vehicle had a framework of united iron plates or bars, bolted
on each side of the woodwork to obtain strength. Well trussed and braced,
this framework enclosed a space between a hind and fore body of the
carriage, and of the same height as the latter, and contained the engine,
boiler, and other machinery. The boiler consisted of a series of vertical
tubes, placed side by side, through each of which a pipe passed, and was
secured at the bottom of the boiler tube; the interior pipe constituted
the flue, which first passed in through a boiler tube, and was then bent
like a syphon, and passed down another until it reached as low or lower
than the bottom of the fireplace, whence it passed off into a general flue
in communication with an exhausting apparatus. Two fans were employed, one
to blow in air, and the other to draw it out; they were worked by straps
from the crank shaft. The wheels of the carriage were constructed with the
view to rendering them elastic, to a certain degree, in two different
ways: First, the felloes were made of several successive layers of broad
wooden hoops, covered with a thin iron tire, having lateral straps to bind
the hoops together; second, these binding straps were connected by hinge
joints to a kind of flat steel springs, somewhat curved, which formed the
spokes of the wheels. These spring spokes were intended to obviate the
necessity, in a great measure, of the ordinary springs, and the elasticity
of the periphery was designed so that the yielding of the circle should
prevent the wheel from turning without propelling.
Church also proposed, in addition to spring felloes, spring spokes, and
the ordinary springs, to employ air springs, and for that purpose provided
two or more cylinders, made fast to the body of the carriage, in a
vertical position, closed at top, and furnished with a piston, with
packing similar to the cap-leather packing of the hydraulic press. This
piston was kept covered with oil, to preserve it in good order, and a
piston rod connected it with the supporting frame of the carriage. Motion
was communicated by two oscillating steam cylinders suspended on the steam
and exhaust pipes over the crank shaft. The crank shaft and driving-wheel
axle were connected by means of chains passing about pitched pulleys.
To introduce the Church coach, the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage
Company was organized. The first carriage built for the company was an
imposing vehicle, something like a big circus van, elaborately ornamented
and with a large spheroidal wheel in front. It carried about forty
passengers on top, in omnibus fashion, and the driver sat on a raised seat
near the roof. A fair rate of speed was maintained, fifteen miles on the
level, but the boiler was damaged, and horses hauled the engine back to
the factory. Other carriages were subsequently brought out, but they all
failed to meet the requirements of travel on the rough roads that existed
at that time in England.
JEAN JOSEPH ETIENNE LENOIR
Born at Mussy-la-Ville, Luxembourg, January 12, 1822. Died, July, 1900, at
La Varnne Chemevieves, near Paris.
When Lenoir came to Paris in 1838 he had but an ordinary education and was
without resources. For a time he served as a waiter in order to earn money
to become an enameler and decorator. In 1847, he invented a new white
enamel and four years after invented a galvano plastic process for raised
work. Many other inventions were made by him, among them being an electric
motor in 1856, a water meter in 1857, an automatic regulator for dynamos,
the well-known gas motor that bears his name, and a system of autographic
telegraphing.
It is claimed that in September, 1863, Lenoir put a gas engine of his
non-compressor type, of one and a half horse-power, on wheels and made an
experimental run to Joinville-le-Paris and back. The motor, running at one
hundred revolutions, it is said, took them there in one and a half hours.
He thereupon abandoned such trials, and tried his engines in a boat, and
in 1865 put a six horse-power in one, but the insignificant speed possible
with his engine caused him to abandon that also.
The Academy of Science of Paris decorated M. Lenoir and the Society of
Encouragement gave him the grand prize of Argenteuil, amounting to twelve
thousand francs. For his patriotic services at the siege of Paris, during
the Franco-Prussian war, he was made a naturalized Frenchman. In 1880, he
published in Paris a work treating of his researches into the tanning of
leather.
AMEDÈE BOLLÈE
In April, 1873, Amedèe Bollèe, of Le Mans, France, the noted French
engineer, filed a patent for a steam road vehicle and two years later he
built the steam stage that he named Obeissante. Toward the end of that
year this stage was run in and about Paris, where it created something of
a sensation. It was even chronicled in the songs of the day and was made a
topic of amusement at the variety theatres. This steam omnibus made
twenty-eight kilometers in an hour. It is claimed to have been the first
creation of the man to whose family much credit is due for the modern
French automobile.
Between 1873 and 1875, Bollèe made several carriages. In 1876, he worked
with Dalifol and made a tram-car that would carry fifty passengers. This
vehicle was put into the steam omnibus service in Rouen. Two years later
he made another steam omnibus that he called La Mancelle. This vehicle, in
June of that year, was run from Paris to Vienna and developed a speed on
level roads of twenty-two miles an hour. In Vienna this vehicle was the
subject of much talk and was largely caricatured.
In 1880, Bollèe built another omnibus, La Nouvelle. This vehicle was
entered in the Paris-Bordeaux competition in 1895, and was the only steam
carriage that covered the course in that race. Bollèe has been a
conspicuous exponent of the steam carriage in France from the time he
commenced as far back as 1873. The vehicles that he has built were in many
instances pioneers in their class, and have been exceedingly serviceable
and successful. They have made the name of Bollèe notable.
GEORGE B. SELDEN
Born in the fifties, George B. Selden came of a family of jurists, whose
ancestors were early Connecticut settlers. Among them were several eminent
scientific men. His father, Henry Rogers Selden, was born in Lyme, Conn.,
October 14, 1805, and died in Rochester, N. Y., September 18, 1885; was
Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, and is still
remembered by men of that generation as one of the most accomplished
lawyers and jurists who occupied that bench in the last century.
George B. Selden attended Yale University, and while equipping himself for
his legal career, following in the footsteps of his father, indulged his
natural predilection for scientific work. While practicing law in
Rochester, N. Y., he devoted much time to the problem of self-propelled
vehicles on common roads, in which, as early as the sixties, he was then
interested. The study of this art led to a very full analysis of the
possibilities of different means of propulsion, with, as a result, the
conclusion that the light, liquid hydro-carbon concussion engine must
eventually fill the exacting requirements of road vehicles. His further
experimenting that was carried on during the seventies, and the actual
constructing, so convinced him in his deductions that the record is found
in the United States Patent Office of his filing an application for patent
in May, 1879, with a Patent Office model of his gasoline vehicle. For more
details, reference must be made to his patent, No. 549160, subsequently
issued in November, 1895. Thereafter in a general report treating of
important and leading inventions in various fields this was referred to
by the Commissioner of Patents as the pioneer patent in its class.
Of Selden's voluminous and persistent work and his many engines and models
more detailed information cannot be here given. His fundamental patent at
present is involved in extensive litigation, although it is recognized by
manufacturers of gasoline vehicles who, to-day, are producing from eighty
to ninety per cent of the output of the United States. Of his work along
the lines of improvements in details of his main invention, the gasoline
automobile _per se_, and kindred matters all of which have or will have a
great bearing upon automobile construction and operation, it is not at
this time possible to dwell at length.
Selden is known as an exceedingly able attorney in his specialty, while
his active connection with the extensive reaper and binder litigation, in
all of which he appeared prominently, established for him an enviable
reputation. Those who have had the privilege of a closer personal
acquaintance know of his great fund of scientific knowledge in various
arts, as well as his most interesting accumulations of data as a result of
his personal researches.
Selden is a patentee in other fields beside that of the gasoline
automobile and his achievements have been numerous and of exceeding
importance. He is also a chemist of more than ordinary ability and has
applied himself as a close student to this line of scientific
investigation. As a result he has made notable discoveries that, although
not yet given to the world, will, it is confidently believed by those
acquainted with them, prove to be of the greatest scientific value.
SIEGFRIED MARCUS
Marcus was an ingenious mechanic. In early life he made dental instruments
and apparatus for a magician in Vienna. For his construction of a
thermopile he received a prize and to his further credit as an inventor
are placed an arc lamp, Rhumkoff coil carbureter, a high candle-power
petroleum lamp, magneto-electro machines, a microphone and various other
things in many branches of science.
[Illustration: SIEGFRIED MARCUS]
It is claimed that about the middle seventies of the last century he
carried on experiments with a gas engine that had a spring-connected
piston rod. He mounted this vertically on an ordinary horse vehicle and
connected it directly with a cranked rear axle, carrying two flywheels in
place of the regular road wheels. He is said to have made trials of this
vehicle at night in Vienna. If this was so he was apparently trying to
keep his plan secret and succeeded very well. Aside from general
references nothing of importance revealed itself concerning this vehicle
and Marcus' experiments with it, until very recently when interest in the
historic development of the automobile has stimulated anew investigation
into the endeavors of the early inventors.
In 1882 the motor work of Marcus was principally preparatory to his new
engine construction. It included experimenting with an Otto engine run
with petroleum and a vaporizer and electric ignition with magneto. In 1883
he constructed a closed or two-cycled motor and thereafter had engines
made in Budapest and elsewhere. One of these motors he put on wheels, but
this was abandoned for other ideas that came from his fertile mind.
CARL BENZ
Born, November 26, 1844, at Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany.
The early education of Carl Benz was acquired at the Lyceum until his
seventeenth year and then at the Technical High School of his native city
for four more years. This was followed by three years of practical work in
the shops of the Karlsruhe Machine Works. When he was twenty-eight years
of age, in 1872, after further experience in Mannheim, Pforzheim and
Vienna, he opened workshops of his own in Mannheim.
In 1880 he began to commercialize a two-cycle stationary engine. In 1883
he organized his business as Benz & Co., and produced his first vehicle in
1884. In the beginning of 1885 his three-wheeled vehicle ran through the
streets of Mannheim, Germany, attracting much attention with its noisy
exhaust. This was the subject of his patent dated January 29, 1886,
claimed by him to be the first German patent on a light oil motor vehicle.
This embodied a horizontal flywheel belt transmission through a
differential and two chains to the wheels; but it is noteworthy primarily
as having embodied a four-cycle, water jacketed, three-quarter horse-power
engine, with electric ignition.
In 1888, the Benz Company exhibited their vehicles at the Munich
Exposition, where they attracted wide attention. This was followed by the
exhibition at the Paris show in 1889, by the engineer Roger, of another
vehicle made under license that Roger had acquired from Benz and
constructed by Panhard and Levassor.
[Illustration: CARL BENZ]
While in 1899 the firm was converted into a stock company of three million
marks capital, and then employed three hundred men, Carl Benz remained the
leading spirit of the concern, technically, while the commercial work came
under the direction of Julius Ganz. The able co-operation of these two has
established the world-famous automobile enterprise looked upon by many as
the pioneer producing works of its kind in Germany. Of late years motor
boats have also been made by them, but their automobiles and those of
their affiliated companies or licensees in other countries still stand in
the first rank.
GOTTLIEB DAIMLER
Born at Schorndorf, Wurtemburg, March 17, 1834. Died at Cannstadt, near
Stuttgart, March 6, 1899.
After receiving a technical and scientific training at the Polytechnic
School at Stuttgart, 1852-59, Daimler spent two years, 1861-63, as an
engineer in the Karlsruhe Machine Works, becoming foreman there. In 1872
he entered the Gas Engine Works at Deutz, near Cologne, and became
director of that establishment. Within ten years that shop, better known
as the Otto Engine Works, grew from a small place into a large,
well-organized and famous establishment. In 1882 he removed to Cannstadt
to give his entire attention to the light-weight internal-combustion auto
motor, with which his career was so completely identified, and the
successful application of which earned for him the title, "the father of
the automobile," in Germany, though that is, in fact, contested by those
familiar with the work of Benz.
Instead of using the uncertain-acting flame with the inconvenient speed
limitations, Daimler invented and introduced in 1883 the so-called
hot-tube ignition. This consisted of a metal or porcelain tube attached to
the compression space of the cylinder in such a manner that the interior
of the tube was in continual communication with the compression space. A
gas flame, continually burning under the tube, maintained it at a glowing
red heat, so that the mixed charge of air and gas, when compressed into
the tube, became fully and effectively ignited. Experience showed that by
a proper regulation of the temperature of the hot tube the ignition could
be made to take place at any desired point in the compression, and thus
the complicated, slow and uncertain slide flame ignition was replaced by a
simple device, without moving parts, altogether satisfactory and reliable.
The especial feature of the hot-tube ignition, however, was soon found to
be the increased speed which it permitted. By its use the rotative speed
could be increased eight to ten times over the older motor, and hence the
weight could be reduced in nearly the same proportion.
[Illustration: GOTTLIEB DAIMLER]
This fact at once showed Daimler that the application of the
internal-combustion motor to mechanically propelled vehicles had become a
possibility, and that, with the use of hydro-carbon vapor as fuel, and the
high-speed hot-tube motor, the petroleum automobile might become a
practical possibility. He therefore severed his connection with the Otto
Engine Works at Deutz, and returning to Cannstadt, near Stuttgart, his
early home, he devoted his entire time and attention to the design of a
light petroleum motor and motor vehicle. The result was the production, in
1885, of a motor-bicycle, in which the motor was placed directly under the
seat, between the legs of the rider. The petroleum was drawn from a tank,
the supply being regulated by the valve. The motor was first set in motion
by lighting a lamp and turning the crank a few times, the discharge
passing through the chamber into an exhaust-pipe. After the motor had been
fully started, the vehicle was set in motion by moving a lever, which drew
a tightening pulley against the belt, and so caused the power to be
transmitted from the shaft pulley to the wheel pulley. Changes of speed
were attained by using pulleys of different sizes, similar to the cone
pulleys on a lathe. This machine was put into successful action at
Cannstadt on November 10, 1885.
An interesting feature in connection with the Daimler motor is the
arrangement of the cooling-water circulation for the cylinder jacket. The
water is contained in a tank, from which it is circulated in the cylinder
jacket by means of a small rotary pump. From the jacket it passes to the
cooler. This consists of a system of several hundred small tubes over
which a blast of air is driven by a fan operated from the motor shaft.
Since the speed of the fan increases with the speed of the motor, the
cooling is proportional to the production of heat in the cylinder.
In addition to gas, which is applicable for stationary motors only, the
fuel may be benzine of a specific gravity of sixty-eight or seventy
one-hundredths, or ordinary lamp petroleum. The consumption varies
according to the size of the motor, ranging from thirty-six to forty-five
one-hundredths kilograms per horse-power hour for vehicles, or somewhat
less for boats. He adapted these light motors to vehicles of many styles,
and his persistent work in this connection has made the world-wide
reputation of the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, now flourishing at
Cannstadt, Germany.
In 1888-89 the French interest in the light motors led to their adoption
by Panhard and Levassor. The type then developed and known as Phenix
motors, were soon copied in part at least by many other French makers,
resulting in a modified form there known as the Pygmée. Work at Cannstadt
progressed steadily, however, and many pleasure vehicles were made as well
as small boats.
The able assistance of William Maybach brought further credit to the
company, particularly in view of the aspirating carbureter which, with
such details as clutch and transmission mechanism, helped to perfect the
Cannstadt automobiles. In the latter nineties the prominence of the
Daimler Works as vehicle makers, distinguished from motor makers, again
began to be noticed and soon their now famous Mercedes cars appeared. In
recent years these machines have made remarkable records in races and all
other branches of the sport. With a magnificent refinement of details in
construction they are to-day looked upon as the pleasure vehicles _par
excellence_.
They have had a large vogue in all parts of Europe and are accepted there
as among the most satisfactory vehicles in their class that are now made.
Many of them have been brought to the United States, where they have been
and still are in great demand.
LEVASSOR
Born at Marolles, in Hurepoix (Seine and Oise), January 21, 1843. Died,
April 14, 1897.
Levassor was graduated from the Central School of Arts and Manufactures,
Paris, in 1864. He was employed as an engineer at the Cockerill Works at
Seriang, Belgium, and also with Durenne at Courbevoie, near Paris. In 1872
he entered the firm of Perrin & Panhard, the name of the concern being
changed to Perrin, Panhard & Co. Upon the death of M. Perrin, he became
the junior partner and the name of Panhard & Levassor was adopted. When
Levassor died in 1897, the corporation of Panhard & Levassor was formed.
[Illustration: LEVASSOR]
Levassor made many improvements in the machinery and output of Panhard &
Levassor. Especially he perfected machines for wood-working and made
important changes in the processes used for the cold cutting of hard
metals. On the first appearance of gas motors he undertook their
construction in France. It was in the establishment of Panhard & Levassor
that the first motors were constructed under the system of Otto and Langen
with atmospheric pressure, then the four-cycle engine of Otto and finally
the two-cycle system of Benz and Ravell.
In 1886, when the Daimler petroleum motor appeared, he recognized the
great part that it would play in practical application to the propulsion
of vehicles and boats. He acquired the right to use it in France, and in
1887 exhibited, in Paris, a boat thus propelled. After several years he
put forth the first automobile vehicle with motor in front.
LEON SERPOLLET
Serpollet is noted in France to-day as the champion of the steam
automobile. In 1887, he appeared in Paris with his three-wheeler, two rear
drive and one front steering wheel. With its light and safe generator his
machine attracted much attention, but its use in the streets of the
capital was temporarily prohibited, until the granting to him in 1891 of
the first unrestricted license for such use resulted from his initiation
of the prefect of police by driving that important personage in the
steamer.
His generator, known as the "flash boiler," has been developed to a high
state of perfection. The tubes of his boiler were heavy, flattened tubing,
strengthened in that form by being transversally bent or grooved. He was
helped doubtless to no small extent, in his work, by his association,
about 1897, with a wealthy American, F. L. Gardner, who made possible the
development of the large Gardner-Serpollet establishment in the Rue
Stendhal, Paris.
While Serpollet has achieved a brilliant and well-deserved reputation in
his native land, he is also recognized in other countries as one of the
greatest living promoters of the steam branch of the automobile industry.
His adherence to steam as the motive power in self-propelled road vehicles
has been unremitting and energetic. Few men have done more than he to
improve carriages in this class.
In 1900, Serpollet was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. His sales
to that date of five machines for the Shah of Persia and landaulets for
the Maharajah of Mysore and other notables had given him much prominence
at that time.
[Illustration: LEON SERPOLLET]
LOUIS AND MARCEL RENAULT
Born in Boulogne, France, the Renault Brothers, with general technical
education, perseverance and ability, entered the field of automobile
manufacturing only some six years ago, although they earlier gave to the
subject much attention and study.
Having appreciated through personal experience the shortcomings of the
gasoline tricycle, Louis Renault in October, 1898, manufactured, in his
private shop, a small two-passenger vehicle, with a one and three-quarters
horse-power motor, which eliminated the pedalling for starting, but was
otherwise small and light as a tricycle. In January, 1899, he brought out
a small four-wheeler with one and three-quarters horse-power motor in
front, three speeds and chainless, or as now called propeller drive. The
demand was immediate and large and resulted in the establishment of the
works of Renault Frères, who began to make the first lot of these small
vehicles in March of the same year. These won prizes in the
Paris-Trouville, the Ostende and the Rambouillet runs, and one completed a
three thousand six hundred kilometer tour through different parts of
Europe and over the Alps.