PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION A. 2^ 



engine suitable for self-propelled road vehicles. It is difficult 

 omnibus, and the motor bicycle, are derived from the curious 

 to believe that the motor-car, commercial motor lorry, motor 

 looking vehicks built during the late eighties. Early specimens, 

 dating back to 1890, have found their way into the National 

 Museum at South Kensington. In the large towns of Europe, 

 horse-drawn vehicles are rapidly disappearing from the streets, 

 and the self-propelled motor vehicle has, within the past ten 

 years, revolutionised the traffic conditions in London and other 

 great cities. 



With regard to aeroplanes and dirigible balloons, these owe 

 their existence and success wholly to the internal combustion 

 motors. The modern flying machine — certainly the monoplane — 

 is, in its essentials, very little different from the model made by 

 Henson about 1840. He invented it in 1835, and filed his patent 

 specification in 1842. The model was built in accordance with 

 data given by Sir George Cayley, who made a profound study 

 of flight about a century ago. Cayley forecasted the aeroplane, 

 and most of its essential features. Henson's monoplane was a 

 steam-driven machine, but in his day no satisfactory motor was 

 available, and sixty years had to elapse before the petrol engine 

 provided a sufficiently light, powerful, and reliable motor to 

 make the aeroplane a success. 



What the steam engine was to the nineteenth century, the 

 internal combustion engine is to the twentieth, and the effect of 

 the latter on society is probably greater and m-^re far-reaching 

 than was the case with the steam engine. The effect of the 

 petrol motor in the great world's struggle now raging is so great 

 that I desire to call attention to the rapid evolution of this type 

 of prime mover. Little did Otto and the earlier pioneers realise 

 the colossal consequences which their work would have, not alone 

 in the interests of civilisation, but as a powerful aid to the 

 greatest orgie of destruction in which mankind has ever taken 

 part. Nevertheless, the development of the internal combustion 

 en^ ine is probably the greatest engineering achievement which 

 the world has ) el: witnessed. 



