d 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October i, 1906. 



did this make Welch the inventor of the perfected tire mar- 

 keted hy the Dunlop organization ? 



So with the "clincher" tire. Neither the American nor 

 the l?ritish patentee of this type of tire specified any sucli 

 tite as is actually made to-day by Goodrich, Michelin, or the 

 Sfltish, German, and Italian manufacturers. Patents were 

 (dlcen out and sustained in some countries and denied in 

 other countries. The "clincher " tire has hecome standard 

 ized throughout the world, and is now the leading type in 

 pneumatics for motor cars. But no one man— no two men — 

 can be named as the inventors. 



Certain tire inventors have obtained hand.some rewards 

 under their patents, recognized in some countries which are 

 not to be begrudged them. But the real development has been 

 the work of scores, hundreds, or thousands of persons, in 

 rubber factories, automobile factories, among automobilists, 

 and possibly elsewhere -the result of endless painstaking 

 experimenting, with a view to overcoming defects and weak- 

 nesses and to making tires equal to new rcijuirements, un- 

 foreseen by the original inventors. 



This is how large and far reaching inventions are devel 

 oped in more cases than the public realizes. Inventors of 

 course are entitled to rewards, but hardly to the whole profit 

 from developments in which they may be only pioneers, and 

 perhaps without a conception of the possibilities involved. 



C. D. FROST. 



HOW MANY AUTOMOBILES ARE THERE? 



'' I "*HE number of automobiles in use in the United States 

 -»- it is practically impossible to determine. Some fig- 

 ures of interest are obtainable from the states in which 

 automobiles are required by law to be registered, but they 

 are not conclusive. Up to July 1 automobiles had been reg- 

 istered in twenty-four states (having registration laws) as 

 follows, except that in some cases the date of the report was 

 later in the month : 



California (Jul. 17) 6,787 New York 30,829 



Coiuiecticut 3.320 Oregon (Jul. 23) 310 



Delaware (Jul. 19) 296 Pennsylvania (Jul. 19). 11,67c) 



Florida 232 Rhode Island i,Si9 



Indiana 332; South Dakota (Jul 21). 510 



Iowa 2 214 Tennessee 628 



Maine (Jul. ig) i,iSr Vermont 727 



Maryland (Jul. 19) 2240 Virginia 198 



Massachusetts 15.897 Washington (Jul 23.). . 300 



Michigan (Jul. 19) 4,126 West Virginia 162 



Nebraska S12 Wisconsin (Jul. 19) 2,270 



New Hampshire (Jul. 19) 952 



New Jersey 16,500 Total 107,314 



This list does not embrace two states in which a great 

 many automobiles are owned — Ohio and Illinois. On August 

 2 the local registration in the city of Chicago, Illinois, 

 auu>unted to about 5000. Another point is that so many 

 automobiles are registered in more than one state. This is 

 particularly true of automobiles registered both in New 

 York and in the adjacent states. As a rule the officials 

 aiake no effort to estimate the extent of duplication. But 

 the secretary of the Massachusetts highway commission 

 makes an interesting statement to The India Rubber 

 World, as follows : 



Under the law, when ownership of a motor vehicle is transferred 

 its registration expires. Registration by the new owner or person 

 in control of the vehicle then becomes necessary. Many machines 

 have therefore been registered more than once The commission 

 has received approximately 3500 or 4000 notices of transfer of owuer- 



ship. There have probably been many more transfers of which the 

 commission have not been notified. Then too, hundreds of auto- 

 mobiles from other states have been registered by their owners 

 while tcinring in Ma.ssachusetts. It will be seen that the nutnber 

 given above, i,S 897, does not represent the number of automobiles 

 now in Ma.s.sachusetts. There may be Sooo or 901X5, but it is inqjos- 

 sible to correctly estimate the number. 



It would not do, however, to cut in half the whole regis- 

 tration of the 24 states natned to get at the number of cars 

 owned in them. In fact, in a number of states the registra- 

 tion figures are given as showing the exact number of cars on 

 the date of rejiort. Making a liberal deduction for dupli- 

 cated registration and for machines which have gone out of 

 use, and adding to the result a number of cars for the states 

 not on the list, commensurate with their population and 

 wealth, it appears to the writer not impo.ssible that there 

 are 100.000 automobiles in the country. But even reducing 

 this number by 25 per cent. — the admitted annual rate of 

 automobile production in the United States to-day — the 

 number would very soon reach 100,000. 



* -x- * 



The " Daily Mail Year Book " for 1906. published in Lon- 

 don, states that the approximate number of motor cars in 

 use in the United Kingdom in 1905 was 31,129, as against 

 1.8,340 in 1904, showing an increase during the year of 12,- 

 789. These returns are made up to midsummer of each year. 

 The approximate number of motor cycles in use as given is 

 ■ somewhat larger — 34,706 in 1905 and 21,521 in 1904. 



The British royal commission on motor cars has tnade a 

 report, showing the following number of vehicles to have 

 been under license in the United Kingdom at the dates 

 given : 



Motor Cycles. Ottier Motor Cars 



Decembei 31,1904 ... 27.348 24201 



September 30, 1905 37 665 36,373 



May 1. 1906 42,438 44,098 



* * -x- 



The " Annuaire General de I' .Vutomobile " for 1905, pub- 

 lished in Paris, contains a list of the names and addresses of 

 automobile owners, without other details, except a statement 

 to the effect that while an effort has been made to render the 

 list as complete as possible, it is not offered as a full list, 

 since the authorities are not obliged to supply the names of 

 those registering automobiles. The number of names ap- 

 pearing in this compilation is as follows : 



Paris 4.318 



Seine Sor 



Departments 12.626 



Total 17.745 



A later publication, by a French parliamentary commis- 

 sion, gives 21,524 as the number of automobiles in the 

 country at the end of 1905. 



* * * 



The "Aunuario dell' .^utomobilismo " for 1906 of the 

 Touring Club of Italy, imblished at Milan, contains a list of 

 the automobile owners of Italy on December 31, 1905, fol- 

 lowed by a statistical table showing the number of automo- 

 biles in use at that date, which latter is summarized here. 



Private. Public. Commercial. Tot.il. 



Northern Italy 1502 l6 3 1521 



Central Italy.' 469 2 — 471 



Southern Italy 102 26 — 128 



Insular Italy 53 i ~ 54 



Total 2126 45 3 2174 



