CATALOG OF THE MECHANICAL COLLECTIONS I47 



tion at constant pressure. The explosive mixture of gas and air 

 entered the cylinder through a series of wire-gauze diaphragms, was 

 ignited just before admission, and entered the cylinder as a flame. 

 A steady combustion was maintained behind the piston during about 

 one-third of the stroke. Brayton experienced difficulty with the use 

 of gas as a fuel for this engine and designed one in 1874 to employ a 

 light petroleum oil. This engine is considered to be the first safe 

 and practical oil engine ever built. It employed a heated-surface 

 carburetor and was quite efficient in the use of fuel. Many of these 

 were built in various sizes and combinations of cylinders, and a small 

 three cylinder one is shown in the drawing on which George Selden 

 obtained his w^ell-known automobile patent. Its chief drawback was 

 the gas-burning grate, which required frequent renewal. The Otto 

 4-cycle engine was patented in the United States in 1877 and was in- 

 troduced shortly after this, the first engines being large, slow-moving, 

 horizontal, and stationary and having flame ignition. Gottlieb 

 Daimler, of Cologne, Germany, patented the first compound- or mul- 

 tiple-expansion engine in the United States in 1879. This was the 

 first engine employing two cylinders operating independently on the 

 4-stroke cycle but connected to the same crankshaft. It might be 

 considered the forerunner of the present-day multiple-cylinder high- 

 speed automobile engine. The first 2-stroke cycle engine patented in 

 the United States was that of Wittig and Hees, of Hanover, Ger- 

 manj^, who patented their engine in 1880. This is quite similar to 

 the engine patented here in 1881 by Dugald Clerk, who is usually 

 considered the inventor of the 2-stroke cycle engine. L. H. Nash 

 in 1888 patented the 2-cycle engine using inlet and exhaust ports 

 controlled by the piston and effecting compression in the crankcase 

 of the engine. In 1895 Selden received the first patent for the appli- 

 cation of the internal combustion engine to a road vehicle, and from 

 this date on the development of the internal combustion engine for 

 automotive use has been in engineering refinement rather than in 

 principle. 



STUART PERRY GAS OR VAPOR ENGINE, 1844 



Plate 30, Figure 1 



U.S.N.M. no. 309253; original patent model; transferred from the United 

 States Patent Office ; photograph no. 18493C. 



This model was submitted with application for Patent no. 3597, 

 issued May 23, 1844, to Stuart Perry, of Newport, N. Y. 



This is the first of the class of noncompression gas engines to be 

 patented in the United States. It preceded the Lenoir (U. S. Patent 

 no. 31722, Mar. 19, 1861), the best known of this type, by about 16 

 years. It was designed to use the inflammable vapors of liquids or 



