MONORAIL 



5492 



MONOTYPE 



the reign of Elizabeth. Parliament 

 long protested against this in- 

 equitable grant of royal favour, but 

 it was not until the close of the 

 reign of James I that the Statute 

 of Monopolies (1624) became law. 

 An exception was made in this 

 statute in,f avour of new and original 

 inventions, which were protected 

 under letters-patent for a period of 

 14 years or less, whence the modern 

 law of patent arose. 



The fight against monopolies 

 was supported by many autho- 

 rities, including Coke, who in 

 his Institutes quotes the clause 

 in Magna Carta : " All mono- 

 polies concerning trade and traffic 

 are against the liberty and 

 freedom granted by the Great 

 Charter, and divers other Acts of 

 Parliament." The term mono- 

 poly is also used of the subject of 

 a monopoly, e.g. matches are a 

 monopoly in France. In a figura- 

 tive sense, a person may be said to 

 have a monopoly of the conversa- 

 tion, etc. See Patent Law ; Trust. 



Monorail. System of transport 

 in which a single rail is used to 

 support the weight of a carriage or 

 truck. A monorail system may 

 have certain lighter guiding rails, 

 which are, however, not absolutely 

 essential to the system, the whole 

 weight of the carriages being borne 

 on one rail. It was early realized 

 that a single rail offered the ad- 

 vantages of cheapness, concen- 

 tration of weight, high speed, and 

 possibly low cost of upkeep, but 

 the system has not proved a com- 

 mercial success generally. In 1882 

 a single rail on A-shaped supports 

 was constructed in Algeria, and in 

 1886 a line between Listowel and 

 Ballybunion was constructed in 

 Ireland, the engine possessing 

 duplex boilers, one on each side of 

 the rail. A similar rail has been suc- 

 cessfully operated by electricity at 

 the Ria mines in France. This A- 

 shaped system of supporting the 

 rail is known as the Lartigue 

 system, after its inventor. 



In the Langen system the car- 

 riages are suspended from an over- 

 head rail, and such a line, built be- 

 tween Barmen and Elberfeld, has 

 proved successful. The system is 

 worked by electricity. 



In the most important develop- 

 ment of the monorail system a 

 gyroscope provides the balancing 

 force. In 1907 Louis Brennan 

 (q.v.) exhibited such a system 

 before the Royal Society. A car 

 was supported on a single track 

 laid on the ground, and kept in 

 equilibrium by a gyroscope, with 

 flywheels moving at a speed of 

 7,500 revolutions per minute. A 

 carriage containing 40 passengers 

 was successfully operated in 1909, 



the gyroscopic wheels revolving in 

 a vacuum at 3,000 revolutions per 

 rain. Richard Scherl, in Germany, 

 also carried out, in 1910, a series 

 of experiments with the gyro- 

 scopic system, but none of the 

 systems has gone beyond the ex- 

 perimental stage, though they 

 hold out great possibilities. See 

 Gyroscope ; Railways. 



Monosoupape (Fr., single 

 valve). In aeronautics, name ap- 

 plied to a type of aero -engine in 

 which only a single valve is used 

 for each cylinder. Petrol and air, 

 in the form of a mixture too rich in 

 petrol to ignite, was supplied to 

 the crankcase. Ports from the 

 crankcase led to the base of each 

 cylinder, and these ports were 

 uncovered by the piston at the 

 bottom of each stroke. 



On the induction stroke some of 

 this rich mixture entered the 

 cylinder, where it was mixed with 

 air admitted through the exhaust 

 valve, which was made to remain 

 open past the end of the exhaust 

 stroke. The over-rich mixture was 

 thus diluted to form an explosive 

 mixture, which was compressed on 

 the remaining portion of the 

 piston's upstroke, and fired in the 

 manner common to all internal 

 combustion engine cylinders. On 

 the firing stroke the ports at the 

 bottom of the cylinder were again 

 opened to the crankcase, but the 

 richness of the mixture therein 

 prevented any ignition, and the 

 permanent pressure of the ex- 

 plosion in the cylinder prevented 

 any flow of mixture into the 

 cylinder. See Aero-Engine. 



Monotheism (Gr. monos, single ; 

 theos, god). System of religious 

 thought and practice which admits 

 only one God. It is thus opposed 

 to polytheism, which admits and 

 worships many gods, and to heno- 

 theism, which worships only one 

 God, but admits that others may 

 exist. All theories of a dualistic 

 origin of the universe, involving 

 the essential evil of matter, are 

 equally inconsistent with belief in 

 one God. Whether monotheism is 

 the oldest form of religion is un- 

 certain. The very early worship 

 of the sun and other natural objects 

 may have originated in a vague 

 belief in one supreme power, 

 which was manifested in various 

 ways, but the evidence tends in 

 the other direction. The earliest 

 cosmogonies known are dualistic, 

 and indicate a struggle between 

 the powers of good and evil. In 

 probably all nations, except the 

 Hebrew, polytheism was at one 

 time or another the prevailing 

 religion ; and even the O.T. 

 Hebrews show a constant tendency 

 to fall into it. See Deism ; Theism. 



Monothelites (Gr. monos, single ; 

 theletes, a person who wills). 

 Followers of a heresy which arose 

 in the Eastern Churches as the 

 result of an attempt to harmonise 

 orthodox and monophysite doc- 

 trines. It taught that, while in the 

 Person of Christ there existed two 

 natures, the divine and the human, 

 yet these two natures did not pos- 

 sess separate divine and human 

 wills, but only one will, partly 

 divine and partly human. The 

 heresy appears to have originated 

 with Severus (d. 535), a deposed 

 patriarch of Antioch. It was 

 finally condemned by the Council 

 of Constantinople in 680, and the 

 decision was accepted bj ? the 

 Church of England at the Council 

 of Hatfield soon afterwards. 



Monotremata (Gr. mowjs, 

 single ; trema, hole). Name given 

 by zoologists to the Prototheria, 

 or lowest order of mammals, found 

 in Australasia and New Guinea. 

 They include the duck-mole and 

 the two spiny ant-eaters. These 

 mammals have only one excretory 

 aperture, whence the name, and 

 are oviparous. See Mammal. 



Monotype. Machine used by 

 printers for setting up words from 

 MS. into single letters of mova- 

 ble type hence its name. It 

 was invented about 1887 by Tal- 

 bot Lanston, an American lawyer ; 

 in 1901 it was commercially used 

 in England, and The Times 

 adopted it in 1909. Its product is 

 akin to that of the hand composi- 

 tor, each letter cast in a line being 

 a distinct and separate unit, and 

 not an integral part of a solid line 

 as the product of the linotype 

 and the intertype, from both of 

 which the monotype differs, not 

 only in mechanism, but in prin- 

 ciple, insomuch that alterations 

 can be effected by hand without 

 the recasting of an entire line, 

 and the type itself can be readily 

 accommodated to fit round illus- 

 trations. 



Two distinct operations are in- 

 volved and two distinct machines 

 are employed: (1) a keyboard, 

 like a typewriter, for perforating 

 a roll of paper somewhat on the 

 principle of a pianola ; and (2) a 

 machine casting the single letters 

 of type, and automatically assem- 

 bling them into words. 



The initial stage is effected by the 

 operator manipulating a key- 

 board, the finger keys embracing 

 all the characters of the alphabet, 

 together with all the possible 

 widths of spaces necessary to 

 evenly finish off a line in perfect 

 vertical alinement. The depres- 

 sion of a key perforates a hole in a 

 reel of paper, each hole repre- 

 senting a space or a letter. As the 



