FROM CART TO AUTOMOBILE 



unquestionably the thoroughbred horse. But the 

 fastest mile ever compassed by a horse — Salvator's 

 straightway dash in 1 13 5 J — is a snail's pace in com- 

 parison with Mr. Oldfield's speed. Salvator covered 

 a little over fifty-five feet per second ; the racing motor 

 covered a trifle over 193 feet — thus gaining 138 feet in 

 each second. 



The trotting horse at its best — a. mile in 1 158 J — is of 

 course much slower still; Lou Dillon's record mile 

 being made at the rate of 44 J feet per second. Dan 

 Patch, the swiftest pacer, in his mile in 1 156 made just 

 one foot per second more than the trotter. Both pacer 

 and trotter, it should be added, made their records 

 with the aid of a wind-shield, without which their best 

 performances are some seconds slower. 



If we make comparisons with different varieties of 

 man-made records, we find that the swiftest human 

 runner covers his mile at the rate of about twenty-one 

 feet per second; the skater brings this up to about 

 thirty-four feet; and the bicyclist attains the acme of 

 muscle-motor speed with his eighty feet per second. 

 In the case of the bicyclist, the wind -shield pace-maker 

 on the auto-cycle plays an important part. But even 

 so the cyclist would be left behind one hundred and 

 thirteen feet each second by the flying automobile. 



All these types of record maker, therefore, are quite 

 outclassed. If we could not find any real competition 

 for the automobile in the animate world, we must seek 

 it in bird-land. Here, it might be supposed, the space 

 devourer would find a match. But it is not quite 

 certain that such is the case. The old-time books on 



[167] 



