Aug. 22, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



149 



— has undertaken to predict weather. He terrifies all the 

 unwiser folks iu British America and the United States, 

 and not a few who by no means regarded themselves as 

 idiots, by announcing some year and a half since the 

 destruction of every ship on the ocean by a mighty storm, 

 which did not come when he did call for it. But 

 latterly even newspajier paragraphists have noted 

 that Mr. Wiggins's predictions have been unfortu- 

 nate, to say the least. So, as Tice invented a new 

 planet, and probably Wiggins thought another new planet 

 would nol be welcomed with enthusiasm, the weather 

 prophet of Ottawa invented a new moon, not where 

 M. Petit, of ^Marseilles, thought that another moon may 

 perchance be travelling, to wit, nearer than the known 

 moon, and lost nearly always in the earth '.s shadow, but 

 far beyond the moon, and invisible because it has no 

 atmosphere ! I think the readers of this paper would 

 hardly credit me if I were to tell them of all the silly 

 things Mr. Wiggius said in the preposterous paper in 

 which he announced the discovery of a second moon ; but 

 perhaps the most ludicrous notion was that the atmosphere 

 of a planet plays an important part in enabling the planet 

 to reflect sunlight, so that an orb without an atmosphere 

 ■would not be visible at all. Another absurdity was the 

 statement that Newton could not explain the perturbations 

 of the moon's movements ; but that with this outer moon 

 everything could be fully explained — the inanity of which 

 assertion may not be obvious to others, but is simply 

 stupendous even to the humblest students of the lunar 

 theory. It is not, however, the absurd nature of this 

 man's ideas and reasoning that I care to dwell upon. 

 The ways of paradoxers are tolerably well known, and 

 Mr. Wiggins is neither better nor worse than the rest of 

 them. What is really interesting, and I fear significant, 

 is that in many American newspapers the nonsense of 

 a Wiggins, a Tice, or a Vennor, is discussed as gravely 

 as the work of a Draper, a Young, a Langley, or a 

 Newcomb. In a country distinguished by the labours 

 of such men as these, and a host of other steady workers in 

 the fields of science — from men who rank with the best ia 

 Europe down to those whom form indeed the rank and file, 

 but are nevertheless sound scientific students — the average 

 newspaper paragraphist is so ignorant that he speaks of the 

 inanities of men who, in the very nature of things, must 

 either be knaves or fools, as though he were dealing with 

 the thoughts of men of sense. They seem unaware of the 

 fact that the mistakes of a Young or a Newcomb cannot be 

 brought into comparison with the notions of even the least 

 foolish (or knavish) among the paradoxers. A stranger 

 taking up an American newspaper in which a man like 

 Vennor is spoken of as " the most celebrated citizen of 

 Montreal," or a Tice as " our distinguished weather 

 prophet," in which a Wiggins, as recently in a paper 

 published in Missouri, figures among the great men of the 

 day, would never suspect, what is in reality the case, that 

 America possesses mathematicians, astronomers, geologists, 

 meteorologists, and chemists, who yield in skill and in the 

 quality of their work to none in Europe. — Kevicastle 

 Chronicle. 



An attempt ia being made to obtain subscriptions for enlarging 

 the buildings in Whitechapel of the Working Lads' Institute. 

 These are to comprise Heading, Refreshment, and Class Rooms, 

 Lecture Hall, Technical School, and Swimming Bath. All inte- 

 rested iu the social and intellectual advancement of the working 

 classes, who may feel the desirability of providing such counter 

 attractions as are indicated above to street-comer betting and 

 sotting in the public-house, can send their subscriptions to the 

 treasurer, F. A. Bevan, Esq., 54, Lombard-street, B.C., or to the 

 hon. sec, Henry Hill, Esq., jnn., 38, Bow-lane, E.G. 



TRICYCLES IN 1884. 



By John Browning. 



(Chnirman of the London Tricycle Club.) 



SMALL VERSUS LARGE WHEELS AND TWO-SPEED 

 GEARINGS. 



THOUGH I have for some months written but little for 

 Knowledge, I have been riding tricycles and experi- 

 menting with them continuously. 



During this season, I have ridden only machines made 

 to my own specifications. The whole of my machines now 

 have wheels either 30 in. or 38 in. in diameter. 



Here my experiments in reducing the size of the wheels 

 must stop, for if the wheels were reduced in diameter only 

 two or three inches more, my legs would not clear the axles, 

 nor would my pedals clear the ground. 



But, as far as my experience goes, I have found the 

 reduction of my wheels to this extent an unmixed advan- 

 tage. The machines are lighter, they are stronger, they 

 are more portable, and they travel quicker or with greater 

 ease. To my thinking, only one point worth considering 

 has been urged against the use of small wheels — that is, 

 that their employment would greatly increase vibration, 

 particularly when they were highly geared. I have one 

 machine geared up to 48 in., and another to 52 in. I can- 

 not find that the vibration of these machines is greater 

 than other machines I have been riding, which have wheels 

 of -10 in. and 48 in. diameter, level-geared. 



Mr. S. Salmon, who is deservedly considered an autho- 

 rity on tricycles, has had a machine built this year by 

 Hirst, of Croydon, of the Coventry Rotary type, with a 

 38-in. driving-wheel, which weighs less than one pound 

 to the inch. It is geared up to 57 inches, yet Mr. Salmon 

 assures me that after three months' experience he prefers 

 it to any other machine he has ridden. From this it is 

 e\'ident that small wheels can be adopted with advantage, 

 even with high gearings. 



The gi-eat obstacle to their introduction is the fact that 

 manufacturers whose patterns have been designed for large- 

 wheeled machines, and who have often a considerable stock 

 of parts of machines and of large wheels by them, dissuade 

 customers from having them, and frequently refuse to 

 make them. 



Also in the case of two-speed gearings, manufacturers 

 have made the high speed agree with the diameter of the 

 driving-wheels, and obtained the low speed by gearing 

 down ; thus, a machine with 50-inch wheels will run as 

 50, or when geared down, as 35 inches. 



If, instead of this, a machine were made with wheels 

 say 42 inches diameter, geared up to 50 inches and down 

 to 35 inches, it would be stronger, faster, and about 20 lb. 

 lighter. 



The Crypto-Dynamic two-speed gearing has not, I believe, 

 had such a success as was anticipated for it, and I notice 

 that the patentees particularly recommended the use of 

 large-wheeled machines. By doing so, I consider they 

 have not given their invention a fair chance, but have stood 

 in their own light, as, by adding weight in the form of a 

 two-speed gearing, and also by increasing the weight of the 

 machine by making it with large wheels, they neutralised 

 the advantage of the gearing ; in plain words, what they 

 gave with one hand they took away with the other. 



This point I am urging is of great importance just now, 

 as so many manufacturers are bringing out two-speed 

 gearings. Unless some maker of more originality than the 

 rest will depart from the beaten track, we shall have this 

 new and invaluable improvement in machines brought for- 

 ward in an unsatisfactory form, and tested at a great dis- 



