12 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[Jan. 



1885. 



I Lave found great difficulty in advising the Vjest pro- 

 portions for two-speed geariugs. For weak riders I have 

 advised gearings equal to -j') and .50 in. For moderately- 

 good riders, 40 and 55 in. These last are the gearings I 

 [jrefer to any other for my own riding, while for strong 

 and well-practised riders I believe gearings of 45 and 60 in. 

 to be the most suitable. 



But even these variations of power and speed-gearings 

 leave much to be desired. Gearings well suited for dry 

 roads will le too high for wet ones. Or a very strong 

 wind will render them too high, if it is against the rider, 

 and too low when the wind is in his favour. 



It we could have three gearings instead of only two, and 

 these were arranged so as to be equal to wheels of 30, 45, 

 and 60 in. diameter, I believe that a machine so geared 

 would suit any rider over any road, and in any kind of 

 weather. 



It does net seem to me that it would be very difficult to 

 fulfil these conditions. It might be done with a modifica- 

 tion of some of the gearings now in use. 



Wheels might be used of 45 inches diameter, so arranged 

 that these would, at all time?, be driven without the inter- 

 vention of the gearing, then, by turning a spade-handle 

 to the left, the gearing might be thrown in of 30 inches, or 

 ta the right the gearing of 60 inches. 



Speed and power-gearing have yet to be applied to 

 tricycles specially made for carrying weights, such as 

 Singer's " Carrier," &c. They will be even more advan- 

 tageous to such machines than they have been to machines 

 made only for riding. 



I should not be suiprised if the further improvement of 

 the tiicycle, particularly with the addition of some form of 

 universal gearing, were to enable riders trained from boy- 

 hood, as many will be, to ride, to increase their power of 

 locomotion fourfold. 



I have known many strong active young men who could, 

 only with considerable difficulty, walk thirty miles in a day, 

 who might, I believe, with a very light and perfect machine, 

 and plenty of practice, have ridden 120 miles more easily 

 than they would walk the thirty. 



The next step to be taken to increase the speed of tri- 

 cycles is to make them with wheels of from 36 to 40 inches 

 diameter, and gear them up to from 55 to 60 inches. Such 

 an alteration in the construction of the machine I have been 

 advocating in Knowledge for quits two years. 



The success which has attended the introduction of safety 

 bicycles, with wheels only 36 inches diameter geared up to 

 63 iuches, is an earnest of the success which must attend 

 such a construction of the tricycle. 



But what we gain by using the tricycle as a mode of 

 locomotion cannot be considered as comprised in the mere 

 statement of the amount of ground we can get over — those 

 who live in populous citie> gain purer air, while with others 

 they gain the delightful pleasure of viewing a greater variety 

 of scenery — the exhilaration caused by ''the glory of rapid 

 motion, ' and, above all, greatly improved health and 

 strength arising from the fact that ti icy cling is a far more 

 beneficial exercise than either walking or running. 



All who are interested in tricycles will be gla 1 to hear 

 that the Stanley Show will be held next year in a building 

 which will be erected for the purpose on the Thames 

 Embankment, near to the Temple Station of the District 

 Railway. 



The date fixed for the opening is January 2S, and the 

 Show will close on February 3. The building will probably 

 be known as the " Wheeleries." The central position of 

 the Show, and the fact that its managers pledge themselves 

 to exhibit all the novelties and a machine of every standard 

 pattern render its success certain. 



033 1'to rial (gossip. 



A WELL-KNOWN Scientific knight, being asked the other 

 day what the letters F.R.S. after his name meant, 

 responded, " F.R S. ? Why, 'fees raised swiftly.'" I 

 repeat this perfectly true anecdote to express my admira- 

 tion of tlie truthfulness of the reply, and my regret that 

 some more of the gentry who annually acquire the same 

 distinction as he has done are not equally candid. 



A cCRlors commentary on the hysterical shrieking of 

 the (happily small) band of fanatics who are monomaniacal 

 on the subject of vivisection was affi^irded by an operation 

 which was performed some five weeks ago Vjy Mr. Rickman 

 J. Godlee, surgeon to University College Hospital. Phy- 

 siologists are familiar with the experiments by Professor 

 Fcrrier on rabbits and monkeys, by the aid of which he 

 Was enabled to localise the sensory and motor functions in 

 the cerebrum. Now, it came to pa-s that there was a 

 patient in the Regent's Paik Hospital for Epilepsy and 

 Paralysis, a married man, with a family, stricken down 

 with that — heretofore — fatal malndy, tumour on the brain: 

 a malady of the mere existence of which the diagnosis had 

 not presented much difficulty, though, prior to Ferrier's 

 .'plendid researches, it was .>-imply impOb^ible to localise the 

 seat of the tumour. Guided, however, by the unerring 

 hand of science, Dr. Hughes Bennett was so successful in 

 the interpretation of this poor creature's convulsions as to 

 be able to say definitely that the tumour was situated in 

 the ascending frontal convolution of the right hemisphere 

 of the brain. Down tbrough the scalp, the skull, and the 

 dura mater did Mr. Godlee cut to the point indicated by 

 Dr. Bennett — and there was the tumour, the size of a 

 walnut, which was removed withotit difficulty I Surely the 

 moral of this story needs but little insisting on. Here was 

 a mau, who, but for the flood of light cast in his case by 

 the experiments in vivisection of Dr. Ferrier, must infal- 

 libly have perished miserably, and left a widow and orphans 

 to the cold charity of the world. Thanks, however, to those 

 experiments, he has been restored to health, strength, and 

 usefulness; and who shall say lh*t the lives of a thousand 

 rabbits have been wasted in the attainment of so glorious a 

 result ? 



From time to time we see reports of prosecutions in the 

 police courts of cheesemongers and others for selling as 

 butter a compound known as oleomargarine, butterine, or 

 '• bosh." I was rather amused to see that a large manufac- 

 turer of this material had been endeavouring to convince 

 the Society of Arts that — on the whole — it is rather pre- 

 ferable to pure butter as an article of consumption ; inter 

 alia, keeping better and being much cheaper. Certainly, 

 as described by the lecturer, the " butterine," composed, as 

 it is, mainly ot fresh and sweet animal fat, and manufac- 

 tured under conditions of the most scrupulous cleanliness, 

 should be as good as a very large proportion of, say, the 

 "inferior Dosset " of the uudyiug ilr. Middlewick. For 

 myself, however, I have a weakness for a more primitive 

 article, though I should be very sorry to obtrude this 

 opinion on anyone who preferred a round ot oleomargarined 

 toast. It is related that one ot a party of convives, early 

 in the century, carefully removed all the flies from the 

 punch-bowl, helped himself to punch .... and then re- 

 turned the flies to the bowL " What," exclaimed his next 

 neighbour, " what the doose did you do that for 1 " " WeU," 

 was the reply, " I don't like flies myself, but I didn't know 

 but what you might '. " 



