November iS, 1909] 



jVA TURE 



79 



77//: miESWS MOXU-KAIL SYSTEM. 



T T will be remembered that Mr. Louis Brennan exhibited 

 ^ a model mono-rail vehicle at the Royal Society soiree 

 in May, 1907. Aided by grants from the War Otfice, the 

 India Office, and the Cashmir Government, Mr. Brennan 

 has developed the system, and we have now to record public 

 trials of a full-sized vehicle which were made at the 

 Brennan Torpedo Works, near Chatham, on Wednesday, 

 November 10. A full account of the gyroscopic principles 

 involved was given in N.mcrf. of March 12, 190S. 



The track consists of a single-rail circular portion of 

 105 feet radius, a straight portion 440 yards in length, and 

 sidings. The rails are of the Vignoles section, 5 J inches 

 high, 70 lb. to the yard, and have the heads rounded to 

 a radius of 5 inches. These are laid on sleepers 3 feet 

 b inches long at about 3-foot centres on soft made ground, 

 the rails being spiked to the sleepers. The points consist 

 of two short lengths of rails fixed together and capable 

 of sliding sideways so as to bring whichever is required 

 into line with the fixed rails. The car is a platform 40 feet 

 in length and lo feet in width, having the machinery cab 

 at one end, and is supported on two bogies, the centres 



several hours, a pump is kept running in order to keep 

 it as low as possible. Mr. Brennan has noticed that, while 

 the motors run cool under a good vacuum, they become 

 hot directly air is admitted to the casing. The shafts have 

 steel journals running in white-metal bearings under forced 

 lubrication, the oil being cooled before being returned to 

 the bearings. 



During the trials on November 10 the smaller generating 

 set alone was in operation, giving a speed of seven miles 

 per hour. At this speed there was no difficulty in carrying 

 forty persons round the circular track, on to the straight, and 

 over reverse curves of 35 feet radius without material dis- 

 turbance of the level of the car floor. Loaded on one side, 

 the car-level first rises on that side and then gradually 

 recovers ; the steadiness is admirably shown by one of the 

 photographs taken, showing thirty-si.x persons standing as 

 close as possible to one edge of the platform with the car 

 at rest. Mr. Brennan states that a load of two tons can 

 be placed on the edge of the platform and then removed 

 without danger of non-recos-ery of the level. The car at 

 present can negotiate grades of i in 13, and, with an 

 additional generating set, grades of i in O5 could be 

 surmounted. Finality in design cannot be said to be 

 reached as yet, and Mr. Brennan 

 thinks that development will proceed 

 in the direction of high-speed pas- 

 senger trains having speeds up to 150 

 miles per hour. 



A^ 



ivheel sell propelling 



of which are 20 feet apart. Each bogie has two double- 

 flanged wheels 3 feet in diameter, of wheel base 5 feet 

 4 inches. To obtain flexibihty in rounding curves, the 

 bogies have their centre pins connected to the body by 

 means of ball bearings. The empty car weighs 22 tons, 

 and is designed to carry a load of from 10 to 15 tons. 



The power required is derived from two petrol-electric 

 sets of 80 and 20 horse-power respectively, the petrol 

 engines being direct-coupled to dynamos. It is, of course, 

 possible to collect current from an overhead wire, or to 

 use steam or other motive power. Current is supplied 

 from the generating sets to two 40 to 50 horse-power 

 motors on the bogies for propulsion, the motors being 

 geared to an intermediate shaft, from which the wheels 

 are driven by balanced cranks and coupling rods. Current 

 is also supplied to the gyroscopic motors, to a compressor 

 for operating the Westinghouse brake and the gyroscopic 

 control gear, and to a small motor driving an oil pump. 



Each of the two gyroscopic wheels is 3 feet 6 inches in 

 diameter, and weighs three-quarters of a ton ; the axes 

 are normally horizontal, and perpendicular to the direction 

 of the rail. Each is driven at 3000 revolutions per minute 

 by a direct-current shunt motor, having the field magnets 

 on the frame and the armature on the gyrostat shaft. 

 The whole is cased in, and a vacuum is maintained of 

 n-inch to f-inch of mercury for the purpose of mini- 

 mising the air resistance, .\lthough the vacuum will last 

 NO. 20gO, VOL. 82] 



T//E R/SE OF SCIENTIFIC 

 STUDY IN SCOTLAND.^ 

 S the Royal Society is now about 

 to open a fresh page in its 

 history, it may not be regarded as an 

 inopportune moment to sketch the rise 

 of scientific study in Scotland, the 

 means and opportunities alTorded for 

 that purpose, the formation of socie- 

 ties and institutions for the encourage- 

 ment and diffusion of science in Edin- 

 burgh : also to put in the form of a 

 continuous narrative the chief in- 

 cidents in the growth of the society 

 during the century and a quarter that 

 has elapsed since its foundation. 



Prior to the eighteenth century, and 

 indeed during a considerable part of 

 its course, Latin was the language in 

 use for the interchange of thought and 

 information amongst educated people 

 at home and abroad. Treatises were 

 composed in this language, lectures 

 were dehvered in the universities \n 

 Latin, and the theses presented for graduation were 

 written and defended in the same tongue. Readiness 

 to speak and understand Latin was a common bond 

 of union amongst the learned, and distinguished them 

 from the unlettered classes, whether of higher or lower 

 social degree. Scotland participated in the revival of 

 letters during the sixteenth centurv, and the names of 

 George Buchanan, the representative Scottish humanist 

 and historian of his time, of Andrew Melville, humanist 

 and theologian, of James Crichton, surnamed the Admir- 

 able, were familiar to scholars throughout Europe. Con- 

 temporaneous with .\ndre\v Melville was John Napier, the 

 laird of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms, a man of 

 a different order of mind from the famous divine, one who 

 bv the publication of his great treatises, which were 

 w-ritten in Latin, created a fresh era in the science of 

 numbers, and provided mathematicians with a new and 

 powerful instrument. To be conversant with Latin was a 

 necessity for all who aspired to take rank in their re- 

 spective professions. Those whose means enabled them to 

 travel and to study in foreign universities could avail 

 themselves of the instruction imparted therein, without 

 requiring to have, as a preliminary, a good acquaintance 



1 Abridged from an address delivered before the Royal Society of Kdin- 

 bureh on the occasion of the opening of the new home of the society, 

 November S, by Sir William Turner, K.CB., F.R.S., president of the 



