766 REPORT— 1901. 



improvement is required iti the methods of transmitting the power from the motor 

 to the driving-wheels. In the case of the steam cars, where this has heen done 

 by single reduction, using chain, pinion, and sprockets, very efficient and noiseless 

 transmission has already been obtained, but up to the present in most of the internal 

 combustion engines where more than two cylinders have to be employed, it has 

 been found necessary to arrange the crank shaft of the motor at right angles to the 

 axle of the driving-wheels, so that part of the transmission having to be through 

 bevel gear, this part has up to the present always been noisy. In the providing 

 of noiseless and efficient chain driving, the manufacturer of cars has gained 

 greatly by the high degree of perfection to which these chams had already attained 

 for bicycle work. 



The recent great road races which have taken place in France and elsewhere 

 have shown that the motor-car can be driven safely at a very high speed, already 

 reaching in some cases seventy miles an hour ; but to render this capacity for high 

 speed useful, not only must special roads be provided on which these high-speed 

 cars can travel without danger to others and with least slip and wear and tear of 

 tyres, but a great deal requires to be done in the improvement of the pneumatic 

 tyres, which at present get excessively hot, and therefore damaged by these high- 

 speed runs. At these high speeds the mechanical work done on the material of 

 which the outer covers of pneumatic tyres are composed is excessively high. It 

 can probably be reduced by increasing the diameter of the wheels, but, of course, 

 at the cost of increased weight and, to some extent, of stability, for the side strains 

 on the wheels of these cars when swinging round curves of sharp radius are very great. 



Another direction in which mechanical invention is required for the wheels 

 of motor cars and wagons is a shoeing or protection of hard material of easily 

 renewable character which can be firmly and safely attached to the outside of the 

 tyre covers to take the wear and cutting action caused by the driving strain and 

 by the action of the breaks on sudden stops. 



The late R. W. Thomson, of Edinburgh, made good progress some thirty years 

 ago in providing steel shoeing for the solid rubber tyres he then used, and the 

 problems of providing the same for pneumatic tyres ought to be no harder than 

 those he then successfully encountered. 



One of the topics which has been most strongly discussed during the last year 

 has been the position which this country holds relatively to other countries as 

 regards its commercial supremacy in engineering matters. A few years back we 

 >vere undoubtedly ahead of the world in most branches of mechanical engineering, 

 but owing to the huge development of mechanical engineering in America and 

 Germany, we are certainly being rim very hard by these countries, and everyone 

 is looking for means to help us to regain our old position. In endeavouriug 

 to learn from America we see that, although the workmen in that country 

 receive higher wages than they do here, and although the cost of some of the 

 materials is higher than it is here, their manufacturers manage to deliver engines, 

 tools, and machinery of all classes of excellent quality at a price which appears to 

 our manufacturers to be marvellously low. When we look into the matter we find 

 that the chief difference between the manufacturer of America and the manu- 

 facturer at home is that, whether it be steam-engines, tools, agricultural machinery, 

 or electrical machinery, the American invariably manufactures goods in large 

 quantities to standard patterns, whereas we rarely do so here, at any rate to the 

 same extent. Where we turn out articles by the dozen the American turns them 

 out by the hundred. This difference in the extent to which an article is reduplicated 

 is caused by the Americans having realised to a far greater extent than we have 

 the advantage of standardisation of types of machinery. They have felt this so 

 strongly that we find in America that work is far more specialised than it is here, 

 so that a manufacturer as a rule provides himself with a complete outfit of machi- 

 nery to turn out large numbers of one article. He lavishes his expenditure on 

 special machinery to produce every part sufficiently accurate to dimension to secure 

 thorough interchangeability ; consequently the cost of erecting or assembling the 

 parts is far less than it is here. One reason why the American manufacturer has 

 been able to impose on his purchasing public his own standard types, whereas we 



