PRIZES FOR THE INVENTOR 



133 



FROM THE HOBBY-HORSE TO THE 

 MOTOR-CYCLE OE 130 MILES SPEED 



Then there is that other line of ad- 

 vance typified by the substitution of au- 

 tomobiles for horse-drawn vehicles. In 

 line with this is the history of the bicycle. 

 First, we had the old French "hobby- 

 horse," the ancestor of all our bicycles 

 and motor-cycles. Upon this you rode 

 astride, with your feet touching the 

 ground, and propelled the machine by the 

 action of walking. Then came the old 

 "bone-racker," in which your feet were 

 applied to pedals attached to a crank- 

 shaft on the front wheel of the machine. 



This was superseded by a bicycle with 

 an enormous front wheel, about six feet 

 in height, with a little one behind — a most 

 graceful machine, in which the rider ap- 

 peared to great advantage. There was 

 none of that slouchy attitude to which 

 we are so accustomed now. The rider 

 presented a graceful and dignified ap- 

 pearance, for he had perforce to sit up- 

 right, and even lean a little backward, to 

 avoid the possibility of a header! The 

 large wheel also appeared behind and the 

 small one in front, and a tumble over 

 backward was felt to be less disastrous 

 than a header forward. It was much 

 safer to alight upon your feet behind 

 than to be thrown out forward upon your 

 head. 



Then came the "safety bicycle"- — a re- 

 turn to the form of the old "hobby- 

 horse," but not a "bone-racker," because 

 provided with rubber tires. In this ma- 

 chine the power was transmitted from 

 the feet to the wheels by means of gear- 

 ing. This is still the form of the modern 

 bicycle; but a gasoline motor has been 

 added to do the work of the feet, giving 

 us the power of going faster than rail- 

 road trains, on the common roads of the 

 country, and without any physical exer- 

 tion at all. I believe the speed record 

 upon race-tracks stands at about 137 

 miles an hour. 



MANY CHANCES EOR THE INVENTOR 



On every hand we see the substitution 

 of machinery and artificial motive power 

 for animal and man power. There will 

 therefore be plenty of openings in the 



future for young, bright mechanical en- 

 gineers working in this direction. 



There is, however, one obstacle to fur- 

 ther advance, in the increasing price of 

 the fuel necessary to work machinery. 

 Coal and oil are going up and are strictly 

 limited in quantity. We can take coal 

 out of a mine, but we can never put it 

 back. We can draw oil from subterra- 

 nean reservoirs, but Ave can never refill 

 them again. AYe are spendthrifts in the 

 matter of fuel and are using our capital 

 for our running expenses. 



In relation to coal and oil, the world's 

 annual consumption has become so enor- 

 mous that we are now actually within 

 measurable distance of the end of the 

 supply. What shall we do when we have 

 no more coal or oil ! 



Apart from water power (which is 

 strictly limited) and tidal and wave power 

 (which we have not yet learned to util- 

 ize), and the employment of the sun's 

 rays directly as a source of power, we 

 have little left, excepting wood, and it 

 takes at least twenty-five years to grow a 

 crop of trees. 



POSSIBILITIES OP ALCOHOL 



There is, however, one other source of 

 fuel supply which may perhaps solve this 

 problem of the future. Alcohol makes a 

 beautiful, clean, and efficient fuel, and, 

 where not intended for consumption by 

 human beings, can be manufactured very 

 cheaply in an indigestible or even poison- 

 ous form. Wood alcohol, for example, 

 can be employed as a fuel, and we can 

 make alcohol from sawdust, a waste 

 product of our mills. 

 ' Alcohol can also be manufactured from 

 corn stalks, and in fact from almost any 

 vegetable matter capable of fermentation. 

 Our growing crops and even weeds can 

 be used. The waste products of our 

 farms are available for this purpose and 

 even the garbage from our cities. We 

 need never fear the exhaustion of our 

 present fuel supplies so long as we can 

 produce an annual crop of alcohol to any 

 extent desired. 



The world will probably depend upon 

 alcohol more and more as time goes on, 

 and a great field of usefulness is opening 

 up for the engineer who will modify our 



