SEIN RST RLS AIRS LT RT IT PRS PCN RTE PRT BIE 
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Here one sees moored to her little dock the Driftwood, the house-boat run by automobile power. 
with a canopy in Summer. 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
” 
June, 1912 
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The iron frame of her roof-garden is covered 
In passing under low bridges this frame can be folded flat to the deck #3... 
Running a Houseboat by Automobile Power 
By Robert H. Moulton 
OST owners of houseboats who are also the 
possessors of automobiles have no doubt 
often wished, when moored at some spot 
which particularly invited a land ride, that 
they had their cars along. ‘The only way 
they could see to make use of the machine 
while on a water cruise was to have it run up to some desig- 
nated stopping place, a plan which is nearly always incon- 
venient and often impracticable. It probably never occurred 
to them that they could not only carry 
the car along on board the houseboat, 
but actually make it serve as a power 
plant to run the craft. This plan has 
been successfully carried out, however, 
by a Chicago man, whose experiment 
will, no doubt, lead to the building, or 
equipment, of many other auto-house- 
boats. Any houseboat that has an aft 
deck. sufficiently large to accommodate 
an automobile, and a couple of paddle- 
wheels, can be fitted up to run in this 
manner. All that is necessary is to fit 
spurred sprocket wheels to the hubs of 
the car’s rear wheels and to key similar but larger ones to 
the axle of the paddle-wheels. Connection is made between 
them by means of chain link belts. Then when the rear 
axle of the car is jacked up so that the driving-wheels are 
q The Darmonte gang-plank °. 
clear of the deck, and the motor started, the boat will glide 
along as easily as could be wished. 
Furthermore, it is possible to get much greater speed out 
of the houseboat in this manner than is usual with such 
crafts. In ordinary waters the ingenious owner of the 
houseboat run by automobile power here shown has made 
his boat maintain an average speed of six miles an hour, 
which is certainly going fast for a houseboat. And this 
has been done without the slightest injury to the automo- 
bile, for the owner has now used it in 
this way for more than a year and finds 
it just as good as ever. When the en- 
gine of the car is turning the paddle- 
wheels it runs as regularly and smoothly 
as if the auto were gliding over asphalt 
pavements. A couple of grooved run- 
ways guide the automobile from the 
shore to the gangplank, and thence up 
to a spot midway between the paddle- 
wheels. The mechanical operations 
necessary to transform the automobile 
into a marine engine require only a few 
minutes. 
By means of an ingenious device it is possible to steer 
the boat either with the rudders, of which there are two,. 
each six feet long and two feet wide, or the paddle-wheels. 
The paddle-wheels are so constructed as to be independent 
