RICHARD TREVITHICK

In 1780 he built a double-acting high-pressure engine with a crank, for Cook’s Kitchen mine. This was known as the Puffer, from the noise that it made, and it soon came into general use in Cornwall and South Wales, a successful rival of the low-pressure steam vacuum engine of Watt.

As early as 1796 Trevithick began to give attention to the subject of steam locomotion, and a model constructed by him before 1800 is now in the South Kensington Museum. He busied himself in designing and building a steam vehicle to travel upon the common highways. The work was done in a workshop at Camborne, and some of it in the shop of Captain Andrew Vivian. It was Christmas Eve of 1801 when this steam locomotive was completed and was brought out for trial.

The following account of the first trial was made by one who was present: “I knew Captain Dick Trevithick very well. I was a cooper by trade, and when Trevithick was making his steam carriage I used to go every day into John Tyack’s shop at the Weith, close by here, where they put her together. In the year 1801, upon Christmas Eve, towards night, Trevithick got up steam, out on the high road, just outside the shop. When we saw that Trevithick was going to turn on steam, we jumped up, as many as could, maybe seven or eight of us. ’Twas a stiffish hill going up to Camborne Beacon, but she went off like a little bird. When she had gone about a quarter of a mile there was a rough piece of road covered with loose stones. She didn’t go quite so fast, and as it was a flood of rain, and we were very much squeezed together, I jumped off. She was going faster than I could walk, and went up the hill about half a mile further, when they turned her and came back again to the shop.” The next day the engine steamed to Captain Vivian’s house, and a few days subsequently, Trevithick and Vivian started off for Tehidy House, where Lord Dedunstanville lived, some two or three miles from Camborne. On this journey they met with an accident, the engine being overturned in going around a curve; but they got back safely.

This carriage presented the appearance of an ordinary stage coach on four wheels. The engine had one horizontal cylinder which, together with the boiler and the furnace-box, was placed in the rear of the hind axle. The-motion of the piston was transmitted to a separate crank-axle, from which, through the medium of spur-gear, the axle of the driving-wheel, which was mounted with a fly-wheel, derived its motion. The steam cocks and the force-pump, as also the bellows used for the purpose of quickening combustion in the furnace, were worked off the same crank axle. This was one of the first successful high-pressure engines constructed on the principle of moving a piston by the elasticity of steam against the pressure only of the outside atmosphere.

In the following year Trevithick went to London with his cousin, Andrew Vivian, and secured a patent. Early in 1803 he made his second steam carriage. This was built at Camborne and taken to London, via Plymouth, for exhibition. Its journey along the highways thoroughly alarmed the country people. Coleridge relates that a toll-gate keeper was so frightened at the appearance of the sputtering, smoke-spitting thing of fearsome mien that, trembling in every limb and with teeth chattering, he threw aside the toll-gate with the scared exclamation, “No—noth—nothing to pay. My de—dear Mr. Devil, do drive on as fast as you can. Nothing to pay!”

The engine in this carriage had a cylinder five and one-half inches in diameter, with a stroke of two and one-half feet, and with thirty pounds of steam it worked five strokes per minute. In every way it was superior to its predecessor. It was not so heavy; and the horizontal cylinder, instead of the vertical, added very much to its steadiness of motion; while wheels of a larger diameter enabled it the more easily to pass over rough roads which had brought the Camborne one to a standstill. The boiler was made entirely of wrought iron, and the cylinder was inserted horizontally, close behind the driving axle. A forked piston-rod was used, the ends working in guides, so that the crank axle might be brought near to the cylinder. Spur gearing and couplings were used on each side of the carriage for communicating motion from the crank shaft to the main driving axle. The driving-wheels were about ten feet diameter, and made of wood. The framing was of wrought iron. The coach was intended to seat eight or ten persons, and the greater part of the weight came on the driving axle. The coach was suspended upon springs.

The London steam carriage was put together at Felton’s carriage shop, in Leather Lane, and after its completion, Vivian one day ran the locomotive from Leather Lane, Gray’s Inn Lane, on to Lords’ Cricket Ground, to Paddington, and home again by way of Islington, a journey of ten miles through the streets of London. Several trips were made in Tottenham Court Road and Euston Square, and only once did they meet with accident. Finally, however, the frame of the carriage got twisted, and the engine was detached and set to driving a mill.

Trevithick’s next experiment was made in 1803-4, while he was engineer of the Pen-y-darran iron works, near Merthyr Tydvil, where he built and ran on a railway a locomotive that was fairly successful. In 1808 he built a locomotive for a circular railway or steam circus that he and Andrew Vivian set up in London, near Euston Square. This ran for several weeks, carrying passengers at the rate of twelve or fifteen miles an hour around curves of fifty or one hundred feet radius. One day a rail broke and the engine was overturned, which ended the exhibition.

Subsequently, Trevithick applied his high-pressure engine to rock-boring and breaking, and dredging. He laid out a system of dredging the Thames River, planned a tunnel under the Thames, invented a high-pressure steam threshing engine in 1812, constructed iron tanks and buoys, and modeled an iron ship. He was one of the first to conceive the practical use of steam in agriculture, declaring that the use of the steam engine for this purpose would “double the population of the kingdom and make our markets the cheapest in the world.”

In 1814, Trevithick became interested in a plan to work the silver mines of Peru by Cornish methods, and nine of his high-pressure engines were sent to South America in charge of Henry Vivian and other engineers. He himself followed in 1816, and remained in that country ten years, making and losing several fortunes during that time. Finally, in a revolution, the mining plants were destroyed, and he was forced to leave the country, penniless. For a time he was prospecting in Costa Rica, where he planned a railroad across the Isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In 1827 he returned to England, still a poor man, and settling in Dartford, Kent, devoted himself to new inventions, unsuccessfully endeavoring to secure the help of the government in his work. His later years were spent in poverty, and when he died, the expense of his burial was borne by his fellow-workmen of Dartford.

Undoubtedly, Trevithick was one of the foremost English engineers of his day, a period that was rich with strong men of distinction in his profession. By many he has been considered as having contributed more even than James Watt to the development of the steam engine and its broader adaptation to practical uses. In his early years he was restrained in putting his ideas and experiments to practical test by the restrictions of Watt’s patents. Finally when that difficulty was removed he at once took a leading position in his profession. Especially in the development of the high pressure engine he is entitled to at least as much credit as any man of his day. His genius was fully recognized in his generation and his impoverished old age was the result of financial reverses in business operations and not from the lack of substantial rewards for his inventive achievements.

David Gordon

The first experiments of David Gordon, who in 1819 was working with William Murdock, in Soho, were for the purpose of using compressed air for common road locomotives. He also invented a portable gas apparatus, and originated a society of gentlemen, with the intention of forming a company for the purpose of running a mail coach and other carriages by means of a high-pressure engine, or of a gas vacuum or pneumatic engine, supplied with portable gas. Alexander Gordon, his son, states that “the committee of the society had only a limited sum at their disposal, nor were there to be more funds until a carriage had been propelled for a considerable distance at the rate of ten miles an hour.” David Gordon then tried to prevail upon the committee to make use of a steam engine, but evidently without success.

In 1821 he took out a patent for improvements in wheel carriages, and his locomotive is fully described in the interesting Treatise on Elemental Locomotion, by Mr. Alexander Gordon. The machine consisted of a large hollow cylinder about nine feet in diameter and five long, having its internal circumference provided with a continuous series of cogged teeth, into which were made to work the cogged running wheels of a locomotive steam engine, similar to that of Trevithick. The steam power being communicated to the wheels of the carriage, caused them to revolve, and to climb up the internal rack of the large cylinder. The center of gravity of the engine being thus constantly made to change its position, and to throw its chief weight on the forward side of the axis of the cylinder, the latter was compelled to roll forward, propelling the vehicle before it, and whatever train might be added.

Gordon’s next attempt to construct locomotive carriages for the common road was in 1824. The means proposed was a modification of the method invented by William Brunton. But instead of the propellers being operated upon by the alternating motion of the piston-rod, as in Brunton’s vehicle, Gordon contrived to give them a continuous rotatory action and to apply the force of the engines in a more direct manner. The carriage ran upon three wheels, one in the front to steer by, and two behind to bear the chief weight. Each of the wheels had a separate axle, the ends of which had their bearings upon parallel bars, the wheels rolling in a perpendicular position. This arrangement, by avoiding the usual cross-axle, afforded an increased uninterrupted space in the body of the vehicle.

In the fore part of the carriage were placed the steam engines, consisting of two brass cylinders, in a horizontal position, but vibrating upon trunnions. The piston-rods of these engines gave motion to an eight-throw crank, two in the middle for the cylinders, and three on each side, to which were attached the propellers; by the revolution of the crank, these propellers or legs were successively forced outwards, with the feet of each against the ground in a backward direction, and were immediately afterwards lifted from the ground by the revolution of another crank, parallel to the former, and situated at a proper distance from it on the same frame. The propelling-rods were formed of iron gas-tubes, filled with wood, to combine lightness with strength. To the lower ends of these propelling-rods were attached the feet, in the form of segments of circles, and made on their under side like a short and very stiff brush of whalebone, supported by intermixed iron teeth, to take effect in case the whalebone failed. These feet pressed against the ground in regular succession, by a kind of rolling, circular motion, without digging it up. The guide had the power of lifting these legs off the ground at pleasure, so that in going down hill, when the gravity was sufficient for propulsion, nothing but a brake was put into requisition to retard the motion, if necessary. If the carriage was proceeding upon a level, the lifting of the propellers was equivalent to the subtraction of the power, and soon brought it to a full stop. When making turns in a road the guide had only to lift the propellers on one side of the carriage and allow the others to operate alone, until the curve was traversed.

Gordon got fair results from this locomotive, but the speed was not satisfactory. In his first trials he found the power insufficient. He afterwards fitted one of Gurney’s light boilers in the hinder part of the carriage, though even after this improvement had been added the experiments were disappointing. Gordon was convinced that the application of the power to the wheels was the proper mode of propulsion, and his project was abandoned after six or seven years had been spent in inventing, constructing, and carrying out experiments with four distinct carriages.

William Henry James

Born at Henley, England, March, 1776. Died at Dulwich College Alms House, December 16, 1873.

The father of William Henry James was William James, of Warwickshire, the great railway projector of his time. He was a solicitor in early life, but became wealthy, worked a colliery in South Staffordshire, and in 1815 removed to London, where he had a large land agency business. He became interested in tramways in 1806, and from that date on devoted most of his energies and fortune to projecting railways in the United Kingdom. He had an interest in one of George Stephenson’s patents, made numerous railway surveys, and by many has been considered to have done more than any single individual in laying the foundations of the English railroad system.

William Henry James assisted his father in his railway surveys in early life, and then began business independently as an engineer, in Birmingham. He made experiments in steam locomotion on common roads, and took out patents for locomotive steam engines, boilers, driving apparatus, and so on. His patent for a water-tube boiler for road locomotives was secured in 1823, and his first car was built in 1824. This was a twenty-passenger steam coach. Each rear wheel had a double-cylinder engine, and the pistons were worked at a pressure of two hundred pounds per square inch. Separate engines to each driver gave each wheel an independent motion, so that power and speed might be varied for turning corners, the outer wheel travelling over a much greater space than the inner wheel. When the front wheels were so placed that the carriage proceeded in a straight line an equal amount of steam was admitted to each pair of cylinders, but when the front wheel was in the lock the engine driving the outer wheel received a greater amount of steam and thus developed more power and traveled faster than the inner wheel. This arrangement was said to be so efficient that the carriage could be made to describe every variety of curve, repeatedly making turns of less than ten feet radius. The whole of the machinery was mounted upon laminated carriage springs. This arrangement caused the engines and their framework to vibrate altogether upon the crank-shaft as a center, at the same time connecting these engines to the boiler by means of hollow axles moving in stuffing boxes. Each engine had two cylinders of small diameter and long stroke; to these separate engines steam was supplied from the boiler by means of the main pipe, which moved through steam-tight stuffing boxes to the slide valve-boxes by small pipes. The locomotive was entirely distinct from the passenger carriage.

Sir James C. Anderson became associated with James, and in 1829 they built another carriage. This weighed nearly three tons, and the first trials were made round a circle of one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. When it was finally ready to be brought out it was loaded with fifteen passengers and driven several miles on a rough gravel road across Epping Forest, with a speed varying from twelve to fifteen miles an hour. Steam was supplied by two tubular boilers, each forming a hollow cylinder four feet six inches long. The tubes of which the boilers were composed were common gas pipe, one of which split on one of the trips, thus letting the water out of one of the boilers and extinguishing its fire. Under these circumstances, with only one boiler in operation, the carriage returned home at the rate of about seven miles an hour, carrying more than twenty passengers—at one period, indeed, it is said, a much greater number; showing that sufficient steam could be generated in such a boiler to be equal to the propulsion of between five and six tons weight. In consequence of this demonstration that the most brilliant success was attainable, the proprietors dismantled the carriage and commenced the construction of superior tubular boilers with much stronger tubes.

Shortly after Anderson and James commenced to build another steam carriage, which was ready for use in November, 1829. This engine was not intended to carry passengers, but to be employed for drawing carriages behind. Four tubular boilers were used, the total number of tubes being nearly two hundred. These boilers were enclosed in a space four feet wide, three feet long, and two feet deep. The steam from each boiler was conducted into one main steam pipe one and one-half inches in diameter, and the communication from any one of the boilers could be cut off in case of leakage. Four cylinders, each two and one-quarter inch bore and nine inch stroke, were arranged vertically in the hind part of the locomotive, and two of them acted upon each crank-shaft as before, giving a separate motion to each driving wheel.

The exhaust steam was conducted through two copper tanks for heating the feed water to a high temperature, and thence passed to the chimney. The steering-gear consisted of an external pillar containing a vertical shaft, at the upper end of which small bevel-gearing was used, giving motion to the vertical shaft, whose bottom end carried a pinion gearing into a sector attached to the fore axle. The motion of the crank-shafts was communicated to the separate axles of the driving-wheels by spur-gearing with two speeds.

In experiments made with this carriage, the greatest speed obtained upon a level, on a very indifferent road, was at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and it never ran more than three or four miles without breaking some of the steam joints. The Mechanic’s Magazine, reporting one of these trials, said: “A series of interesting experiments were made throughout the whole of yesterday with a new steam carriage belonging to Sir James Anderson, Bart., and W. H. James, Esq., on the Vauxhall, Kensington, and Clapham roads, with the view of ascertaining the practical advantages of some perfectly novel apparatus attached to the engines, the results of which were so satisfactory that the proprietors intend immediately establishing several stage coaches on the principle. The writer was favored with a ride during the last experiment, when the machine proceeded from Vauxhall Bridge to the Swan at Clapham, a distance of two and a half miles, which was run at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. From what I had the pleasure of witnessing, I am confident that this carriage is far superior to every other locomotive carriage hitherto brought before the public, and that she will easily perform fifteen miles an hour throughout a long journey. The body of the carriage, if not elegant, is neat, being the figure of a parallelogram. It is a very small and compact machine, and runs upon four wheels.”

W. H. James patented another steam carriage in August, 1832. This varied much from his earlier engines in the working parts, and it was not generally considered to be as satisfactory as the others. Sir James Anderson was not able, for pecuniary reasons, to continue to back James in his experimenting, and it does not appear that these plans of 1832 were ever consummated in a completed vehicle.

James was a man of strong mind, an original thinker and thoroughly well-trained by his apprenticeship with his father. He spent a good part of his life in experimenting with common-road steam propulsion, but he had not monetary resources or financial ability commensurate with his mechanical genius. When the support of Anderson was withdrawn from him he seems to have been compelled to give up. Little has been recorded concerning the latter years of his life, and his death in the almshouse sufficiently indicates the poverty in which his last years were spent. His father also sacrificed his life to the cause of railroad advancement, losing his entire fortune and dying a poor man.

Goldsworthy Gurney

Born at Treator, near Padstow, Cornwall, England, February 14, 1793. Died at Reeds, near Bade, February 28, 1875.

The son of John Gurney, Goldsworthy Gurney received a good elementary education at the Truro Grammar School, and then studied medicine. He settled at Wadebridge as a surgeon, but although very successful, gradually turned his attention to scientific and mechanical investigations. He constructed an organ, studied chemistry and mechanical science, and removing to London in 1820, delivered a series of lectures on heat, electricity and gases at the Surrey Institute. His investigations resulted in the invention of the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and the discovery of the powerful lime-light known as the Drummond light, and he engaged in other experiments in this field of research.

In 1804, while on a holiday at Camborne, he saw a Trevithick engine on wheels. Recalling this in after years he began experimenting on steam locomotion in 1823, and soon abandoned his surgical and medical practice for this new pursuit. His first efforts were toward the construction of an engine to travel on the common roads. The weight of the steam engines that were then being built seemed to him to offer great objections to their use for this purpose, but he succeeded, with his first machine, in reducing weight from four tons to thirty hundredweight. Then he secured a sufficiency of power by the invention of the high-pressure steam jet. This invention differed from those of Stephenson and Trevithick, who sent their waste steam up through the chimney instead of utilizing it. The Gurney jet was applied to the Stephenson Rocket engine on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in October, 1829, and also to steamboats and steam carriages.

In 1823, Gurney made his first experiments with a model steam carriage, on which propellers or feet were used. Two years later, in 1825, he completed a full-size carriage on the same plan, and in May of that year he took out his first patent for this vehicle. The carriage was impelled by these legs being alternately drawn forwards and pressed backwards by a steam engine acting upon them through movable oblong blocks, to which they were attached. As a first experiment this carriage was driven up Windmill Hill, near Kilburn. Another trip, between London and Edgeware, demonstrated the inefficiency of these propellers, and led to the discovery that there was sufficient friction between wheels and the ground to insure propulsion.

In 1826 he constructed a coach about twenty feet long, which would accommodate six inside and fifteen outside passengers, besides the engineer. The driving-wheels were five feet diameter, and the leading wheels three feet nine inches diameter. Two propellers were used, which could be put in motion when the carriage was climbing hills. Gurney’s patent boiler was used for supplying steam to the twelve horse-power engine. The total weight of the carriage was about a ton and a half. In front of the coach was a capacious boot, while behind, that which had the appearance of a boot, was the case for the boiler and the furnace, from which it was calculated that no inconvenience would be experienced by the outside passenger, although in cold weather a certain degree of heat might be obtained, if required. In descending a hill, there was a brake fixed on the hind wheel, to increase the friction; but, independently of this, the guide had the power of lessening the force of the steam to any extent by means of the lever at his right hand, which operated upon the throttle valve, and by which he could stop the action of the steam altogether and effect a counter vacuum in the cylinders. By this means also he regulated the rate of progress on the road. There was another lever by which he could stop the vehicle instantly, and in a moment reverse the motion of the wheels.

This carriage traveled up Highgate Hill to Edgeware, and also to Stanmore, and went up both Stanmore Hill and Brockley Hill. In ascending these hills the driving-wheels did not slip, so that the legs were not needed. After these experiments the propellers were removed.

Gurney obtained another patent in 1827, and under this worked a steam carriage resembling the common stage coach, with the boiler in the hind boot. This carriage was run experimentally to Barnet, Edgeware, Finchley, and other places, and in 1828 it was said that a trip was made from London to Melksham, thirteen miles from Bath, a distance of nearly two hundred miles. On the return trip the rate of speed was about twelve miles an hour.

Gurney’s carriage so fully established its practicability, that in 1830, Sir Charles Dance contracted for several, and ran them successfully from London to Holyhead, and from Birmingham to Bristol. In the following year he ran over the turnpike road between Gloucester and Cheltenham for four months in succession, four times a day, without an accident or delay of consequence. The distance of nine miles was regularly covered in from forty-five to fifty-five minutes. Nearly three thousand persons were carried, and nearly four thousand miles traveled.

A strong public sentiment against the use of the common roads by these vehicles sprang up, and Parliament was prevailed upon to impose upon steam carriages heavy highway tolls that were in effect prohibitory. Sir Charles Dance suspended his operations. Gurney petitioned the House of Commons for relief. Several committees in 1831, 1834 and 1835 investigated the subject and reported strongly in favor of steam carriages, but no legislation could be secured, and Gurney was forced to give up further introduction of steam carriages.

He continued his experimenting in other directions, invented the stove that bore his name, introduced new methods of lighting and ventilating the Houses of Parliament, and was otherwise active in scientific pursuits. He was a magistrate for Cornwall and Devonshire, and in 1863 was knighted in recognition of his discoveries and inventions.

By writers of that period Gurney received a great deal of credit and an abundance of advertising for his work. He was especially conspicuous in the Parliamentary investigations regarding steam carriages. On the whole, however, it is generally considered that he was proclaimed far beyond his merits, especially in comparison with such rivals as Hancock, Maceroni and others.

Thomas Blanchard

Born in Sutton, Mass., June 24, 1788. Died, April 16, 1864.

Blanchard received a common school education, and before he had entered his teens his mechanical genius began to show itself. At thirteen years of age he invented a machine for paring apples, and shortly after, a machine for making tacks. His great work was the invention of a machine for turning out articles of irregular form from wood and metals. His lathes for this purpose were put in operation by the United States Government in the armories at Harper’s Ferry, Va., and Springfield, Mass.

Becoming interested in the subject of steam propulsion he made, in 1826, a steamboat that was successfully tried on the Connecticut River, running from Hartford, Conn., to Springfield, Mass. Afterward, he built a boat of larger size, that drew eighteen inches of water, and ran this up the Connecticut River, from Springfield, Mass., to Vermont. He also built other boats for use on the Alleghany River.

The subjects of railroads and locomotive power on land interested him for a short time, and in 1825, after he had completed his engagement with the United States armories, he built, at Springfield, Mass., a carriage driven by steam for use on the common road. This was the first real steam carriage constructed in this country, the Philadelphia machine of Evans being but a rude affair, although it involved the essential principles of steam propulsion. The Blanchard carriage was perfectly manageable, could turn corners and go backwards and forwards with all the readiness of a well-trained horse, and on ascending a hill the power could be increased. Its performance on the highway was altogether satisfactory, and a patent was issued to its inventor.

THOMAS BLANCHARD

Blanchard endeavored to secure support to build a railroad in Massachusetts, and the joint committee on roads and canals of the Massachusetts Legislature, in January, 1826, endorsed the model of his railway and steam carriage, and recommended them “to all the friends of internal improvements.” Notwithstanding this report, capitalists viewed the project as visionary, and Blanchard met with no greater success when he subsequently applied to the Legislature of New York. Giving up his plans he thenceforward devoted his attention to the subject of steam navigation.

Blanchard was a prolific inventor, having taken out no less than thirty or forty patents for as many different inventions. He did not reap great benefit from his labors, for many of his inventions scarcely paid the cost of getting them up, while others were appropriated without payment to him, or even giving him credit. His machine for turning irregular forms was his most notable work, and even of that, others sought to defraud him. To defend himself he was forced to go to the courts and even to Congress, before he succeeded in establishing his rights. After the success of this machine he made other improvements in the manufacture of arms, constructing thirteen different machines that were operated in the government armories.

Johnson

Two brothers Johnson had a small engineering establishment in Philadelphia, in 1828. They put upon the streets in that year a vehicle that J. G. Pangborn, in his The World’s Rail Way, says was “the first steam wagon built, and actually operated as such, in the United States.” The same writer, describing this wagon, says that it had a single cylinder set horizontally, with a connecting-rod attachment with a single crank at the middle of the driving-axle. Its two driving-wheels were eight feet in diameter and made of wood, the same as those on an ordinary road wagon. The two forward or guiding wheels were much smaller than the others, and were arranged in the usual manner of a common wagon. It had an upright boiler hung up behind, shaped like a huge bottle, the smoke-stack coming out through the center of the top. The safety-valve was held down by a weight and lever, and the horses in the neighborhood did not take at all kindly to the puffing of the machine as it jolted over the rough streets. Generally it ran well, and could take without difficulty reasonable grades in the streets and roadways. During its existence, however, it knocked down a number of awning-posts, ran into and broke several window fronts, and sometimes was altogether unmanageable. Like all others of their day, however, the Johnsons were ahead of their time. There was no demand for their steam wagon, road conditions made it unavailable and the machine itself was, despite much merit, really not much more than a suggestion of better things three-quarters of a century later.

Walter Hancock

Born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, June 16, 1799. Died May 14, 1852.

The father of Walter Hancock was James Hancock, a timber merchant and cabinet maker. Walter received a common school education, and then was apprenticed to a watchmaker and jeweler in London. The bent of his inclination, however, was toward engineering, and he turned his attention to experimenting along the lines that were at that time absorbing the thoughts and efforts of those men of England interested in mechanical and scientific subjects.

He was foremost among those who in the early part of the nineteenth century were engaged in trying to solve the problem of steam carriage locomotion on the common highways. The story of his work in this direction is fully told by himself in his Narrative of Twelve Years’ Experiments, 1824-36, Demonstrative of the Practicability and Advantage of Employing Steam Carriages on Common Roads, a book published in London, in 1838. This volume contains a full account of his labors, and descriptions of all the carriages that he built and ran. The following extract from the introduction of the book shows in what esteem Hancock regarded himself and what estimate he placed upon the value of his work:

“The author of these pages believes he should offend alike against truth and genuine modesty were he to yield to any of the steam carriage inventors who have appeared in his day, in a single particular of desert; he began earlier (with one abortive exception) and has persevered longer and more unceasingly than any of them. He was the first to run a steam carriage for hire on a common road, and is still the only person who has ventured in a steam vehicle to traverse the most crowded streets of the metropolis at the busiest periods of the day; he has built a greater number of steam carriages (if not better) than anyone else, and has been thus enabled to try a greater variety of forms of construction, out of which to choose the best.”

In 1824, Hancock invented a steam engine in which the ordinary cylinder and piston were replaced by two flexible steam receivers, composed of several layers of canvas firmly united together by coatings of dissolved caoutchouc, or india-rubber, and thus enabled to resist a pressure of steam of sixty pounds upon the square inch. This engine he tried to adapt to steam carriages, but found that he could not get the requisite degree of power for locomotion, although it worked very well as a stationary engine of four horse-power at his factory in Stratford. Next he invented a tubular boiler with sixteen horizontal tubes, each connected with each other by lesser tubes, so that the water or steam might circulate through the entire series. This boiler was subsequently changed by arranging the tubes vertically, and a patent was taken out in 1825.

After further experiments and improvements, Hancock finally made a vehicle to travel on three wheels, getting power from a pair of vibrating or trunnion engines fixed upon the crank-axle of the fore wheels. Experimental trips of this carriage were made from the Stratford shop to Epping Forest, Paddington, Hounslow, Croydon, Fulham, and elsewhere. Some changes were made in the vehicle, and finally the trunnion engines were put aside and fixed ones substituted.

This improved carriage, the first in a long series built by Hancock, was named the Infant. The body was in the form of a double-body coach, or omnibus, with seats for passengers inside and out. The bulk of the machinery was placed in the rear of the carriage, a boiler and a fire being beneath it. Between the boiler and the passengers’ seats was the engine and a place for the engineer. A pair of inverted fixed engines working vertically on a crank-shaft furnished the power. The steering apparatus was in front. The whole carriage was on one frame supported by four springs on the axle of each wheel. The carriage was capable of carrying sixteen passengers besides the engineer and guide. Its total weight, including coke and water, but exclusive of attendants and passengers, was about three and one-half tons. The wheel tires were three and one-half inches wide, and the diameter of the hind wheels four feet.

In February, 1831, the Infant began to run on regular trips between Stratford and London. In 1832 a second carriage, similar to the Infant, was built, and called the Era. It was constructed for the London and Brighton Steam Carriage Company, to ply between London and Greenwich. The following year a third carriage, the Enterprise, was completed, for the London and Paddington Steam Car Company, and was run between London and Paddington.

Hancock took the Infant on a long trip from Stratford to London and Brighton, in October, 1832. Eleven passengers were carried, and the carriage kept a speed of nine miles an hour on the level, and six to eight miles an hour up grade. On the return one mile up hill was made at the rate of seventeen miles an hour. Another trip to Brighton was made in September of the next year at an average speed of twelve miles an hour actual traveling. At Brighton the new carriage attracted much attention, and was exhibited for several days on trips in and around the town. After the Enterprise, the Autopsy came from the Hancock shops, in September, 1833. This carriage was run on trial about Brighton and in London streets, and for about a month was run for hire between Finsbury Square and Pentonville.

A small steam drag or tug to draw an attached coach or omnibus was the next production of the Hancock establishment, which had already attained more than local fame. This was built for a Herr Voigtlander, of Vienna, and on one of its trial trips it carried ten persons and an attached four-wheeled carriage with six persons in it. With this load a speed of fourteen miles an hour on the level was attained, and eight to nine miles an hour on up grades.

Beginning in August, 1834, the Era and the Autopsy were run daily in London between the City, Moorgate and Paddington. During the ensuing four months over four thousand passengers were carried. Each coach carried from ten to twelve passengers, and the trip from Moorgate to Paddington, five miles, was made in a half hour, including stops. On the trial trip a speed of twelve miles an hour, exclusive of stops, was maintained.

Later in the same year the Era, with its name changed to the Erin, was sent to Dublin, Ireland, where it was exhibited and run in and about the city, by Hancock, for eight days, before it was reshipped to Stratford. Next in turn came a drag of larger size than any before built, with an engine of greater capacity. On the trial trip this drew, on a level road, at a speed of ten miles an hour, three omnibuses and one stage coach with fifty passengers. In July, 1835, the trip to Reading, a distance of thirty-eight miles, was made in three hours forty minutes twenty-five seconds; actual running time, exclusive of stops, three hours eight minutes ten seconds, at a moving rate of over twelve miles an hour. Subsequently, this drag was made over into a carriage, like the others of the Hancock type, fitted for eighteen passengers, and named the Automaton.

In August, 1835, the Erin ran from London to Marlborough, a distance of seventy-eight miles, in seven hours forty-nine minutes, exclusive of stops, averaging nine and six-tenths miles an hour. The return from Marlborough to London was accomplished in seven hours thirty-six minutes, exclusive of stops, an average of nine and eight-tenths miles an hour. In the same month the Erin made the run from London to Birmingham at the rate of ten miles an hour.

In 1836, Hancock ran all his carriages on a regular route on the Stratford and Islington roads for a period of twenty weeks, making in that time seven hundred and twelve trips, covering four thousand two hundred miles, and carrying twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty-one passengers.

After running his carriages for several years dissensions in the companies that were promoting the new means of travel, and the increasing efficiency of railways, led to the discontinuance of Hancock’s energy in this direction. Thereafter he built only a steam phaeton for his personal use; this had seats for three, and was used about the City, Hyde Park and the London suburbs. Hancock’s steam vehicles were ten in number—the experimental three-wheeler, the trunnion-engine Infant, the fixed engine Infant, the Era, afterward the Erin, the Enterprise, the Autopsy, the Austrian drag, the Irish drag, the Automaton, and the phaeton.

Hancock turned his attention in the later years of his life to developing the use of india-rubber, in connection with his brother, Thomas Hancock, who was one of the foremost rubber manufacturers of England. He secured several patents for improvements in manufacturing rubber.

At the time when Hancock was at work upon his steam carriages, Gurney was also in the front and there was considerable jealousy between the two. Dr. Lardner and others were active in exploiting Gurney, while Hancock was supported in controversies by Alexander Gordon, Luke Hebert and others. That Hancock achieved most in the way of definite results and that his experimenting and accomplishments were more markedly along thoroughly intelligent and conservatively practical mechanical lines than any of his rivals is now generally conceded. His carriages were admirable productions as road vehicles, well-built, attractive and comfortable.

William T. James

An engineer of New York, who was engaged in experimenting about 1829 James made, in his shop in Eldridge Court, several small models of vehicles that proved sufficiently satisfactory. His first engine had two-inch cylinders and four-inch stroke. This ran around a track on the floor of his shop, and drew a train of four cars, carrying an apprentice boy on each car. James’ second locomotive was mounted on three wheels, two drivers in the rear and a steering wheel, and it ran on the floor or sidewalk.

In 1829, James, satisfied with his experimenting, built a steam carriage capable of carrying passengers, and with this he made very good time over the streets and roadways in and about the metropolis. He then adopted the rotary cylinders instead of the reciprocating, in his engine, which had two six-inch cylinders, and was supported on three wheels. On each cylinder were two fixed eccentrics, one for the forward and one for the backing motion. The slide valve of one cylinder had a half-inch lap at each end, and exhausted its steam into the other.

In 1830, James made his fourth full-size steam carriage. This was a three-wheeled vehicle, the rear wheels being drivers three feet in diameter, and the third the front or steering wheel. In 1831, in a competition for the best locomotive engine adapted to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, James built his fifth locomotive, and the first one to run on rails. His engine did not secure the prize, but the company, thinking his machine contained valuable ideas, entered into an arrangement with him for further experimenting.

Francis Maceroni

Born in Manchester, England, in 1788. Died in London, July 25, 1846.

The father of Francis Maceroni was Peter Augustus Maceroni who, with two brothers, served in a French regiment in the American Revolution. After that conflict was ended he went to England and settled in Manchester, where he was Italian agent for British manufacturers.

Francis Maceroni was educated in the Roman Catholic school, in Hampshire; at the Dominican Academy, in Surrey, and at the college at Old Hall Green, near Puckerbridge, Hertfordshire. During a period of ten years, from 1803 to 1813, he lived in Rome and Naples as a young gentleman of elegant leisure. In 1813 he began the study of anatomy and medicine, but had not gone far in those pursuits before his vagrom disposition took him in another direction. He became aide-de-camp to Murat, King of Naples, with the rank of Colonel of Cavalry. His service with Murat took him on missions to England and France, and for a time he was a prisoner of the French authorities.

After two years of this military service, he returned to England, and retained his residence there for the rest of his life. He did not remain at home long, however, for he was with Sir George MacGregor at Porto Bello, in 1819; became a brigadier-general of the new republic of Colombia, and in 1821 saw service in Spain with General Pepe.

Returning again to England, he came before the public as an advocate of a ship canal across the Isthmus, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and also promoted a company, called The Atlantic and Pacific Junction and South American Mining and Trading Company, with a capital of one million pounds sterling. The company collapsed in the commercial panic of 1825, and this soldier of fortune in 1829 went to Constantinople to assist the Turks against the Russians. In London again in 1831, Maceroni was engaged for the rest of his life in the cause of highway steam locomotion, in which he accomplished a great deal.

Maceroni was second only to Walter Hancock as an inventor and builder of steam road carriages and as a promoter of travel by those vehicles. From 1825 to 1828 he was with Goldsworthy Gurney in London, but his real activity did not begin until 1831, when he became associated with John Squire. In 1833, Maceroni and Squire took out a patent for a multi-tubular boiler, which they applied to a steam carriage that one writer of that day described as “a fine specimen of indomitable perseverance.” It often traveled at the rate of from eighteen to twenty miles an hour. The engines were placed horizontally underneath the carriage body, the boiler was arranged at the back, and a fan was used to urge the combustion of the fuel, the supply of which was regulated by the engineman, who had a seat behind. The passengers were placed in the open carriage body, and their seats were upon the tops of the water tanks. There were two cylinders seven and one-half inches in diameter, the stroke being fifteen and three-quarter inches. The diameter of the steam pipe was two and one-quarter inches, and that of the exhaust pipe was two and three-quarter inches.

The carriage attracted a great deal of attention, and much was written about it in the newspapers of the time. Once the trip was taken to Harrow-on-the-Hill, a distance of nine miles, in fifty-eight minutes, without the full power of steam being on at any time. For several weeks in the early part of 1834 the carriage was running daily from Oxford Street to Edgeware. Several trips were made to Uxbridge, when the roads were in very bad condition, but the journey from the Regent’s Circus, Oxford Street, a distance of sixteen miles, was often performed in a little over an hour. A trip to Watford was made, and one of the passengers thus described the experience from Bushby Heath into the village of Watford:

“We set off from the starting place amid the cheers of the villagers. The motion was so steady that we could have read with ease, and the noise was no worse than that produced by a common vehicle. On arriving at the summit of Clay Hill, the local and inexperienced attendant neglected to clog the wheel until it became impossible. We went thundering down the hill at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Mr. Squire was steersman, and never lost his presence of mind. It may be conceived what amazement a thing of this kind, flashing through the village of Bushy, occasioned among the inhabitants. The people seemed petrified on seeing a carriage without horses. In the busy and populous town of Watford the sensation was similar—the men gazed in speechless wonder; the women clapped their hands. We turned round at the end of the street in magnificent style, and ascended Clay Hill at the same rate as the stage coaches drawn by five horses.”

Maceroni made two steam carriages, but in 1834 he separated from Squire, and becoming short of funds fell into the clutches of Asda, an Italian Jew, who persuaded him to let the two carriages go to the Continent. One was sent to Brussels, where it ran successfully, and the other went to Paris. The performance of the latter was thus described in the columns of a Paris journal: “The steam carriage brought to perfection in England by Colonel Maceroni, ran along the Boulevards as far as the Rue Faubourg du Temple. It turned with the greatest facility, ran the whole length of the Boulevards back again, and along the Rue Royale, to the Place Louis XV. This carriage is very elegant, much lighter, and by no means so noisy as the one we saw here some months ago, and it excited along its way the surprise and applause of the astonished spectators. All the hills on the paved Boulevard were ascended with astonishing rapidity. One of our colleagues was in this carriage the whole of its running above described, and he declares that there is not the least heat felt inside from the fire, and that conversation can be kept up so as to be heard at a much lower tone than in most ordinary carriages.”

Asda sold the carriage and the patent for a large sum of money, and swindled Maceroni out of all his share. For years the inventor was in the direst extremes of poverty. In 1841 he succeeded in securing the support of The General Steam Carriage Company to construct and run carriages under his patent. Disagreement between the directors and the manufacturing engineer again brought to Maceroni disaster, from which he was never able to recover.

Richard Roberts

Born in 1789. Died in March, 1864.

Roberts was best known as a Manchester, England, engineer, of the firm of Sharp, Roberts & Co. He built a steam road locomotive that was first tried in December, 1833. Three months later the machine was subjected to a second trial. The carriage went out under the guidance of Mr. Roberts, with forty passengers. It proceeded about a mile and a half, made a difficult turn where the road was narrow, and returned to the works without accident. The maximum speed on the level was nearly twenty miles an hour. Hills were mounted easily. No doubt existed of the engine being speedily put in complete and effective condition for actual service. During another experimental trip in April of the same year, the locomotive met with an accident caused by some of the boiler tubes giving way, allowing the steam to escape and the fuel to be scattered about. No one was seriously injured, and none of the passengers was hurt.

Roberts invented the compensating gear that he first used on his steam carriage. This gear superseded claw clutches, friction bands, ratchet-wheels, and other arrangements for obtaining the full power of both the driving-wheels, and at the same time allowing for the engine to turn the sharpest corner. In 1839, Roberts invented an arrangement for communicating power to both driving-wheels at all times, whether turning to the right or left. During the latter years of his life this famous engineer lived in exceedingly straitened circumstances, and he died in poverty.

John Scott Russell

Born at Parkhead, near Glasgow, Scotland, May 8, 1808. Died June 8, 1882, at Ventnor.

The father of John Scott Russell was David Russell, a Scottish clergyman, and the son was originally intended for the church. His mind was more inclined toward mechanics than theology, and he entered a workshop in order to learn the trade of engineering. Studying at the Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Glasgow, he was graduated from Glasgow when he was sixteen years of age. In 1832, upon the death of Sir John Leslie, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, Russell was elected to fill the vacancy temporarily. Shortly after that he began his celebrated investigations into the nature of the sea waves, as a preliminary study to improving the forms of ships. As a result of these researches he developed the wave-line system for the construction of vessels. In 1837 he received a gold medal of the Royal Society of Engineers, and was elected a member of the Council of that Society for a paper that he read “on the laws by which water opposes resistance to the motion of floating bodies.” At that time he was manager of the shipbuilding words at Greenock, and under his supervision and according to his designs several ships were built with lines based on his wave system. Among these were four of the new fleet of the West India Mail Company.

Russell removed to London in 1844, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1847. He was vice-president of the Institute of Civil Engineers and secretary of the Society of Arts. For many years he was a shipbuilder on the Thames, and supervised the construction of the celebrated steamship Great Eastern. He was one of the promoters and vice-president of the Institute of Naval Architects, and a pioneer in advocating the construction of iron-clad men-of-war. He published many papers, principally upon naval architecture.

It was while he was residing in Edinburgh that he took out a patent for a steam locomotive to be used on the common roads. The boiler that he invented was multi-tubular, with the furnace and the return tubes on the same level, and similar to a marine boiler. The boiler everywhere consisted of opposite and parallel surfaces, and these surfaces were connected by stays of small diameter. The copper plates of the boiler were only one-tenth of an inch thick. When put to actual test the weakness of the boiler thus constructed was fully demonstrated.

The engine had two vertical cylinders, twelve inches in diameter and with twelve inches stroke. The engine was mounted upon laminated springs, arranged so that each spring in its flexure described, at a particular point, such a circle as was also described by the main axle in its motion round the crank shaft. This arrangement was intended to correct any irregularities in the road so that they would not interfere with the proper working of the spur gearing. Exhaust steam was turned into the chimney to create a blast. Water and coke were carried on a separate tender on two wheels, coupled to the rear of the engine. Spare tenders, filled, were kept in readiness at different stations on the road. These tenders, mounted upon springs, had seats back and front for passengers. To work the locomotive three persons were required, a steersman on the front seat, an engineer on the back seat outside above the engines, and a fireman stationed on the footplate in front of the boiler.

On the order of the Steam Carriage Company, of Scotland, six of these coaches were built by the Grove House Engine Works, of Edinburgh. They were substantially constructed and very elaborately fitted up. As was said at the time, they were “in the style and with all the comfort and elegance of the most costly gentleman’s carriage.” They ran very successfully for some time, during 1834, between St. George’s Square, Glasgow, and Paisley. There was a service of six coaches once an hour. Each carriage accommodated six passengers inside and twenty outside, and sometimes drew, in addition, a dogcart laden with six passengers, and the necessary fuel and water. These dogcarts were used as relays on the road, being kept ready constantly. Public opposition to these coaches developed here as it had done in London about the same period. Road trustees objected to them on the ground that they wore out the roads too rapidly. Obstructions of stones, logs of wood, and other things were placed in their way, but the coaches generally went on in spite of these. Ordinary horse-drawn road carriages were more damaged and hindered than the Russell coaches, and even heavy carts were compelled to abandon travel on the obstructed roads and take roundabout courses, greatly to the discomfiture of the drivers.

One day, however, a heavy strain, unusually severe, caused by jolting over the rough road, broke a wheel, and the weight of the coach falling on the boiler caused an explosion. Five persons were killed, and as a result of this accident the Court of Session interdicted the further travel of these carriages in Scotland. The Steam Carriage Company brought an action for damages against the trustees of the turnpike road for having compelled them to withdraw the carriages from the Glasgow and Paisley road by “wantonly, wrongfully and maliciously accumulating masses of metal, stones and rubbish on the said road, in order to create such annoyance and obstruction as might impede, overturn, or destroy the steam coaches belonging to the plaintiffs,” but nothing seems to have come of this action.

No longer used in Scotland, two of Russell’s coaches were sent to London. There they were engaged in running with passengers between London and Greenwich, or Kew Bridge. Several trips were made to Windsor. After about a year they were offered for sale, and, on exhibition preparatory to sale, they started every day from Hyde Park Corner to make a journey to Hammersmith. But they remained unsold, and were shortly forgotten.

Had conditions been more encouraging Russell might have achieved as great success in his land as in his water vehicles. He was a man of rare scientific attainments, and his work in ship designing and building put him in the front rank of naval architects and builders of his day. In addition to his work, already mentioned, he built a big steamer to transport railway trains across Lake Constance.

W. H. Church

A physician of Birmingham, England, Dr. W. H. Church gave many years to the study of steam locomotion. Several patents were secured by him between 1832 and 1835, and in the latter year a common road carriage, built according to his plans, was brought out.

The Church vehicle had a framework of united iron plates or bars, bolted on each side of the woodwork to obtain strength. Well trussed and braced, this framework enclosed a space between a hind and fore body of the carriage, and of the same height as the latter, and contained the engine, boiler, and other machinery. The boiler consisted of a series of vertical tubes, placed side by side, through each of which a pipe passed, and was secured at the bottom of the boiler tube; the interior pipe constituted the flue, which first passed in through a boiler tube, and was then bent like a syphon, and passed down another until it reached as low or lower than the bottom of the fireplace, whence it passed off into a general flue in communication with an exhausting apparatus. Two fans were employed, one to blow in air, and the other to draw it out; they were worked by straps from the crank shaft. The wheels of the carriage were constructed with the view to rendering them elastic, to a certain degree, in two different ways: First, the felloes were made of several successive layers of broad wooden hoops, covered with a thin iron tire, having lateral straps to bind the hoops together; second, these binding straps were connected by hinge joints to a kind of flat steel springs, somewhat curved, which formed the spokes of the wheels. These spring spokes were intended to obviate the necessity, in a great measure, of the ordinary springs, and the elasticity of the periphery was designed so that the yielding of the circle should prevent the wheel from turning without propelling.

Church also proposed, in addition to spring felloes, spring spokes, and the ordinary springs, to employ air springs, and for that purpose provided two or more cylinders, made fast to the body of the carriage, in a vertical position, closed at top, and furnished with a piston, with packing similar to the cap-leather packing of the hydraulic press. This piston was kept covered with oil, to preserve it in good order, and a piston rod connected it with the supporting frame of the carriage. Motion was communicated by two oscillating steam cylinders suspended on the steam and exhaust pipes over the crank shaft. The crank shaft and driving-wheel axle were connected by means of chains passing about pitched pulleys.

To introduce the Church coach, the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage Company was organized. The first carriage built for the company was an imposing vehicle, something like a big circus van, elaborately ornamented and with a large spheroidal wheel in front. It carried about forty passengers on top, in omnibus fashion, and the driver sat on a raised seat near the roof. A fair rate of speed was maintained, fifteen miles on the level, but the boiler was damaged, and horses hauled the engine back to the factory. Other carriages were subsequently brought out, but they all failed to meet the requirements of travel on the rough roads that existed at that time in England.

Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir

Born at Mussy-la-Ville, Luxembourg, January 12, 1822. Died, July, 1900, at La Varnne Chemevieves, near Paris.

When Lenoir came to Paris in 1838 he had but an ordinary education and was without resources. For a time he served as a waiter in order to earn money to become an enameler and decorator. In 1847, he invented a new white enamel and four years after invented a galvano plastic process for raised work. Many other inventions were made by him, among them being an electric motor in 1856, a water meter in 1857, an automatic regulator for dynamos, the well-known gas motor that bears his name, and a system of autographic telegraphing.

It is claimed that in September, 1863, Lenoir put a gas engine of his non-compressor type, of one and a half horse-power, on wheels and made an experimental run to Joinville-le-Paris and back. The motor, running at one hundred revolutions, it is said, took them there in one and a half hours. He thereupon abandoned such trials, and tried his engines in a boat, and in 1865 put a six horse-power in one, but the insignificant speed possible with his engine caused him to abandon that also.

The Academy of Science of Paris decorated M. Lenoir and the Society of Encouragement gave him the grand prize of Argenteuil, amounting to twelve thousand francs. For his patriotic services at the siege of Paris, during the Franco-Prussian war, he was made a naturalized Frenchman. In 1880, he published in Paris a work treating of his researches into the tanning of leather.

Amedèe Bollèe

In April, 1873, Amedèe Bollèe, of Le Mans, France, the noted French engineer, filed a patent for a steam road vehicle and two years later he built the steam stage that he named Obeissante. Toward the end of that year this stage was run in and about Paris, where it created something of a sensation. It was even chronicled in the songs of the day and was made a topic of amusement at the variety theatres. This steam omnibus made twenty-eight kilometers in an hour. It is claimed to have been the first creation of the man to whose family much credit is due for the modern French automobile.

Between 1873 and 1875, Bollèe made several carriages. In 1876, he worked with Dalifol and made a tram-car that would carry fifty passengers. This vehicle was put into the steam omnibus service in Rouen. Two years later he made another steam omnibus that he called La Mancelle. This vehicle, in June of that year, was run from Paris to Vienna and developed a speed on level roads of twenty-two miles an hour. In Vienna this vehicle was the subject of much talk and was largely caricatured.

In 1880, Bollèe built another omnibus, La Nouvelle. This vehicle was entered in the Paris-Bordeaux competition in 1895, and was the only steam carriage that covered the course in that race. Bollèe has been a conspicuous exponent of the steam carriage in France from the time he commenced as far back as 1873. The vehicles that he has built were in many instances pioneers in their class, and have been exceedingly serviceable and successful. They have made the name of Bollèe notable.

George B. Selden

Born in the fifties, George B. Selden came of a family of jurists, whose ancestors were early Connecticut settlers. Among them were several eminent scientific men. His father, Henry Rogers Selden, was born in Lyme, Conn., October 14, 1805, and died in Rochester, N. Y., September 18, 1885; was Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, and is still remembered by men of that generation as one of the most accomplished lawyers and jurists who occupied that bench in the last century.

George B. Selden attended Yale University, and while equipping himself for his legal career, following in the footsteps of his father, indulged his natural predilection for scientific work. While practicing law in Rochester, N. Y., he devoted much time to the problem of self-propelled vehicles on common roads, in which, as early as the sixties, he was then interested. The study of this art led to a very full analysis of the possibilities of different means of propulsion, with, as a result, the conclusion that the light, liquid hydro-carbon concussion engine must eventually fill the exacting requirements of road vehicles. His further experimenting that was carried on during the seventies, and the actual constructing, so convinced him in his deductions that the record is found in the United States Patent Office of his filing an application for patent in May, 1879, with a Patent Office model of his gasoline vehicle. For more details, reference must be made to his patent, No. 549160, subsequently issued in November, 1895. Thereafter in a general report treating of important and leading inventions in various fields this was referred to by the Commissioner of Patents as the pioneer patent in its class.

Of Selden’s voluminous and persistent work and his many engines and models more detailed information cannot be here given. His fundamental patent at present is involved in extensive litigation, although it is recognized by manufacturers of gasoline vehicles who, to-day, are producing from eighty to ninety per cent of the output of the United States. Of his work along the lines of improvements in details of his main invention, the gasoline automobile per se, and kindred matters all of which have or will have a great bearing upon automobile construction and operation, it is not at this time possible to dwell at length.

Selden is known as an exceedingly able attorney in his specialty, while his active connection with the extensive reaper and binder litigation, in all of which he appeared prominently, established for him an enviable reputation. Those who have had the privilege of a closer personal acquaintance know of his great fund of scientific knowledge in various arts, as well as his most interesting accumulations of data as a result of his personal researches.

Selden is a patentee in other fields beside that of the gasoline automobile and his achievements have been numerous and of exceeding importance. He is also a chemist of more than ordinary ability and has applied himself as a close student to this line of scientific investigation. As a result he has made notable discoveries that, although not yet given to the world, will, it is confidently believed by those acquainted with them, prove to be of the greatest scientific value.

Siegfried Marcus

Marcus was an ingenious mechanic. In early life he made dental instruments and apparatus for a magician in Vienna. For his construction of a thermopile he received a prize and to his further credit as an inventor are placed an arc lamp, Rhumkoff coil carbureter, a high candle-power petroleum lamp, magneto-electro machines, a microphone and various other things in many branches of science.

SIEGFRIED MARCUS

It is claimed that about the middle seventies of the last century he carried on experiments with a gas engine that had a spring-connected piston rod. He mounted this vertically on an ordinary horse vehicle and connected it directly with a cranked rear axle, carrying two flywheels in place of the regular road wheels. He is said to have made trials of this vehicle at night in Vienna. If this was so he was apparently trying to keep his plan secret and succeeded very well. Aside from general references nothing of importance revealed itself concerning this vehicle and Marcus’ experiments with it, until very recently when interest in the historic development of the automobile has stimulated anew investigation into the endeavors of the early inventors.

In 1882 the motor work of Marcus was principally preparatory to his new engine construction. It included experimenting with an Otto engine run with petroleum and a vaporizer and electric ignition with magneto. In 1883 he constructed a closed or two-cycled motor and thereafter had engines made in Budapest and elsewhere. One of these motors he put on wheels, but this was abandoned for other ideas that came from his fertile mind.

Carl Benz

Born, November 26, 1844, at Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany.

The early education of Carl Benz was acquired at the Lyceum until his seventeenth year and then at the Technical High School of his native city for four more years. This was followed by three years of practical work in the shops of the Karlsruhe Machine Works. When he was twenty-eight years of age, in 1872, after further experience in Mannheim, Pforzheim and Vienna, he opened workshops of his own in Mannheim.

In 1880 he began to commercialize a two-cycle stationary engine. In 1883 he organized his business as Benz & Co., and produced his first vehicle in 1884. In the beginning of 1885 his three-wheeled vehicle ran through the streets of Mannheim, Germany, attracting much attention with its noisy exhaust. This was the subject of his patent dated January 29, 1886, claimed by him to be the first German patent on a light oil motor vehicle. This embodied a horizontal flywheel belt transmission through a differential and two chains to the wheels; but it is noteworthy primarily as having embodied a four-cycle, water jacketed, three-quarter horse-power engine, with electric ignition.