The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. by Edward W. Byrn

THE BICYCLE AND AUTOMOBILE. THE DRAISINE, 1816--MICHAUX’S BICYCLE, 1855--UNITED STATES PATENT TO LALLEMENT AND CARROL, 1866--TRANSITION FROM “VERTICAL FORK” AND “STAR” TO MODERN “SAFETY”--PNEUMATIC TIRE--AUTOMOBILE, THE PROTOTYPE OF THE LOCOMOTIVE--TREVITHICK’S STEAM ROAD CARRIAGE, 1801--THE LOCOMOBILE OF TO-DAY--GAS ENGINE AUTOMOBILES OF PINKUS, 1839; SELDEN, 1879; DURYEA, WINTON AND OTHERS--ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILES A DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES AS EARLY AS 1836--GROUNELLE’S ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILE OF 1852--THE COLUMBIA, AND OTHER ELECTRIC CARRIAGES--STATISTICS. However superior to other animals man may be in point of intellect, it must be admitted that he is vastly inferior in his natural equipment for locomotion. Quadrupeds have twice as many legs, run faster, and stand more firmly. Birds have their two legs supplemented with wings that give a wonderfully increased speed in flight, and fish, with no legs at all, run races with the fastest steamers; but man has awkwardly toddled on two stilted supports since prehistoric time, and for the first year of his life is unable to walk at all. That he has felt his inferiority is clear, for his imagination has given wings to the angels, and has depicted Mercury, the messenger of the gods, with a similar equipment on his heels. We see the ambition for speed exemplified even in the baby, who crows in exhilaration at rapid movement, and in the boy when the ride on the flying horses, the glide on the ice, or the swift descent on the toboggan slide, brings a flash to his eye and a glow to his cheeks. A characteristic trend of the present age is toward increased speed in everything, and the most conspicuous example of accelerated speed in late years is the bicycle. It has, with its fascination of silent motion and the exhilaration of flight, driven the younger generation wild with enthusiasm, has limbered up the muscles of old age, has revolutionized the attire of men and women, and well-nigh supplanted the old-fashioned use of legs. It is the most unique and ubiquitous piece of organized machinery ever made. The thoroughfares and highways of civilization fairly swarm with thousands of glistening and silently gliding wheels. It is to be found everywhere, even to the steppes of Asia, the plains of Australia, and the ice fields of the Arctic. The true definition of the bicycle is a two-wheeled vehicle, with one wheel in front and the other in the rear, and both in the same vertical plane. Its life principle is the physical law that a rotating body tends to preserve its plane of rotation, and so it stands up, when it moves, on the same principle that a top does when it spins or a child’s hoop remains erect when it rolls. [Illustration: FIG. 180.--THE DRAISINE, 1816.] A form of carriage adapted to be propelled by the muscular effort of the rider was constructed and exhibited in Paris by Blanchard and Magurier, and was described in the _Journal de Paris_ as early as July 27, 1779, but the true bicycle was the product of the Nineteenth Century. It was invented by Baron von Drais, of Manheim-on-the Rhine. See Fig. 180. It consisted of two wheels, one before the other, in the same plane, and connected together by a bar bearing a saddle, the front wheel being arranged to turn about a vertical axis and provided with a handle for guiding. The rider supported his elbows on an arm rest and propelled the device by striking his toes upon the ground, and in this way thrusted himself along, while guiding his course by the handle bar and swivelling front wheel. This machine was called the “Draisine.” It was patented in France for the Baron by Louis Joseph Dineur, and was exhibited in Paris in 1816. In 1818 Denis Johnson secured an English patent for an improved form of this device, but the principle of propulsion remained the same. This device, variously known as the “Draisine,” “vélocipède,” “célérifère,” “pedestrian curricle,” “dandy horse,” and “hobby-horse,” was introduced in New York in 1819, and was greeted for a time with great enthusiasm in that and other cities. [Illustration: FIG. 181.--VELOCIPEDE OF 1868.] On June 26, 1819, William K. Clarkson was granted a United States patent for a vélocipède, but the records were destroyed in the fire of 1836. In 1821 Louis Gompertz devised an improved form of “hobby-horse,” in which a vibrating handle, with segmental rack engaging with a pinion on the front wheel axle, enabled the hands to be employed as well as the feet in propelling the machine. Such devices all relied, however, upon the striking of the ground with the toes. Their fame was evanescent, however, and for forty years thereafter little or no attention was paid to this means of locomotion, except in the construction of children’s carriages and velocipedes having three or more wheels. In 1855 Ernst Michaux, a French locksmith, applied, for the first time, the foot cranks and pedals to the axle of the drive wheel. A United States patent, No. 59,915, taken Nov. 20, 1866, in the joint names of Lallement and Carrol, represented, however, the revival of development in this field. Lallement was a Frenchman, and built a machine having the pedals on the axle of the drive wheel, and it was at one time believed that it was he who deserved the credit for this feature, but it is claimed for Michaux, and the monument erected by the French in 1894 to Ernest and Pierre Michaux at Bar le Duc gives strength to the claim. The bicycle, as represented at this stage of development, is shown in Fig.