The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1891-12-30
HERE IS A LAND SHIP.
IT IS A GREAT THING FOR exPLoR-
ING AFRICAN WlLDS.


Through water-Forcsts. Jungres and
Mountains win offer No Distractions.
Details of Mr.. Lemery's Plan.
Plans worthy Of the authorship of Jules
Verne have been undergoing process of
Slow evolution In the brain Of G. M. Lem
cry, of East Oakland. for nearly four years.
He has completed working drawings
of queerly contrived land ship, with
which he proposes to roam through the
undiscovered gold regions and the unex-
plored plains and depths OF Africa, discoy-
ering long lost deposits of riches, the source
OF Solomon's gilded glories, gathering tons
of precious ivory, revealing the unknown
in books of travel and adventure, and gen.
orally winning wealth and fame il success
shall reward his hopes.
His land ship is big car of alumni
mum, strong and light, which is to climb
mountains, jolt over logs, travel through
forests and over plains, and like duck
plunge from the banks of rivers and lakes
right into the water and speed uninter-
rupted to opposite shores. This contriv
ance would be at once the home, fort, shell
ter, means of transportation and travelling
storehouse Of the exploring party.
1t is not the first attempt to combine
steam road engine and steamboat, yet the
application appears to be an original one
with Mr.. Lemery.
Mr.. Lemery seems to be neither an en-
thusiast nor an adventurer. He has no
particular ambition to be great explorer,
and the whole thing is to him business
proposition. He is quiet hammered man,
thirty-one years old, and Is a machinest
and engineer by trade. He has been on
the Pacific coast fifteen years, and during
four years of that time was in business at
Reno, New. He has spent a good deal of
time prospecting for gold, and as a pros
pector he spent good deal of time explor-
ing the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico.
About four years ago he became i'm
pressed with the idea that the Dark Cont
nent was the one remaining new country
where poor man could get rich easily, and
the idea has chung to him ever since. He
believed that there was plenty of gold in
African mountains forgotten or yet undis-
covered, and he believes so yet.
He wanted to go there to prospect for
mines, and in planning how he could travel
long distances through au almost unknown
country the idea of steam engine to travel
on land early occurred to him.
: As strength and lightness are requisites
Mr.. Lemery proposed to build the land
ship almost entirely Of aluminium, which
weighs 1853 pounds to the cubic foot, while
steel weighs about AIS pounds to the cubic
foot. Tho cylinders of the engines would
be of steel and much of the fittings and
furniture inside Of wood. The body of the
land ship as planned is so feet long, 10 feet
, wide and feet high.
It is to be made of aluminium plates one.
fourth of an inch thick for the lower half
and one-sixteenth of an inch thick for the
upper half of the sides and the roof. In
the rear end is large space for wood,
which can be cut and loaded anywhere,
and the boiler stands abaft the center.
At the forward end are two twenty four
horse power cylinders working shaft
which bears a wheel outside the car at
each end. BY an endless chain the motion
of this wheel is transmitted to larger one
between the two main wheels, fourteen
/, feet in diameter, which are driven by
means of chains passing over the driving
! wheel between them. The main wheels
are built like n bicycle wheel, the spokes
being aluminium rods one-fourth of an
inch in diameter. The tires of the main
wheels are eighteen inches in diameter.
The large wheels have no axles connecting
with the car.
Q The car rests on a shaft which passes
t through the driving wheels, and the main
3 wheels are connected by strong aluminium
: bar which supports the car and can revolve
: on the main shaft. The wheels could thus
r go over logs without elevating the car
1 much, and the end of the bars bearing the
: front main wheels can be hooked up
} readily, making three wheeled car, easy to
A turn around. The front end of the car rests
: on single wheel, which turns readily in
Q any direction.
r At the front end is drum, on which 500
81 aa1,I IN null
t to pull distractions out of the way, can be
a wound by small engine for the purpose
The bottom of the car is water tank,
p while another water compartment sur
) rounds the outside of the car
: The interior is to provide living accom-
L modations for twenty men. As a steamer
r the body of the car or land ship resem-
= bles on its bottom flatboat or scow
n schooner. A lever connects a propeller
shaft with the machinery, and as the land
9 ship climbs down into the water and be
a gins to float, the propeller sends it onward
b over the CLASSY surface of some crystal
4 lake, rippled only by the awful hippopot-
5 ami. II the water trip be long the land
: wheels can be taken off and laid on the
v roof.
When wood is to be cut the propeller is
slipped off its shaft and little wood saw
chews up fuel in no time. The engineer
a works the land ship from his pilot house
s in front The whole car is planned tc
% weight fifteen or twenty tons.
@ "You see," said Mr.. Lemery, as he ex-
y planned his drawings, every part will be
made 80 that it can be taken off very
Is readily. l would expect to make from
Is three to twenty miles a day with it, accord
ing to the troubles met in clearing away
l. They would be great in a forest, but
10 would avoid forests.
n ATTACHED to this land ship would have
n another car just like this except that il
would have no machinery, and in it would
II" take three years supply of provisions
3. and ammunition. The expense of an army
Of porters would be avoided. The cal
', would be proof against the arrows Of
IS hostile natives, and in it we could defy
thousands.
n well, haven't been able to figure
n clos..g on the cost of the ship yet, but
AaNn nm