San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-08-26

Mountains Will Offer Nc DISTINCTIONS.
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 c. NJ 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, discov
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 if success
shall reward his hopes.
His land ship is a big car of alumni
mum, strong and light, which is to climb
mountains, jolt over logs, travel through
forests and over plains, and like a 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 a
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 a 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 an 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 l6s pounds to the cubic foot, while
steel weighs about AIS pounds to the cubic
foot The 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
tue 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 a 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 bicycle wheel. the spokes
being aluminium rods one-fourth Of an
inch in diameter The tires of tine main
wheels are eighteen inches in diameter
The large wheels have no aXles connecting
with the car.
The car rests on a shaft which passes
through the driving wheels, and the main
wheels are connected 10y Il strong aluminium
bar which supports the car and can revOlve
on the main shaft. The wheels could thus
20 over logs without elevaUing the car
much, and the end of the bars bearing the
front main wheels can be hooked up
readily, makiugH tire. wheeled car, easy to
turn around. The front end of the car rests
on Il single wheel. which turns readily in
any direction
At the front end is a drum, on which 800
feet Of cable, to pull the car If necessary, or
To pull distractions out of the way, can be
wound 10y n small engine for the purpose.
The bottom OF the car is a water tank,
while another water compartment sur
rounds the outside of the car.
The interior is to provide living accom-.
mCdations for twenty men. As steamer
the body of the car or land ship resem-
bles on its bottom a ilatbOat or a scUw
schooner. A lever connects a propeller
shaft with the machinery, and as the land
ship climbs down into the water and be
gins to float, the propeller sends 1t onward
over the CLASSY surface Of some crystal
lake rippled only by the awful hippOpOt
ami. If the water trip he long the land
wheels can be taken off and laid on the
roof.
When wood is to be cut the propeller is
slipped Off its shaft and a little wood saw
chews up fuel in no time. The engineer
works the land ship from his pilot house
in front. The whole car is planned to
weight fifteen or twenty tons.
you see" said Nh Lemery, as he ex-
planned his drawings, every part will he
made so that it can be taken off very
readily | would expect to make from
three to twenty miles day with it, accord
ing to the troubles met in clearing away.
They would he great in forest but |