The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-12-18
CAR AND SHIP.
An Inventors Novel Apparatus
for Exploring Africa.
a Strange Craft Which VIII with Equal
q Facility Navigate tho Land or
Wntcr-Principics of Its
Construction.

Plans worthy of the authorship of
Jules Verne have been undergoing 4
process of slow evolution in the brain of
@. nj. Lemery, of East Oakland, for
nearly four years, says the San Fran
cisco Chronicle. He has completed
working drawings of q queerly con-
trived land-ship with which he
proposes to roam through the un-
discovered gold regions and the
unexplored plains and depths of
Africa, discovering long-lost deposits of
riches the source of Solomon's gildcd
ivory, revealing the unknown in books
of travel and adventure, and generally
winning wealth and fame if success
shall reward his hopes. His land-ship
is big car of aluminium, 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 uninterrupted to oppo-
site shores. This continuance would be
at once the home, fort. shelter, means
of transportation and travelling store
house of the exploring party.
Mr.. Lcmcry seems to be neither an
enthusiast nor an adventurcr. He has
no particular ambition to be great ex-
plorcr, and the whole thing is to him q
business proposition. He is quiet
hammered man, thirty-onc years old,
and is machinist and engineer by
trade. About four years ago he be-
came impressed with the idea that the
dark continent was the one remaining
INV ,f,.ry who 4
get rich easily, and the idea has chung
to him ever since. He wanted to go
there to prospect for mines, and in
planning how he could travel long dis
tances through an almost unknown
country the idea of Il steam engine to
travel on land carly occurred to him.
AS strength and lightness arc requi-
sites, Mr.. Lcmery proposed to build the
land-ship almost entirely of aluminium,
which weighs 16S pounds to the cubic
foot, while steel weighs about 475
pounds TO the cubic foot. The cylinders
to the engine would be of steel and
much of the fittings and furniture in
side of wood The body of the land
ship as planned is SO feet long, Is feet
wide and feet high. 1t 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 Il large space for wood,
which can be cut and loaded anywhere,
and the boiler stands abatt the center
AT the forward end are two twenty
four-horse power cylinders working q
Shaft which bears u wheel outside the
car at each end. by IN endless chain
the motion of this wheel is trans
mitted to n larger one be-
tween 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 a bicycle
wheel, the spolSes being aluminium
rods one-fourth of an inch in diameter.
The tires of the main wheels are eight
cen inches in diameter. The large
wheels have no aXles connecting with
the car. The car rests on n Shaft which
passes through the driving wheels, and
the main wheels are connected by a
strong aluminium bar which supports
the car and can revolvc on the main
shaft. The wheels could thus go ever
logs without cicvnting the car much,
and the ends of the bars bearing the
front main wheels can be hooked read
ally, making Il thrcc-whceled 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 drum, on which eight hundred
feet of cable to pull the car if necessary
or t2ipull distractions out of the way
can DO wound by a small engine for the
purpose. The bottom of the ear is q
water tank, while another water com
;partmcnt surrounds the outside of the
car.
The interior is to provide living ac-
coEmodations for twenty men. As n
steamer, the body of the car or land
ship resembles on it's bottom Il llatboat
or Il scow schooner. A lever connects n
propeller shaft with the machinery. and
ms the land-ship climbs down into the
water and begins to float the propeller
sends it onward over the CLASSY surface
OF some crystal lake, ripplcd only by
the awful hippopotami If the water
trip be long the land wheels can be
taken off and laid on the roof When
wood is 10 be cut, the propeller is
slipped off its shaft and little wood
saw chews up fuel in no time The en-
ginecr works the land-ship from his
pilot-house in front The whole car 70
planned to weigh fifteen or twenty tons.