The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-17
WHEELS THEIR HOBBY.
NUMEROUS PATENTS FOR HORSE
LESS VEHICLES.

OHce Naiked W ash1ngton Streets
A GyratinE Wagon and One Which
Carried Its own Track.
From the Washington Post.
In room on the top floor of the intA-
rior department building sit six examin-
ers of mechanical contrivances. who de-
vote their whole attention TO horseless car
riages and similar contrivances. In one
corner Of this room is a bookcase filed
with letter files big red cases, which hol5
probably 30 documents each, and each OF
these boxes is filled with specifications AMI
Illustrations of devices which, accortiiDcr
to the inventor, are to supplant the horse
and relegate harness makers to the realm
now occupied by men who set type bv
hand and women who laundry collars ana
cuffs by the piece
Activity in this department is confined
to the last four or five years. Prizes
varying in size from 500 to 5000 are be
ing constantly offered nowadays by news
papers or magazine publishers, and with
this chance of paying for the working
model ahead, the mechanics think they see
the solution of the problem in some partic-
ular combination of sprockets and wheels.
are not slow in finding some means of con-
structing practical, operating vehicle Of
the kind they have conceived.
Applications for patents for horseless
vehicles are therefore constantly pourir
into the Office. They exhibit endless va
rieties of the same idea, numberIess ap-
plications of the same principal; but in
the end the horseless carriage or motor
cycle can consist of nothing more than
motor of some sort attached in some one
of two or three ways to the axles of two
or three wheels. Patents have been Is
sued, however. to only 1872 applicants in al
the period of activity on the subject that
is, of all the poor inventors of the Pat
ent Applied For type of machine only -
have really made some new use of hereto
fore-patented appliances or discovered
some new contrivance of their own.
But, however new this may be. unwont-
ed interest in the subject, speculation as
to the possibility of carriages and wagons
propelled by engines and intended for
traffic over the common country roads, IS
not by any means confined to the second
Cleveland administration. Long befors
the De Witt Clinton ran regular trips in
and out of Albany N Y, there were pro-
positions of applying the same power to
an ordinary road wagon. What was most
remarkable about the introduction of tho
railroad was. not the application of steam
as means of propulsion but such an ap-
plication over a rallied road. No patents
exist on the rolls of the patent office which
antedate the period just after the war,
but il is certain say the examiners q
such subjects, that contrivances applying
the principal of a piston operating on the
axle of a vehicle were suggested and con-
templated long before 1881, the date of the
first trip of the albany Wonder"
About the first invention Of this kind
was patented in 1868 by two Newark in
ventors, Zodiac p Dederick and Isaac
Grass. Wheelbarrows must have made a
1-.-y, cyasra on fKEro
for their invention consisted of a carriage
roughly in the form of a workingmans
unicycle propelled, or rather drawn by an
engine in the form of a human creature.
Connected to a system of levers which
moved in imitation of the human legs was
a small, awkwardly constructed engine.
It's boiler resembled the trunk of the
body and on top was a grotesque negro's
head with a huge clay pipe between the
automaton's lips. When the piston was
put in motion the levers moved forward
one in advance of the other, exactly as a
man walks and drew behind the carriage
or wheelbarrow containing the engineer
and one other. The machine, said one Of
the examiners to the Post reporter, was
actually constructed and set in motion
here in Washington And when it was
desired that it should be proven practi-
cal it was taken out on the street and
operated there For a long time it was
brought out at irregular intervals and
made walk or steam up one street and
down another, always to the delight Of
a great crowd of boys, who followed it ey-
erywhere it went.
A namesake of the President, Mr.. J.
B. Mckinley, from Ohio, patented a
Steam Land Carriage" as he called it.
1t was much in the shape of a coal scut-
tie, set on four wheels, with a spool OF
considerable size standing up in the mid
die. The upholstery within the carriage
and the curvature of the engine are most
remarkably drawn. The inventor made
his meaning clear, nevertheless, and OBJ
tanned a patent on his queer device.
A gyrating wagon, one that moves back
and forth across the road, as stone ma
sons pry a big stone forward or back
ward, first one side and then the other, is
perhaps the most remarkable of all the
steedless cOntrivances patented. Some
what as one SOULS a boat, the rider sits
on top of the machinery and sways from
side to side holding a lever in his two
hands. This motion results in lifting for
ward, first the right-hand wheel, then
the left-hand wheel, and so on, a meth
cd of motion which would hardly improve
the road or break any bicycle records.
No end of mechanics have tried the ex-
pertinent of carrying along with the car
riage track, made in sections like the
chain of bicycle. Fitting over one wheel
and running back over the other, the
track Is supposed to lay itself out as the
rider progresses on his way. Just what
would happen if one of the links of track
should not be long enough to span a gut
ter in the road, or should get caught be-
tween the sides of a cable slot, the speci-
fications do not state. One of the inven-
tors Of such an appliance claims for his
chain that it is practically infallible,"
and is practical, silent, and speedy"
Wheels within wheels characterize a
large class of horseless carriages. The
body of the carriage is placed on wheels,
which rest on the rim of a larger out
side wheel. When the machine is started
the outer wheel rolls along, and the inner
one with the rider and his companions,
keeps uppermost by sliding in one direc-
ton as fast as the big wheel moves in
the other. Thus. ingenuity of man over
comes the necessity for a hub in a wheel
and effects a saving of .spokes Remark
able though this class of inventions may
seem, applications for patents on such
claims come in at frequent intervals. 1t
IS not impossible that this may be the key
to the solution of the horseless vehicle
problem.
One man has a steam Velocipede. with
an engine under the seat about the size
IF a barrel Another has a cycle with a