The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1897-01-16
THE JUMPING BICYCLE.
By J. H. ERNARD.
[copYRIaHr. 1851

-[coPYRIGHr. 1861
He was a genius-at any rate, he him
sself often said so, with considerable fer
wor, and we tacitly agreed to allow him
gthe privileges accorded to all g%eniuses.
One evening he came in, tired and
hot, and very grimy, but fairly brim-
ing over with Joy.
'sIIullo, Jim!''h he cried. "It's all right.
1--WE succeeded at lastl''
whats the matter ~ I inquired.
He smiled quietly and confidently.
''Oh, o want to know, do your" he
ssaid. "You're very curious, for a o
der. But there is no reason now why /
should not tell you about it, and even
sshow you the working Of the machine.
And you can prepare yourself to be very
much astonished."
Then he went in to clean himself up.
He was right in saying that I was very
curious about his machine. / was;
and following his Instructions, / was in
THE garden the next afternoon at five
so'c1ock anxious to see the invention that
was to reyolutionize the world.
When he came he brought with him a
bicycle.
"Hullo!' he cried, as soon as he a
me. aWhat do you think of this? A
beauty, isn't it?"
Il0oked. 1t twas not an ordinary bicy-
-c1e, but n more heavily built, with
numerous additional cogs and cranks,
and an air cylinder like that of a West
inghouse air brake.
what on earth is this clumsy thing
for?'' / exclaimed.
Clumsy be hangedl" he replied, irri-
tabIy. my dear fellow, if you will
start criticising anything before you
understand it, how can you ever expect
to get on in life? Now, follow me, and /
will explain it all. You remember my
remarking some weeks ago how ex-
-~traordinary it was that as yet no one
had had the intelligence to invent a
travelling machine which could sur
mount obstacles in its path, like a
horse, by jumping over them. Very
well; here you havethe first mechanical
invention to do so. This bicycle is not
an ordinary wheel, which loses half its
usefulness and charm by being com
PEELED to keep to the roads. This is the
famous jumping bicycle | have had in
my head so long. Observe, this cylinder
IS full of air at a high pressure. Asyou
see by this little gauge, it now stands
sat a hundred and fifty pounds to the
square inch. The cylinder is construct
ed to bear d pressure ef 400. These four
bars. with joints ID them, are connected
with the cylinder by means of the
-cranks and cogs which you see; they
play the part of a horses legs; the joints
are, of course, the knees. Now, how
simple the whole thing is. At my right
hand / have a tiny lever, with the pow
~ers marked, easy strong and full.
oh, by the way, / forgot to remark that
=as even you can possibly understand
there is an immense waste of power in
she ordinary bicycle. Going down
steep hill. for instance, enough power
is generated to run the bicycle on q
level road for four to- Ave miles. All this
zitherto wasted energy ! have utilized
an COMPRISING the air in the cylinder
When I come to an obstacleEsay ]
want to get across q ditch-I press the
lever to easy and the machine takes
sa leap in the air of about is inches
while the forward impetus carries al
aeasily to the other side. If / put tbs
never on Htrong, / can take a jump o.
ssix or seven feet; while the full power
means a leap of anything from ~ tc
rs in height. In point Of fact, it would
aonly require a hardrun Of about a couple
of miles to generate sufficient power Il
carry me over a telegraph wire, or q
small house"
PresoaterousI" 1 calculated. sHov
3 . earth are you to come down from
shat height without smashing both ths
machine and YOURSELF"
ssThereI" he cried. tTiumphantIy, =
knew you'd say that. But ! have pre-
pared1for every contingency in this ma,
Chine; and ! have not only been en-,
kireIy successful il overcoming the jal
caused by falling from a great height
EDut j have so arranged it that the very
impact Of alighting stores UP sufficient
force to make a fresh jump.
-Nothing can be Bimpler in action,