The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-02
Dan. the Motor.

Dan as our engine was named, was a two-cylinder paraffin motor which, &C., cording to some peculiar Danish system of calculation, was rated 16-horse-power, and in my opinion was nearer 25,' writes Henry c. Rowland in Appleton's for May, "and he weighed ton and half! Captain Amundson had Dams twin in his ship when he made the Northwest Passage, and he ran for a solid week without once stopping the motor.
 Dan was brute any way that you took him. but he was a rough, open, honest sort of a brute, once you learned his ways. His system bore the same analogous relations to that of an auto mobile engine that the system of go- rilla bears to the human species, but It was 'simplifed' by the absence of car buretor and electric ignition. The first explosion was produced by heating the ignition chambers by means of blast lamps, and, once started, the repeated conclusions sustained the requisite heat for those subsequent while the work of the carburetor was done by automatic air. inlet valves.
 Nothing could be simpler, more effec- tive or heavier. As a commercial engine I know of nothing better than Dan, but he was about as well fitted to the Beaver as a truck horse would be to basket phaeton.
 ''Dan occupied the best part of the Beaver, h little abaft the beam, and he was encased in a galvanized iron box, constructed to keep you from getting at him, and with two heavy seniicircular lids like the tops of round back trunks and so arranged that when opened in a sea way they could come down with suf- ficient force to amputate your arm or fracture your spinal cord. Dan boasted two big fly wheels, one fore,- one aft, which might have weighed, at a guess. 200 pounds apiece; and he was equipped with automatic water circulation, auto matic fuel pump. governor, throttle and clutch It took about ten minutes heat ing with the blow lamps to heat him hot enough to start, and he could be stopped entirely for about ten minutes and start ed again without the lamps.
 'The propeller was two-bladed, re-. yersible, and very strong and simple in construction. The forward neutral and reverse angle of the blades was easily controlled by wheel on the same axis and abaft the steering wheel, and these two worked co-ordinately with the throt- tie and clutch, both of which were within easy reach, giving the man at the wheel perfect control of the boat, which handled like an automobile. With strong wind in any quarter she could bo held in any desired position, turned in her length, and laid alongside without cracking an egg.
 But Dan, the malignant deus ex ma china, needed every bridle, check, and martingale which you could put upon him. He was a brute-a morose, grum- bling, growing, swearing powerful, hard working, economical brute-and we al- ways hated each other!
 ''The expression, strain the motor was a joke as applied to Dan. You couldn't strain him; he was far too husky You might strain yourself or the boat or the nerves of the community which you hap pen to infest, but Dan?-never! He would run without water, without lubricating oil, heat up and swear, of course, but pound along at his 360 revolutions; he would even run without fuel if he felt like it; on what I'm sure I don't know! I think he would have run on beer or absinthe or castor oil If we had fed it to him; perhaps he would have liked 1t. He never seemed to care what brand of grease he got, but he did like the night air and always 'bucked up after sunset. When he was getting his full ration he worked along on about gallon an hour, at a cost, in England, of about six pepcav'