SECTION OF PNEUMATIC TYRE, RIM, AND VALVE HOW TO TAKE OFF A PNEUMATIC TYRE HOW TO REPLACE A TUBE IN A PNEUMATIC TYRE HOW TO REPLACE THE COVER OF A PNEUMATIC TYRE. COLLIER TYRE 239 GALLUS TYRE FALCONNET TYRE. SAMSON-HUTCHINSON TREAD PARSONS NON-SKID ATTACHMENT. FALCONNET SOLID TYRE Section of THE LOCOMOBILE TYPE OF BURNER. M. SERPOLLET ON HIS FIRST STEAM TRICYCLE (Coal-fired) THE WESTON APPARATUS FOR STARTING THE BURNER A 12 H.-P SERPOLLET TOURING CAR (DATE, 1901) 263 PAGE PART SECTIONAL ELEVATION OF THE SERPOLLET ENGINE A WHITE STEAM CAR, WITH LIMOUSINE BODY A TURNER-MIESSE STEAM CAR 277 279 280 CONTROLLER USED IN JOEL' CAR PLAN OF THE ELECTROMOBILE Co.'s CHASSIS SIDE ELEVATION OF THE ELECTROMOBILE Co.'s CHASSIS ELECTROMOBILE Co.'s SINGLE LANDAULET H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES' ELECTRIC BROUGHAM 6 THREE-SEATED ALEXANDRA' ELECTRIC CARRIAGE. 317 THE AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 119 PICCADILLY 406 MOTORS AND MOTOR-DRIVING CHAPTER I A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MOTOR-CAR BY THE MARQUIS DE CHASSELOUP-LAUBAT WHEN I was first invited to write a brief History of the MotorCar, I at once realised that I could not do so without repeating much which was contained in an article entitled 'Recent Progress of Automobilism in France,' which I wrote for the 'North American Review' in September 1899.1 It is more than a century since, in 1769, automobilism was born in France, with the steam carriage of Cugnot. This vehicle was of a crude, rudimentary, and incomplete construction. The ideas of Cugnot were an entire century in advance of the mechanical means by which they could be realised. The attempt led to no satisfactory results. Everything was defective motive-power, steering, control. Nevertheless, the carriage ran, and ran so well, they say, that it broke down the enclosure of the ground on which it was tried. It is an incontestable fact that Cugnot is the inventor of automobile locomotion, and that the honour of first having imagined and realised a new method of transport, destined to play an important part in the welfare of many lands, belongs to him. 1 The proprietors of that publication have been good enough to consent to my making use of portions of my article, and I take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation of their courtesy. В At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the great wars of American Independence, of the First Republic, and of the First Empire turned the spirit of France aside from new effort in the way of any kind of locomotion. It was in England, towards the third decade of the nineteenth century, that we saw the idea of Cugnot reappear. The same impulse which moved English engineers to build railroads in Elevation and Plan of N. J. Cugnot's Steam Car, 1770 order to free the great industrial centres from the economic tyranny of those who constructed canals, urged them to study methods of automobile locomotion on highways. That is to say, in its inception, automobile locomotion was considered as an auxiliary to the railroad, which it really is. Unfortunately, the promoters of new railway lines did not at all understand the respective spheres of action of the machine on the rail and the machine on the road. They took umbrage at automobile locomotion, and, since they had much capital and influence at their disposal, they secured a law from the English Parliament which effectually killed automobile locomotion. It ordained that a man carrying a red flag by day, or a red lantern by night, must be kept a hundred yards in advance of every automobile vehicle. The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons which was published in 1831 is extremely instructive, and contains the following remarkable paragraphs : These inquiries have led the Committee to believe that the substitution of inanimate for animal power, in draught on common roads, is one of the most important improvements in the means of internal communication ever introduced. Its practicability they consider to have been fully established; its general adoption will take place more or less rapidly, in proportion as the attention of scientific men shall be drawn by public encouragement to further improvements. Many circumstances, however, must retard the general introduction of steam as a substitute for horse-power on roads. One very formidable obstacle will arise from the prejudices which always beset a new invention, especially one which will at first appear detrimental to the interests of so many individuals. Tolls to an amount which would utterly prohibit the introduc |