THE DE DION-BOUTON QUADRICYCLE slow conservatism. New York capitalists too great. We know that strong carriages can be made of any desired weight; so the present problem is to lessen the weight of the motor. Then, of course, the carriage can be made lighter, and the cost of construction lessened. Mr. Edison is at work on this problem. He says, with out hesitation, that he will soon show how to build cheaper, lighter, and faster vehicles; but he is not now willing to be more definite than this. What he might say would be interesting to the public, but Mr. Edison does not care to have other inventors start in the same line of experiment he is pursuing. Independent, however, of what there is in the future of the automobile, the present is most interesting, for the carriages of the day are good, practical machines, capable of doing hard work day after day and making great journeys at a high rate of speed. Already in this country a gasoline motor vehicle has made the journey from Cleveland to New York, more than seven hundred miles over the rough country roads, at a high rate of speed, and at this time there are two such vehicles on the road making the long journey between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Electric vehicles cannot, under present conditions, make such journeys, as the storage batteries used will only run a vehicle a little over twenty miles. Recharging takes several hours, and the motor must be at an electric station where there is a generating plant; but the motor can be removed and replaced in a few min The manufacturers of the electric automobiles do not seem to be satisfied that they are making machines which will not be obsolete in a few years. Therefore they prefer to rent the machines rather than sell them outright. Many inventors utes. This is the plan used by the comare at work trying to improve them-inventors from Edison all the way through the list. These inventors are not concerned so much with the carriages as with the motors to drive them. It is generally recognized that the combined weight of the carriage and the motor is at present pany operating the numerous electric cabs in New York. When the electric car. riages come into general use, stations will be dotted all over the country, and fresh electricity will be as easy to obtain as food and drink now are for a horse. That seems long in the future, but if the progress continues as it has for the last twelve months, we shall have such public stations in a very few years. At present the electric carriages are not, as a general thing, sold to the persons using them, but rented by the month or year. One of the largest companies prefers to do this at present, because the managers recognize that improvements are likely to be made very often, and they do not wish to sell to their customers what will be very quickly behind the times. Owning and caring for the carriages themselves, the manufacturers can add the improvements as each is made and keep them always up to date. The company just alluded to does this renting through a subsidiary or transportation company. It was this transportation company which gave the large order of 4,200 carriages mentioned in the beginning of this article. It is in these electric motors that the greatest improvements are to be expected. Electricity as a motive. power appears to be only in its infancy, notwithstanding the marvelous trolley and the improvements in storage batteries; so it is only natural that those engaged in making electric motors for road vehicles should feel entirely sanguine that the perfection of the motor is merely a matter of a short while. Meantime, however, the makers of other motor vehicles are going ahead as though electricity was not a particularly serious competitor. The gasoline motors have proved very successful both in Europe and in this country. In France the manufacturers are a year behind with the orders, and before the demand grew so rapidly in this country American machines were sent there and sold at a good premium. The chief automobile-maker in France, Count de Dion, was a prisoner in a police court the other day and was fined for working his men overtime. Though he has 100,000 men in his manufactories, he could not fill his orders in ten-hour days. Many of the makers in this country are also working night and day. The output, however, is behind the demand, and a contract for the early delivery of an automobile can now be sold for a premium. That is particularly the case where the contract calls for the delivery of the carriage in France or England. The public in these countries is more generally interested than it is here at present, and consequently the demand is greater. Moreover, though American manufacturers were slow to go into the business, American designs are recognized as superior. The carriages are neater, lighter, and altogether more ship-shape. Whether they are also faster and stronger is a matter which has not yet been determined; but these qualities are to be tested very soon, as, in the road races between automobiles in France, and in this country too, perhaps, all the various makes will sooner or later be tested against one another. The American makers maintain that over our wretched roads the French machines cannot compete against the American, even though they are heavier. They say that, at the great rate of speed used over the splendid French roads, a French automobile on our roads would tear itself to pieces. It seems, on a casual glance, that it is paradoxical to maintain that a heavy French vehicle would be racked to pieces on bad roads, and at the same time that American vehicles must not be much lessened in weight, because of the bad roads. But there is not really a conflict of theory in this position. The vehicles should be neither too heavy nor too light, but just heavy enough to carry the motor itself and the load of passengers without dangerous vibration or overstraining. The American machines generally meet these requirements, and conservative builders are not likely to make them lighter until they can drive them with lighter motors. It is the old question of light and heavy bicycles over again. It took several years of experience for the public to realize that the weight of the rider should determine the weight of the bicycle. As the chief motor vehicle builders are also bicycle-makers, this lesson does not have to be learned over again. As at present constructed, a storage battery for an electric vehicle will weigh from 500 to 1,500 pounds, while the vehicles range in total weight from 900 to 4,000 pounds. It would be a very light It would be a very light motor vehicle, however, that would weigh 900 pounds, and it would be adapted only for a one-passenger carriage. A phaeton built for two persons will have a battery that weighs 900 pounds, and the whole carriage. will weigh something like 2,000 pounds. Such a vehicle will have a speed of twentyfive miles an hour, and will climb a hill with a rise of twenty feet in a hundred feet. At top speed, however, such a vehicle would not run more than an hour, as then the storage battery would be exhausted and would need to be recharged or replaced. A careless driver, however, will get much less than the maximum endurance from such a vehicle. The personal equation enters into motor-driving, as into pretty nearly everything else in life. A good driver can get fifty miles a day out of a horse, where a poor driver would "do up the animal in twenty-five, a careful man can wear a suit of clothes two years, while his careless brother would be shabby in two months. This matter of care also applies to the wear and tear on the vehicles themselves. It would be quite unsafe to warrant the life of an automobile in the hands of a careless owner or driver. One man will damage his almost inappreciably, another will wear his completely out and get no more use of it. One manufacturer says that his carriage and driving machinery are "fool proof," but I am inclined to believe his assertion merely a picturesque way of saying that he believes it to be very superior in its simplicity of construction and operation. A little while ago a young man in Newport tried to make his automobile show all its paces at once, that is, go forward and backward at the same time. His fate was like to that of the tenderfoot when first introduced to a bucking mustang. The automobile, however, was more broken up than the driver. The first cost of an electric carriage varies very much. Buggies and runabouts are advertised from $750 to $1,500; phaetons and stanhopes at from $2,000 to $3,000; omnibuses at from $3,000 to $4,000. The first cost, it will be seen, is greater or less than carriages with horses, according to the value of the horses. There is an idea that horses are now going begging in the market, and that fine animals can be purchased for little or nothing. This is very erroneous. A fine horse is as valuable in the market as ever he was; it is only the very common horse that does not command a good price. A man, therefore, can pay as much as he pleases for a good horse, but he cannot get one for a song. If, therefore, a good driving horse is worth $250 and a pair worth $500, we see that a turnout with a horse or a pair of horses does not cost so very much less than a motor vehicle. The saving is in the keep. A poor horse eats his head off every day, and it costs at least $30 a month to keep and shoe any horse a gentleman would care to drive. The cost of the electricity at a central station for a vehicle that would do the work of two horses, if the horses could work twice as long as is possible, would be only $25 a month. There is where the saving comes in-in the cost of the keep and the amount of work performed. Even when common horses are used and the first cost much reduced, a comparison shows that the electric vehicle is cheaper, though the interest on the investment be computed. A two-horse wagon, with two horses and the harness for them, may be bought for $700; an electric wagon corresponding in carrying capacity may be had for $2,250. Now, to stable, shoe |