Part 41 (1/2)

BY PERCEVAL GIBBON

It was November 10, 1909--a day that will surely have its place in history beside that other day, eighty-five years ago, when George Stephenson drove the first railway locoreat square of the Brennan torpedo factory at Gillingha-tops of battleshi+ps in the adjacent dockyard poise above the stone coping of the wall, there was a track laid down in a circle of a quarter of a ths of track, a straight stretch down to aof curves and loops coiling a about it was that it was single--just one line of rail on sleepers taround of the place

And there was Brennan, his face red with the chill wind sweeping in fro, at slow length, of revolutions per minute, of ”precession,” and the like The journalists froeted and shi+vered in the bitterair; the affair did not look in the least like an epoch in the history of transportation and civilization, till--

”Now, gentlemen,” said Brennan, and led the way across the circle of track

And then, froazine-like sheds, there rode forth a strange car, the like of which was never seen before

It was painted the businesslike slatyblue gray of the War Department It was , with a steel cab h the s of which one could see a young engineer in tweeds standing against a blur of le rail; its four wheels revolved in a line, one behind another; and it traveled with the level, flexible equilibriu over the sharp curves without faltering, crossed the switch, and floated--floated is the only word for the serene and equable quality of its movement--round and round the quarter-mile circle A worke with his legs swinging, and its level was unaltered It onderful beyond words to see It seeravitation; it contradicted calmly one's ains at tieniousin the presence of a living and conscious thing, with more than the industry, the pertinacity, the dexterity, of aBrennan's car, when one had to summon an effort of reason to do aith this sense of life; it answered each movement of the men on board and each inequality in the makeshi+ft track with an adjustestive of consciousness It was an illustration of that troublous theorem which advances that consciousness is no more than the co-relation of the parts of the brain, and that a machine adapted to its work is as conscious in its own sphere as a mind is in its sphere

The car backed round the track, crossed to the straight line, and halted to take us aboard There were about forty of us, yet it took up our unequally distributed weight without disturbance The young engineer threw over his lever, and we ran down the line The movement was as ”sweet” and equable as theslowly on a smooth road; there was an utter absence of those jars and s on a double track We passed beyond the sheds and slid along a narrow spit of land thrusting out into the -party of bluejackets turned to stare at the incredible ain, three ti the curves, alith that unchanging stateliness of gait

As we spun round the circle, she leaned inward like a cyclist against the centrifugal pull She needs no banking of the track to keep her on the rail A line of rails to travel on, and ground that will carry her weight--she asks no more With these and a clear road ahead, she is to abolish distance and revise the world's schedules of time

”A hundred and twenty , in that sad voice of his; ”or maybe two hundred That's a detail”

In the back of the cab were broad unglazed s, through which one could watch the tangle ofunder their shi+elds like comfortable cats; abaft of theine suppliesAnd above the dyna a little in their ordered precession, are the two gyroscopes, the soul of the machine To them she owes her equilibriuyroscope is the simplest, for, in its essential for is the vehicle of many physical principles, and the suyroscopic action It is seen in the ordinary spinning top, which stands erect in its capacity of a gyroscope revolving horizontally The apparatus that holds Brennan's car upright, and promises to revolutionize transportation, is a top adapted to a new purpose It is a gyroscope revolving in a perpendicular plane, a steel wheel weighing three quarters of a ton and spinning at the rate of three thousand revolutions to the yroscopic action is to resist any i wheel out of the plane in which it revolves

This resistance can be felt in a top; it can be felt yroscopes of brass and steel that are sold for the scientific de bodies

Such a one, only a few inches in size, will develop a surprising resistance This resistance increases with the weight of the wheel and the speed at which it yroscopes of three quarters of a ton each, whirling in a vacuum at three thousand revolutions per ht that would crush the car into the ground to throw theht plane

Readers of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE were yroscope by Mr Cleveland Moffett's article in the issue of December, 1907 The occasion of that article was the exhibition of Brennan's rounds of his residence at Gillingha of the first full-sized car, it may be well to recapitulate a few of the characteristics of the gyroscope

When Brennan made his early models, he found that, while the little cars would reht rail, they left the track at the first curve The gyroscope governed their direction as well as their equilibrium It was the first check in the evolution of the perfect machine It was over ten years before he found the answer to the proble the useless patents, of doubt and persistence But the ansas found--in the spinning top

A spinning top set down so that it stands at an angle to the floor will right itself; it will rise till it stands upright on the point of equal friction Brennan's resource, therefore, was to treat his gyroscope as a top He enclosed it in a case, through which its axles projected, and at each side of the car he built stout brackets reaching forth a few inches below each end of the axle

The result is not difficult to deduce When the car caal action tended to throw it outward; the side of the car that was on the inside of the curve swung up and the bracket touched the axle of the gyroscope Forthwith, in the yroscope tried to stand upright on the bracket; all the weight of it and all its wonderful force were pressed on that side of the car, holding it down against the tendency to rise and capsize The thing was done; the spinning top had come to the rescue of its posterity It only re in opposite directions, and, save for engineering details, the h thein the back of the cab I was able to watch theyroscopes, but their cases, quivering with the uni and tilting accurately to each shi+fting weight as the lass oilcups, with the opal-green engine-oil flushi+ng through thes Lubrication is a vital part of theand red-hot, would eat through the white h butter It is a thing that has been foreseen by the inventor: to the lubricating apparatus is affixed a danger signal that would instantly warn the engineer

”But,” says Brennan, ”if one broke down, the other gyroscope would hold her up--till ye could run her to a siding, anyway”

”But supposing the electric apparatus failed?” suggests a reporter--with visions of headlines, perhaps ”Supposing the yroscopes broke dohat then?”

”They'd run for a couple of days, with the ot,”

answers the inventor ”And for two or three hours, that 'ud keep her upright by itself”

On the short track at Gillingharadients to shohat the car can do in the way of cliain the inventor is positive She will run up a slope as steep as one in six, he says There is no reason to doubt him; the five-foot model that he used to exhibit could cli a rope stretched six feet above the ground, or re to and fro It would do all these things while carrying ato take Brennan's word

Louis Brennan hi feature of the demonstration He has none of the look of the visionary, this one to ith tie Stephenson

He is short and thick-set, with a full face, a heavyhis mouth, and heavy eyebrows He is troubled a little with asthma, which makes him somewhat staccato and breathless in speech, and perhaps also accentuates the peculiar plaintive quality of his Irish voice

There is nothing in his appearance to indicate whether he is thirty-five or fifty-five As a e, but a man ripe in life, with that persistence and belief in his hich is to engineers what passion is to a poet