Ralph Henry Graves

“ Even this visible marvel in transportation was regarded by the public as an achievement of limited possibilities. The idea that a horseless vehicle with no tracks beneath it would ever travel over the open road was too much for the imagination of all save a few dreamers. ”

“ At first he planned to put the double-cylinder engine on a bicycle, but figured out that with the gas tank and necessary controls it was too heavy. Moving his workshop to the shed in the backyard of a modest city house, when he accepted a $45-a-month job as engineer and machinist with the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit, he continued experimenting in his "leisure" hours. He has said that in the years of testing and planning he was never doubtful of succeeding, and that his young wife was even more confident in the future of the gasoline-driven automobile. ”

“ Hadfield's invention of manganese steel and Parsons's steam turbine were the wonders of the past twelve-month. Only sixteen years earlier the last spike of the first transcontinental railway had been driven into a Utah desert, and twenty-one years had gone since the development of the open-hearth process, the birth of the age of steel. ”

“ When the alcohol coagulates, the hardened cellulose is carbonized by heat. There can be no doubt that prior to the motor age Edison's incandescent lamp was the invention which most vitally affected the everyday life of the everyday man. ”

“ But Henry Ford and the other creative scientists of the day were not average men. In Ford's mind the engine that would be strong enough and light enough to propel a vehicle for passengers or freight was imminent. He was not the only inventor who worked toward the goal ”

“ In 1890 he started to construct a double-cylinder engine, after having built various experimental engines, and decided that for transportation a single-cylinder was impracticable because its flywheel weighed too much. ”

“ The car would hold two people, the seat being suspended on posts and the body on elliptical springs. There were two speeds one of ten and the other of twenty miles an hour obtained by shifting the belt, which was done by a clutch lever in front of the driving seat. Thrown for- ward, the lever put in the high speed; thrown back, the low speed; with the lever upright the engine could run free. To start the car it was necessary to turn the motor over by hand with the clutch free. To stop the car one simply released the clutch and applied the foot brake. ”

“ However, the movement for good roads began to find support at just the right time to aid in developing the motorcar, Toward the end of the year there was another spurt of concrete paving in Bellefontaine, the Ohio town which was for a long time the only community interested in the sort of road surface the whole country would eventually demand. ”