Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 06.djvu/386

LEFT MOTOR BOAT 324 MOTOR CYCLE Bay, near Rochester, New York, about the multiplane, the bottom of which is a 1893, and continued to do so for years, series of small lifting planes and steps; with complete technical and commercial the monoplane, which has a flat bottom success. However, the perfection and and no step; and the biplane, which has adaption of the internal-combustion en- a single step and two planes. The best gine with its many advantages has shape and the number of planes is a forced both the electric motor and the subject of experimentation and contro- naphtha engine into almost complete dis- versy. use as a type of power for motor boats. The speed attained by many of these The advantages of the internal-com- boats is remarkable. The record made at MOTOR boat: 30-ft. runabout bustion engine are: its comparatively small weight per horse power, its sim- plicity, reliability, small size, and the fact that it can be readily installed in almost any part of a boat. In its commercial application, the motor boat has taken the place of the cumbersome steam engine and the un- reliable sail for small passenger and freight service, for fishing, towing, lob- stering, and oyster dredging. In the early days of the motor boat, more attention was paid to the means of propulsion than to the lines of the boat itself, and the boats resembled yachts, rowboats, or even ocean liners, but re- cent years have seen the development of a new branch of naval architecture which has created a small boat which is dry, seaworthy, graceful, and has small resistance to the water. In the pleasure boat field, the development of design has been in three distinct fields — the open boat, the cruiser, and the speed boat. The early tendency in designing a speed boat was to create a long, narrow, high-powered displacement craft, but of late years this type of craft has been superseded by the hydroplane, a boat which glides over the water rather than through it. Successful experiments with boats of this type date back as far as 1897, when de Lambert operated his steam-powered glider. Peter Cooper Hewitt. W. H. Fauber, Americans, and Enrico Forlanini, Italian, were largely instrumental in the modern hydroplane^ There are various types of hydroplanes — Lake George, New York, in 1917 by the "Whip-poor-will, Jr.," of an average of 69.38 miles per hour for six ane-hour trials stood for a long time. MOTOR CYCLE, a bicycle, the frame of which supports an internal-combus- tion engine which is used for propulsion. The early models, which followed the lines of the foot-powered bicycle, were uncomfortable and likely to tip because of their higher center of gravity. The first models had the fuel tank over the rear wheel and often the single-cylinder motor was made part of the frame rather than suspended from it. In both the early and modem models, the rear wheel is the drive wheel, and the machine is steered by the front wheel. Flexible belts, shafts, and chains have been used to transmit the power to the drive wheel, the two latter means being most favored at present. Modern motor-cycle design, which lias adapted for its own use almost every practice of automobile design, has evolved a machine with a low center of gravity. The twin-cylinder V-type air- cooled motor with its axis located where the tread shaft of a bicycle would be, is the generally accepted type of design. The chain drive is most used, although there are very successful four-cylinder shaft drive models on the market. The fuel tank — which as a rule has two com- partments, one for oil and one for gas- oline — is located above the motor, fas- tened to the top bars of the machine, and feeds the carburetor and the lubricating