Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/71

* BICYCLE. 55 the curricle was patented in the United States, l)y Win. K. Ohirkson. but failed to arouse more tiuin a languid interest. The ne.xt jnogressive step in the improvement of this novel vehicle was made by Louis Gompertz in England in 1821. The rider was still obliged to thrust with his legs as before, but there was placed in front of the body-rest a lever connected with a segment rack, gearing in a pinion on the front wheel, which could thus be driven by the hands. This machine, however, did little to retard the waning popularity of the 'hobby horse,' and the con- trivance was practically allowed to sink into oblivion for nearly a quarter of a century. Until very recently it was supposed that nothing of the character of a bicycle was produced until the appearance of the velocipede in 1866, but in 1892 the fact was revealed that a Scotchman named Kirkpatrick McMillan applied driving levers to a machine of the draisine type about 1840, and four or five years later another Scotchman, one Gavin Dalzell, actually produced a rear-driving '.safety,' on which he was able to travel ten or twelve miles an hour. This remarkable vehicle is thus described by an eye-witness who wrote to the Bicycling ycics in 1892: "The rear wheel — the driver — is of wood, shod with iron, about 40 inches in diameter, and has twelve spokes. The front wheel is of similar construction, but only of about 30 inches in diameter. . . . The VELOaPEDE. 1867. main frame resembles the 'dip' pattern, the de- sign of which is now applied in an extended form to ladies' safeties. . . . The action obtained is not rotary, being a downward and forward thrust with return, the feet describing a small segment of a circle. That the gearing, which constitutes the chief wonder to the critical and historical reader, was actually on the machine while ridden by Dalzell, is proved by the re- ceipted accounts of the blacksmith, John Leslie, who made all the ironwork used in its construc- tion." TTere then was tlie modern safety bicycle. which seems to have realized the perfection of human ingenuity in one direction, clearly fore- shadowed a half-century ago in the inventions of two canny Scots, who may never have seen each other's respective vehicles. And yet, strangely enouglL, these two cleverly designed machines were destined to share a worse fate than that of their predecessors, for they were resurrected too late to be credited with liaving contributed in the slightest degree toward the evolution of the wheel from the draisine to the safety. During the next ten years we hear more or less of the French velocipede, and finally, in BICYCLE. 1855, one M. Michaux, a carriage-repairer in Paris, brought out a machine not unlike the draisine, but having cranks and pedals fitted to the front wheels. A monument was erected to OHDINAHY OR HIGH WHEEL, 1874. ^Michaux in France in 1894. Another inventor, Pierre Lallement, said to have been in the em- I'loy of M. Michaux, shares with the latter the credit of having laid the foundation stone of modern cycling. At all events, Lallement secured, in 1865, a patent on a two-wheeled velocipede, propelled directly by cranks and loose pedals, and surmounted by a wooden perch. The inventor then came to the United States, where lie patented a second velocipede Xovember 20, 1860. Lallement's machine, which was dubbed "boneshaker' in England, was vastly im- proved in France shortly afterwards, and is said to have made cycling a fashionable pastime in Paris during the .winters of 1806 and 1867. Schools were established for teaching the art of riding, and everybodj' who claimed to be anybody possessed a velocipede. So universal was the practice, in fact, that at the Grand Opera House straps were fixed to the walls of the vestibule for holding the machines of fashionable velocipedists. These vehicles were handsomely finished, and cost from 025 to 750 francs each. Meanwhile, cycling interest was revived in England. In 1866 Ed- ward Gilman patented a velocipede which was to be propelled by a treadle, connected with cranks on the axle of the rear wheel. An endless chain and a 'two-speed gear' had already been suggested COLTJilBI.V CHAIX WHEEL. the same year. The cycling mania soon spread to the United States, and by 1869 manufacturers had all they could do to supply the demand for veloci- pedes. Inventive ingenuity continued to make surprising progress in England until, in 1873, James Starley, of Coventry, the second 'Father