70-YEAR OLD TOURIST CROSSES U. S. ON BICYCLE

AN ORDINARY bicycle with a special baggage support above the front wheel is the equipment used by M. C. Plummer of Portland, Maine, in touring the United States. Mr. Plummer is 70 years old but he covers from 50 to 150 miles every day on his bicycle, depending on the weather and the nature of the country to be traveled. The sack of bedding, food and clothing which he carries on his handlebars weighs 80 pounds but is so well balanced that the 70-year old tourist has no difficulty in controlling his two-wheeled automobile. Mr. Plummer recommends this system of traveling as a health builder. He does not try to cover any specified distance each day, but sleeps wherever he happens to find himself at sunset.

NEW PLEASURE CRAFT

A LOS ANGELES man has invented a new type of pleasure boat. The boat has a round, metal air-filled pontoon to keep it afloat. There are twin paddles to control the boat. One of them furnishes the motive power while the other steers the odd craft. The interior of the boat is shown here with three young ladies engaged in giving it a trial spin. The boat is built to carry four persons comfortably but a maximum load of eight people can be safely handled.

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RUMPLER Designs Largest Plane

Herr Rumpler, famous designer of Germany’s war time fighting planes, is turning his peace time activities to good account in developing the world’s largest airplanes. Rumpler, shown above in a characteristic pose at his drafting board, is now building an enormous monoplane which will have wings large enough to place staterooms in. A new blunt-nosed wing section is used to effect this design. Huge wheels, 10 feet in diameter, will be used on the landing gear. All motors will be easily accessible in flight. Navigating quarters will be in a cabin atop the wing.

The new Rumpler monoplane, now nearing completion in Germany, will have a span of 300 feet and a chord of 50 feet. It will be so large that space between the sides of each wing spar will be used for hallways, staterooms and motor compartments. A specially designed, power operated air field railway track will be constructed for housing the new giant. The cross section drawing shows the disposition of the arrangement. The plane will cruise at 82 m.p.h. A gigantic hangar is shown in the photo below with the big ship on the track. Note room for two of these monsters.

NEW MOTORCYCLE CAN ATTAIN SPEED OF 100 M. P. H!

RECENTLY the Ascot Paulhan Co.. of London, announced a new model motorcycle that is attracting wide attention.

This machine is of the conventional type but has been vastly improved both in appearance and in mechanical make-up. The most noteworthy of these changes is the new panel of instruments that is placed neatly between the handle bars. The windshield is formed as a part of the front panel and is divided into two parts. The upper half can be adjusted to fit the height of the rider. A windshield wiper is standard equipment.

Pad Relieves Motorist Eye Strain
A SPECIALLY designed eye pad, recently introduced, needs only to be moistened and worn over the eyes to give relief from eye strain due to long motor trips or sun glare. The pad comes in a convenient form for carrying in a small
space and can be applied easily.

Punctured Auto Tube Seals Itself

A NEW tire tube contains specially compounded plastic rubber which flows into a puncture, quickly closing it and preventing loss of air.

Unlike previous devices of this nature, the new tube gives unusual comfort in use and is light in weight. It can be used on the smallest car without jolting the passengers.

In a recent test an awl was driven repeatedly into one of the tubes; but the plastic rubber effectually sealed each of the holes with virtually no loss of air.

World’s Smallest Auto Demands Traffic Equality

TRAFFIC regulations have made no qualifications concerning the size of a car. Here is the world’s smallest car taking the right of way in Brooklyn, N. Y. Officer Thomas Hallman was rather surprised when Master Bernard Muller and his playmate, Miss Adele Wallack, rolled up to the corner. An approaching street car was far the biggest but the tiny car had the right of way, so the officer held up traffic for it.

This miniature automobile was built by Isidor Lubin of Brooklyn. Mr. Lubin is a mechanic by trade and used old parts for the major portion of this car. The actual size of the car can be gathered from its measurements. It is 28 inches wide, 58 inches long and 36 inches high.

Mechanically the car is right. The little motor will get from 70 to 80 miles on a gallon of gasoline.

Novel “Driver-Seat Shop” for Motorists’ Convenience

SOMETHING distinctly new in the way of ideas for merchandising automotive equipment is represented in the “Driver-seat Shop,” a steel and glass display cabinet that can be placed in all filling stations for the convenience of motorists who wish to make purchases without alighting from their cars.

The top of the cabinet is a glass display case carrying necessary equipment and accessories. Reserve stock is contained in lower part of the cabinet so that the display will not be disturbed when a sale is made. An illuminated sign on top calls attention of motorists to the handy shop.

Richard Du Pont—Millionaire Glider Fan

ONE would expect to find a Du Pont in a Washington drawing room or on the sands at Newport; but young Richard Du Pont, son of the industrial magnate, reverses the procedure by spending a great part of his time in a workshop.

Out in the San Fernando valley, a short distance from Los Angeles, stands a small laboratory. There young Du Pont and his co-workers are daily experimenting to make the air currents safer for glider-conscious America.

Building gliders is not a fad with Du Pont—the adventurous hobby of a rich young man luckily possessed of both the time and money to indulge his fancies. There is work to be done in the glider field; and Du Pont intends to do it.

Hazards of Glider Flying Flying a glider or a sailplane is at all times a hazardous business. In the past, too many amateur craft took the air without proper regard for safety in construction. Fatal crashes were not uncommon and the Department of Commerce stepped in to halt the mounting death toll.

A code governing construction and equipment of gliders was drawn and rigidly enforced. The fatalities stopped; but so did the business of sailplaning. The pilot ranks thinned. Today there is only about one licensed glider pilot where there were ten three years ago. The result is a total of slightly more than 200 licensed glider, men in this country as contrasted with Germany’s huge army of 350,000.

Viewing the situation, Du Pont decided that his wealth could serve no better purpose than to develop the science of gliding. One of his first steps was to enlist the aid of Hawley Bowlus who put gliding on the American front page in 1930 by remaining aloft near San Diego for nine hours and five minutes.

Long hours are spent by Du Pont and Bowlus working over glider plans. As soon as they finish a sailplane, they test it thoroughly, determine how it might be made better, and proceed to build another one.

Through their efforts a glider plane possessing every safety factor will eventually be available to air-minded men who cannot afford costly experimentation.

The benefits of Du Pont’s experiments are two-fold. Every glider pilot is a potential national defender. Any man who can fly a sailplane can, with little instruction, fly a motored ship, although the opposite is not necessarily true. Aside from its military aspects, glider flying is a valuable addition to American sports. Glider construction is not essentially expensive. The plane takes no fuel, requires no overhauling of the motor, needs no costly airport as an operating base. But gliding does require initial safety in construction. And that is what young Du Pont hopes to provide.

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What Will Happen to Flying?

by CAPT. EDDIE RICKENBACKER

Commander of the First A. E. F. Air Squadron in the World War.

GIANT dirigibles a mile in length, airplanes capable of flying at 500 miles an hour—these are only two amazing developments which Capt. Rickenbacker predicts are waiting just around the corner of the new air age in which we live. Being the greatest of America’s war aces as well as a motor car engineer of national reputation, Capt. Rickenbacker’s predictions are those of a recognized authority.

Men wonder today whether they will live long enough to see the day of airplanes. As matter of cold fact, that day is here now and we hardly realize it. We travel more commercial miles by air in this country than in all the rest of the world combined, covering 32,000 miles every twenty-four hours—a figure that will be doubled within three years.

Development of air transport will help to open vast areas of territory now unsettled. Such development requires no right of way. Tracks and highways are not needed. Only terminal facilities are required and these necessitate only a modest investment.

Ten per cent of the annual maintenance cost of good roads in the United States would supply a fully equipped air port, one mile square, for every town of 500 population or more in the country.

Railroads will use the airplane. They lost short haul business by neglecting the bus in its early day, and they are not going to lose passenger travel, mail, express, parcel post, and light freight to the airplane. This sort of traffic will normally go through the air and would make up the biggest transportation industry in the world. The railroads see the possibility and are intent upon developing it.”

One feature of their plans is the combination of Pullman and plane service for cross-country travel. The New York Central will haul passengers from New York to Detroit over night. They will take a plane to Fargo, North Dakota, during the day and entrain for Spokane for second night’s ride. The following day they will fly on to the coast. The Pennsylvania is organizing a similar service with changes at Columbus, Wichita, and Tuscon.

Within a few years this combined service will be superseded by airplanes covering the entire route in twenty to twenty-five hours. These planes will have sleeping quarters, dining salons and all requisite travel comforts.

All rail lines will be paralleled by air lines under the same management. Traffic is the railroad companies’ business. They are awake to the possibilities of air transport and are not going to let new men take the business away from them. They will build their own systems and compete with newcomers or will buy them out.

It may safely be predicted that passenger trains will pass out of use within fifteen years. Long hauls will be covered by air, short hauls by private cars and by public buses.

Railroad yards will decked over and utilized as landing fields so that planes can alight in the hearts of the cities. Railroad traffic, in the meanwhile, will be handled by electric locomotives on the lower levels.

These changes will come about because time demands them. Time cannot be saved up and used as needed in the future. It must be used now if at all, and the man who uses it most effectively has all the advantage in the commercial competition of today. That competition is pitiless— far more so than in military combat where all the resources of science are marshalled to the help of the injured. In commercial warfare, the man is soon eliminated who does not make the most effective possible use of his time.

Bigger Planes to Come

The present transport plane is as obsolete as a five-year-old car. Cruising speeds of 100 to 150 miles an hour for transport planes are perfectly feasible. With such planes the Pacific Ocean, in hours of travel, would be brought as close to New York as Detroit is now, and Detroit would be four hours from New York instead of the fourteen hours required by the fastest trains.

Air transport would thus, in effect, reduce the size of the United States to the size of the state of Texas. The fastest train across Texas requires twenty-four hours. At an average speed of 150 miles a plane crosses the continent in less time than that. It is very difficult to conceive of speed in terms of the future. The Spad plane as used by me during the World War travelled 125 miles an hour and was the fastest thing in the world. Single seater planes have been built capable of 350 miles an hour. It is only a matter of engineering to build a plane to go 500 miles an hour and someone will do it somewhere on earth within three years.

Big as present planes are, they are mere kites in comparison to the ones to be used in the future. The biggest thing we know of on earth is the ocean of air in which our earth floats. No one has ever conceived how vast this ocean is, and upon it every city and town is a port. The possible size for a plane or dirigible is therefore limitless, and we must expect them to increase largely in size because the ratio of pay load increases with the size of the unit. Size is now merely an engineering problem of control.

A plane is now being built in Germany that will carry 100 passengers. It is powered with 12 engines of 500 horsepower each, giving a total of 6,000 horsepower, and will fly at full load with any seven of these engines. It will have a cruising radius of 5,000 miles.

Cruising radius is merely a matter of supplies. When planes and dirigibles can carry reserve supplies of oil and fuel, they can go anywhere. Under present conditions, they must go straight ahead on their course. If ocean vessels had to operate the same way, they would lose 15% to 20% of their shipping every year through storms. But ships go around storms or lay by until the weather ahead has cleared. Very soon aircraft will do the same.

In fact, the Graf Zeppelin abundantly proved the value of cruising radius in crossing to Lakehurst. It travelled far south to avoid a storm, was delayed a full day, yet arrived after 6,000 miles with sixty-five hours of fuel still in the tanks.

The Graf Zeppelin with its 3,600,000 cubic feet capacity is now the biggest dirigible in the world. But the United States Government has signed a contract with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for two dirigibles of 6,500,000 cubic feet capacity—a 100% increase in size between models.

England is building two dirigibles of 5,000,000 cubic feet which are equipped with dining rooms for fifty people, dance floors, promenade decks, showers in passengers’ cabins. One of these will go into passenger, mail, and express service between London and Sydney, Australia, going always from west to east with the prevailing winds and thus circling the globe on each round trip. The other is expected to go into service between London and Buenos Aires. This trip, which now requires thirty days by the fastest boat connections, will then be made in three and one-half days. Dirigibles can be built to any size and may eventually be a mile in length and of 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 cubic feet capacity. Such ships would be capable of staying in the air five or even ten years, making repairs en route and taking on new supplies without stopping.

The dirigible would therefore go continually on its way around the world. As it approached a city another ship would go out to meet it and dock on its decks. It would unload supplies, exchange cargoes and passengers, and possibly relieve the crew, then take off again and return to its home city.

It is worthy of note that the airplane would be largely useless without the automobile. No one would use aircraft if he had to travel by horse and buggy from the airport to the heart of the city. There must be cars at both ends of the airline, which increases the use of cars and means increased business for automobile makers.

Private ownership of planes is coming through the keen interest of the younger generation. The motor car was developed in precisely the same way. It was commercialized by the generation succeeding the one which created it. Older men have responsibilities which restrain them from developing the new to its utmost extent. The youngsters, who grow up with it, make full use of it.

Buying Hats by Radio

Twenty-five years ago the social radius was five miles and the commercial radius not to exceed ten miles. The automobile extended the social radius to twenty-five miles and the truck increased the commercial radius at a very conservative estimate, to fifty miles. Now aircraft extends these limits to 75, 100, 150 miles and puts cars to work at both ends of the line.

These amazing developments in transportation are equalled, if not even surpassed, by improvements in communicating ideas. Here radio and television are supreme. And so rapidly is it being developed, that very soon important advertisements will be dispatched by television to the newspapers of the country the night before insertion. Last winter an advertisement of a bond issue was televisioned across the ocean to Paris and was on the streets there within three hours of its release in New York.

Three days before last Easter, a milliner in New York received from Paris a television showing in colors a new hat, copied it in his designing department, and had it on sale within three hours of its showing in Paris.

It is the clear obligation of the present generation to develop these possibilities nationally and internationally and devote them to world understanding and world peace. We have already proved what a wealth of good will can be gained from transportation and communication by our glorious apostle of youth—Lindbergh. We should send a thousand Lindberghs every day with messages of good will and with merchandise. A better world wide understanding will result, and will eliminate the jealousies, intrigue and envy that have caused wars.

We must do it before the next generation comes to manhood and womanhood. “We must turn all these mighty forces to the service of mankind. If we fail to do it, civilization is in jeopardy. When wars are fought in the air, there will be no “No Man’s Land” but every man’s house top will be the front. Aircraft of today will carry bombs of 5.000 pounds. They can be built to carry them of 10,000 pounds, 20,000 pounds— large enough to lay waste whole city areas, wrecking the buildings and destroying the people. It is possible for planes to use giant burning lenses weighing tons with which they could focus the rays of the sun upon a city and melt it.

These deadly weapons could thus be used for the destruction of mankind. But they need not be so used. It is the part of wisdom to turn them into economic blessings and angels of peace.

Articulated Bus Shows to Advantage in Traffic and on Narrow Roads

THE size of the motor-bus seems to be limited only by traffic conditions and the roads over which it is to operate. Finding it impossible to widen the German roads or to thin out traffic, a manufacturer of that country has introduced the articulated bus, which permits the largest of the species to wind its serpentine way through traffic or narrow roads.

In this vehicle the driver’s seat is placed immediately over the front wheels, the bus being jointed behind this point.

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Rockne Plane Crash Inspires Safety Inventions

FOLLOWING the recent tragic crash of a tri-motored airplane in which Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s famous football coach, and seven others were instantly killed, a new impetus has been given to the invention of safety devices designed to prevent the recurrence of such catastrophes in the future. It will be remembered that one wing of the Rockne plane was torn off in mid-air.

Even at this late date, no one officially knows what caused the Rockne plane crash. One theory is that ice formed on the wings; another, that ice made certain instruments inoperative; still another, that ice forming on a propeller hub broke off, struck the propeller blade and shattered it, with the result that the engine, running wild, wrenched off a wing of the plane. Whatever the cause of the crash, the safety devices illustrated on these pages, every one of which is commercially available to airplane owners, are designed to improve the already excellent record of flying from a safety standpoint.
Huge parachutes, large enough to lower an entire plane to the ground, are now for sale by at least one manufacturer. The Rockne plane was flying at a height of some 500 feet when it lost its wing. A plane parachute, released at this height, would have been adequate to lower the ship in safety.

Two methods of doing away with the danger of ice forming on the wings are now available. One, manufactured by the Goodrich rubber company, consists of a thin rubber “glove” placed over the leading edge of wings and tail surfaces, and even of propellers. Underneath this rubber sheet is placed a length of flexible tubing through which air can be forced under pressure. This causes the tubing to expand, moving the rubber glove to such an extent that any ice formed on it is immediately cracked off. Actual tests have proved this device workable.

A second way of fighting ice is illustrated on this page. It is the invention of Archie F. Thompson, and consists of an asbestos base, curved to fit the leading edge of the wing, to which is fastened heating coils of the type used in an electric toaster. Over the coils is placed a surface plate of aluminum alloy. Electric current supplied by a wind-driven generator mounted alongside the fuselage heats the resistance wires and melts any ice which may have formed on the aluminum surface plate.

Super-power horns which amplify the voice to such a degree that verbal communication can be established between an airplane and a ground crew are now available. In case of fog or other emergencies, the value of such equipment is obvious.

One disadvantage of personal parachutes on a cabin plane is that the time required to secure a chute, fasten it, and jump, is likely to be so great that the ship will have crashed before the passenger leaves the cabin. A new type airplane seat in which is incorporated a parachute was introduced at the recent Detroit air show. The passenger sits comfortably on the ‘chute pack, and in case of danger has his safety device already attached so all he has to do is jump.

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Winners in NEW USE for Old Fords Contest

MODERN MECHANICS pays $10 for every acceptable photo and description of the odd uses to which old Tin Lizzies have been put. The machines shown below are all made from old Model T Fords.

DOWN at Iowa Park, Texas, is an old flivver motor which is enjoying a ripe old age puffing and grunting on half her lungs while the other half supply fresh ozone for tires which have lost the courage of their convictions.

The front two cylinders have been manifolded off from the rest of the motor by the simple expedient of hack-sawing them off where they were not needed, and bunging the ends with welded plate iron.

The intake valves of the rear pair of cylinders were loaded with springs to keep them depressed, and the exhaust valves were brazed in tightly. The spark plug hole was fitted with half-inch pipe and this in turn led to check valves after the air stream had passed by relief or globe valves installed to care for extra high pressure. Once past the check valves the air was conduced by pipe to a storage tank.

A special boiler full of water was provided for the thermo-siphon system, as doing this kind of work was impossible without some adequate means for cooling. If you don’t think the motor works to pump air, you ought to see the water steam!

This novel use for an old Ford keeps a garage supplied generously with compressed air.

HYBRID STEAM ROLLER OWES ANCESTRY TO HENRY MR. G. H. DACY, one of our readers who lives in Maryland, sends us these two views of crazy but useful wrinkles for making use of old Ford car carcasses.

Down at Augusta, Georgia, there is a country club which has extensive acres of greensward running east- ward from the piazza of the club house. To keep the grass in good condition it is necessary to roll it. These rollers, one of which is shown in the accompanying shot, were made from old Elizabeths of the vintage of Model T. Six were made at the cost of one ordinary tractor. The conversion is a simple one and the machine performs satisfactorily.

SERVICEABLE TRACTOR MADE FROM TIN ELIZABETH ANOTHER Maryland tinkerer put the elements of a tractor around his faithful old brass radiatored Ford. Equipped with sunshades, with gas tank out afront, this flivver is now doing hearty, willing work pulling a disc drag. It is said to be able to pull a “single bottom”—that is, a single plow, with comparative ease. The reader will note that the usual Ford rear axle and housing, together with the usual single spring, are employed to drive the machine. The auto wheels are removed, the frame with the bull wheels put on, and gears intermeshed with the big gear by use of small spur gears on the regular axle.

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Diving Under Ice to Solve Polar Mysteries

by LEW HOLT

Sir Hubert Wilkins’ amazing journey under the North Pole in the submarine Nautilus, now under way, may discover evidence which will solve long-standing polar mysteries. Are there undiscovered islands near the pole—will the expedition discover a fathomless hole at the axis of the earth? Some of the riddles they will answer are described here.

HOW deep is the Polar sea? What is the effect of Arctic ice on the world’s weather? Can meteorologists, from a study of conditions at the North Pole, forecast months in advance droughts and hurricanes which will visit the rest of the world? Is there any basis of truth in the beliefs of some scientists that the Arctic basin represents a great hole in the earth left when the moon hurtled out of it ages ago? Will a submarine traveling through Arctic waters emerge gold-plated because of the supposed relatively heavy gold content of northern seas? These are a few of the scores of scientific riddles which will be solved by Sir Hubert Wilkins and his crew of the amazing submarine Nautilus, which is now traveling toward the Arctic, bent on the startling project of diving under the ice of the North Pole to settle once and for all questions which have puzzled scientists for years. If the mechanical safeguards installed on the Nautilus—described in last month’s issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions—are able to carry the submarine safely through the innumerable perils it will encounter on its daring journey through the top of the world, then this expedition, which many men have called foolhardy and doomed to certain destruction, will have justified itself adequately in the eyes of science.

It may seem at first glance that the mysteries locked in Arctic ice can have little practical interest to a world which occupies warmer lands thousands of miles removed from the North Pole. But if, through the establishment of weather stations at various points in the Arctic, meteorologists are able to gather information which will enable them to tell the corn growers of Iowa that they are due to have a hot, dry summer two years hence, or to inform orange growers of California that the season of 1935 will be wet and cold, then the value of the information gathered at the top of the world will have proved itself well-nigh priceless. That is one of the purposes of the Wilkins expedition. It hopes to find spots where permanent weather stations can be established.

It has been calculated that 18,000 cubic miles of drift ice reach the Atlantic ocean yearly from Arctic regions. When you consider that all the people in the world can crowd into a space of one cubic mile, as illustrated elsewhere in this article, you begin to realize the tremendous volume of ice which affects the world’s weather. There is even more ice in the Antarctic—so much that sea levels throughout the globe would be raised 30 feet if it were to melt in a day. The movement and distribution of polar ice is not uniform from year to year. Weather stations could report on its distribution and so supply information which, in connection with knowledge already at hand from temperate regions, would make long-distance forecasting a possibility.

There may be islands in the Arctic sea on which permanent stations could be established. If there are, the Nautilus is likely to find them. There are thousands of miles of polar wastes which have never been explored. Who can predict what mystery land may be discovered by the expedition? The whole trip is the most amazing voyage of exploration since the days of Columbus. All existing maps may have to be re-drawn when Wilkins returns.

No one has any idea of the contour of the bottom of the Arctic basin. There is even a theory which has gained some credence that there may be a hole through the center of the earth, extending to unfathomable depths. This is not likely, but possible. The fact that the sounding instruments carried to the Pole by Peary were not long enough to strike bottom has given encouragement to believers in this theory. No one can definitely say, now, what the facts are—but when the Nautilus returns it will bring with it an accurate chart of the sea bottom. Soundings will be made by the electrical method familiarly known as the “sonometer”, in which a sound wave is sent from the submarine to the bottom of the sea and its return echo registered. The time interval consumed makes it easy to compute the distance traveled.

Ice drills in the submarine which can bore through 100 feet of ice enable fresh air to be brought aboard the ship, and makes it possible for observers from the sub to get out on the ice to study polar conditions, even when there is no stretch of open water available for the ship to come to the surface.

A photographic balloon filled with helium will be used to send up a camera to take aerial photos. In case it seems desirable to know the nature of the country before venturing out of the submarine, the camera balloon can be sent up through the conning tower and an air photo snapped. This will show the country for miles around. A compass carried in the balloon will be photographed on the same plate, so that the problem of direction will be solved. In effect, the aerial balloon will produce a made-to-order map in an emergency.

Water-tight movie cameras are also part of the equipment of the Nautilus. With them pictures can be taken beneath the ice of the polar sea.

Experiments in short-wave radio broad- casting will be conducted at the Pole. It is not known whether the sub can broadcast when submerged, but it will be lying on the surface often enough so that operators in the United States with short-wave receivers should be successful in catching the signals from the North Pole.

What sort of life exists in the Arctic? Walrus and polar bears are about all that occur to the average person. But there is unquestionably a wide variety of sea life, animal and vegetable, existing in minute form in Polar waters. A unique mechanism by which the Nautilus can collect samples of such life, and preserve them for reference, has been devised.

A roll of muslin, unfolding something after the fashion of a roll of film, will filter samples of Arctic water through it constantly. Sea life which collects on the muslin will be preserved as the roll is wound up. Later on, when the sub returns to civilization, it will be a simple matter to unroll the precious muslin and make an exhaustive study of the sea life adhering to it. No one can predict what odd forms of life will be discovered.

Even the bottom of the sea will yield up its secrets. Hollow tubes will be lowered from the submarine, collecting deposits of ooze which will give geologists an insight into the physical construction of the northern hemisphere. Evidence thus collected may serve to disprove or substantiate current theories as to the origin of the world. Perhaps, ages ago, there was land at the Pole where now is only water. Perhaps the temperature was warmer, the land occupied by a long vanished race. If so, the sample-collecting tubes of the Nautilus will probably supply the evidence. Magnetism, that odd force which operates compasses, will likewise be studied. Probably the Nautilus will float directly over the magnetic pole. If she does, her compass needles will likely point vertically instead of to the north.

What about currents in the Arctic ocean? It is roughly known that there is a current flowing from the Bering Sea towards Spitsbergen, but there is very little real knowledge on the subject. Many problems of economic importance can be hastened toward solution when scientists know more about Arctic currents. For instance, it is possible that the great Hudson Bay country in Canada can be opened up by connecting it with England by means of a submarine trade route. Hudson Bay is a natural sea outlet for the great wheat-raising country of western Canada. If the Nautilus demonstrates its ability to fend off and dodge icebergs in the region of Greenland, the submarine may come into its own as a wheat cargo carrier. For, as a glance at the map reproduced elsewhere in this article will show, a northern submarine route between Hudson Bay and Liverpool, a world wheat market, is the most direct and shortest that can exist. Furthermore, a submarine can carry a respectable cargo tonnage which may some day make it a competitor of steamers in certain cases.

The “polar front” theory of weather prediction, which may be studied by the Wilkins expedition through the use of sounding balloons and instruments for measuring air densities, has as its basis the following facts: The mass of air in the northern hemisphere is 10,000,000,000 tons greater in January than in the following July. This means that this vast tonnage of air is shifted once a year, developing terrific energy. The horsepower developed by winds has been calculated at 20,000,000,000. Some day this vast source of latent power may be tapped.

Even the force of gravity, always a mystery, but today more mysterious than ever with Prof. Albert Einstein challenging the principles established by the great Newton, will be investigated by the expedition. It is known that the force of gravity varies in different locations on the earth. Instruments carried on the Nautilus will enable scientific members of the crew to take records that may have an important bearing on the mystery of gravitation.

Some one has suggested to Sir Hubert Wilkins that his submarine will be gold-plated when it comes home from the Arctic. It is supposed that the Arctic ocean has a heavy gold content, and that it will be deposited on the metallic sub, attracted by the electric batteries which propel the ship—a sort of huge electroplating scheme devised by nature. There is little likelihood that this much to be desired event will come to pass, but there is a certain amount of justification for the prediction. Not only Arctic seas, but all sea water, contains minute quantities of gold in suspension. Science has long known this, but no satisfactory means of extracting the metal cheaply has yet been devised. Submarines traveling through temperate waters have shown no tendency to collect gold-plate on their hulls.

It will be seen from the foregoing that it would be a brave man indeed who would describe the Wilkins expedition as a mere adventure. It is an adventure, of course— so was the journey of Columbus to the new world—but it is a project which may prove of inestimable value to the world at large.

There is always the possibility that these daring men may not come back. The Nautilus may be crushed in grinding ice, may become hopelessly wedged in the bottom of an iceberg. No one denies the dismaying odds of peril and sudden death which confront the expedition.

Even as you read these words, the Nautilus is somewhere on its way toward its amazing goal.

Bon voyage!

Eye-Shade for Watching Planes
A NOVEL card-board shield, shaped to fit tightly around the eyes, has recently been devised for watching airplanes, boats and other objects where glaring reflections are hard on the eyes. The inside of the shield is painted black.

Three Wheel Taxi Built Like Hansom Cab

THE last word in comfort and convenience for taxi passengers, particularly passengers loaded down with bundles from a shopping tour, is provided by a unique taxi now being designed by automotive engineers. With this car, the passenger can step from the curb right into the tonneau without inconvenient squirming and stooping, as in the ordinary taxi. The driver sits in the rear, like the driver of a hansom, from where he controls the door on the front of the car and operates the steering wheel.

The car is provided with only three wheels.

Enjoy the Finest

BETWEEN CHICAGO AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

It costs no more!

“CITY OF PORTLAND”

This delightful Domeliner is the finest and fastest between Chicago and Portland, with through Pullman to Tacoma-Seattle.

It is the only train to Portland featuring three types of Astra Domes; a Dome Lounge, Dome Coach, and Dome Diner (exclusive on Union Pacific) with three exquisite dining areas—the Dome, and downstairs the main dining room, and the Gold Room for private parties.

Pullman and Coach equipment is the very latest in design, providing both relaxing comfort and convenience. And, of course, the money-saving Family Plan Fares apply on all Union Pacific trains.

• • •

Through Hertz Rent-a-Car service, we can have a car waiting for you at your destination.

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD

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How Fast can Man Travel?

Is there a limit to the speed which the human body can withstand? Five miles a minute caused no ill effects for the English aviator who recently attained this speed.

RECENTLY broken records for speed in various methods of transportation have bettered the marks of recent years by such a wide margin that scientists are asking the question, “How fast can man travel before the functions of his body cease to be normal? Is there a limit?”

For many years the standard American idea of “fast going” has been travel on the 20th Century Limited. This train travels the 1,500 odd miles between New York and Chicago in 20 hours. The average running speed is reputed to be in the neighborhood of 80 miles an hour.

But, in methods of transportation, there is a new era at hand.

The nation is becoming airminded rapidly, and is accepting the airplane and the new type motorbus as the coming common conveyors. The reason is summed up in the one word, speed!

Tomorrow the 20th Century will be considered slow. New machines synonymous with speed will have come into common usage. How fast will they go? How much faster will they be than present modes of travel? And how much of the speed which these machines have at their command can be utilized for moving human beings?

That is the purpose of recent speed trials in which new automotive and aeronautical records have been shattered. Much has been learned.

For instance, the recent rivalry for the world’s automobile speed record between Malcolm Campbell, Frank Lockhart, and J. M. White produced the knowledge that man can travel at 211 miles an hour without suffering any ill effects. Neither nausea, faintness, nor mental aberration were noticed. It has been assumed that most normal human beings could travel comfortably at such speeds for prolonged periods without suffering.

D’Arcy Greig, English ace, recently flew his Supermarine-Napier seaplane at an average speed of 319.57 m.p.h.

Just how fast are the speeds of these machines in relation to each other? The 20th Century, traveling to Mars, would take 68-1/2 years. J. M. White’s Triplex could make the 40,000,000-mile trip in 26-1/2 years. D’Arcy Greig would be there in 13-2/3 years!

Moto Polo – Mayhem on Wheels

Combine football, soccer and polo with a dash of Sunday driving and you’ve got the West Coast’s newest sport fad.

By Louis Hochman

“PLAY Ball!” yells the ump and six peculiar cars tear into each other trying to bounce a giant six-foot rubber ball into a goal. They collide, turn over, bounce high into the air, roll end over end, spin on their noses, land on top of other cars, fall to the ground and then get right back into the game and start all over again!

It’s mayhem on wheels—polo played with cars. Dreamed up in a feverish moment by the Goodman brothers, B. J. and Bill, of Bakersfield, Calif., Moto Polo cars cost $2,500 each to build and are basically ‘35 and ‘36 stock Ford chassis powered by 85-hp Ford V-8 engines. They’re fitted with welded, tubular steel frameworks.

Within the very near future, the Goodman brothers plan to build a whole string of cars and start Moto Polo games in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

So, whether you like it or not, it looks like mayhem on wheels really will be going to town.

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Auto SCOOTER

IN CROWDED metropolitan centers across the country the thin trickle of new automobiles is helping one problem —transportation—but heightening another. Parking lots are bursting with automobiles of commuters, curbs are lined and every city has a parking problem which no plan has solved. Increased costs pose another serious problem for the average family. Car prices have risen beyond comfortable reach. One-car families which ordinarily might be two-car families can’t afford the extra outlay of $2,000 or more, even if auto deliveries could be made next week.

At Salsbury Motors, Inc., Pomona, Calif., an automobile-type production line is pouring out a new type of motor vehicle which may be a partial answer to these problems. Salsbury is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northrop Aircraft, Inc., creators and builders of Flying Wing bombers. The new scooter—which might be described as a cross between a light car and a motor bike -has speeds up to 35 mph and does 65 miles to the gallon. The single-cylinder, six-hp engine is air cooled and weighs only 56 lbs. Clutch and transmission are automatic.

FUN JEEP, above, intended for beach use, touring, camping; seats seven. Farina-built, it features gas-stretching 4-cylinder mill.

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Freak Plane Crashes

By RAOUL WHITFIELD

Wartime Aviator and Famous Author of Air Fiction ISSOUDUN, FRANCE. August, 1918. Grey sky, spit of rain. Two fifteen-meter Nieuports doing combat work at eight thousand, just under the clouds. And then, wings too close, the crash!

I’ve seen a lot of sky bangs. This one took the prize. I watched it from the earth—it was my turn to take one of these ships up next. It was my turn, but I didn’t take one. They tangled wings, and one ship spun free like a top. A wing dropped loose as she spun, But not her wing—the other plane’s.

I watched the other. She was sliding toward the field in a sort of half spin. Her left wing was gone. It looked like the finish. But it wasn’t. The pilot got a leg over the side of the fuselage—he got more weight, body weight, on the one good wing. She slithered around in a crazy manner, losing altitude in a series of queer dives and level-offs. The pilot was out of the cockpit—then in it again. He worked hard.

I looked for the other Nieuport. She was nosing straight for the earth—and pretty close. Suddenly she came out of the dive. She half zoomed, went off on a wing. She got level—lost altitude very slowly. She stalled, struck almost gently. My eyes went to the plane with only one wing. She was down to three thousand —and actually gliding! The pilot got down in a fast landing—got off with a broken leg and arm, and some cuts.

The other pilot had a scratch on his chin. And they’d sky-banged at eight thousand!

St. Jean de Monts, France. September, 1918. Flying at three thousand. Along edge of Bay of Biscay. Sergeant in rear cockpit, ready to throw out folded target, to be towed. I zoom her, so that the folded silk pack will have room in the toss. I start to zoom her. We hit a down current —the nose drops. Sergeant, off balance, throws back the silk. She jams between the rudder and elevator fins. I cut the power and try to move the elevator fin. No go. We glide for the beach—a mild glide. But we’re going to crash unless I can get the nose up. The stick is frozen —the silk target pack is jammed tight. All the way down I work. But that silk won’t free. We hit sand—the under-gear buckles. Wheels in one direction, struts in the other.

Ten days later, at the same field, a ground officer neglected to have petrol placed where petrol should be placed in a flying ship. DeHaviland Nine, she was. I took off, got about eight hundred feet over the beach, when the engine died abruptly. Couldn’t make the field—dove for the sand. I could use the controls, this time—but no power. Dropped straight for a half dozen of those bathing houses the French wheel down near the water. The bathers heard the D. H.’s wires shrill. They sped forth in various stages of dress and undress. But it wasn’t funny. Stretched the glide and cleared the last bath house by inches. Blew the left rudder in the set-down—nosed over. No personal damages.

Kelly Field, Texas. March, 1918. This particular cadet let a Curtiss “Jenny” skid on the ground, while taking off. He got her off, minus the landing gear. Just a few shreds left. They rolled out the ambulance, waved pieces of the under-gear up at him—and waited to see what he’d do. I’d like to write that he did the best thing—and stalled her down. But he didn’t. He stayed up until she was almost out of gas—and gave every one on the field a terrible hour. Then he made a fast forced landing. His plane pin-wheeled all over the place. The cadet had a broken nose and a lot of bruises.

Mines Field, Calif.—at the National Air Meet, last year. Lieutenant Hasselman, Navy pilot, was banking vertically around the home pylon, located some two hundred yards from the packed stands. He was doing about a hundred and fifty miles an hour, in a V. B. 2B Squadron, Boeing Pursuit ship. His plane’s nose got down when he had a wing to the sky, and a wing to the earth, about a hundred feet below. She slipped off, but he got her fairly righted before she struck dirt. It was a nasty crash. She pin-wheeled several times. The friend with me was very certain, with his view from the dead-line, that the pilot was finished. But I remembered past air crashes and ground crack-ups. I wasn’t so sure. Five days after the crash the pilot was transferred to a big Fokker hospital plane and winged back to his base at San Francisco.

Fatal air accidents, however, are becoming rarer all the time. The parachute saves hundreds of lives every year. They have even perfected parachutes which can lower a disabled airplane safely to the ground. Huge chutes they are, and mighty effective1. Passengers aboard tomorrow’s transport planes need have no worry in the very unlikely event that their machines crash in the air, as depicted on the cover of Modern Mechanics this month. All they’ll have to do will be to pull a lever and, zip! The chutes grab hold and the planes drift easily to earth.

New Auto Lock Shuts Off Gasoline and Ignition

AUTOMOBILE thieves are thwarted by a new steering wheel lock which has been invented in England. This lock fits the steering column in the conventional manner, as shown in the photo. When locked it not only makes steering impossible, but also cuts off the ignition and stops the gasoline flow.

Most automobile thieves depend upon speed to accomplish their getaway. With three essential running features of a car shut off it would almost be impossible to drive it away. The time that it would take to pick all three of these safety devices would be more than most car lifters would dare risk.

New ‘Home on Highway’ Has Kitchen, Dinette, Sleeper

MOTOR nomads will find the ideal home of the highway in a new motor caravan which has recently been designed and built by a French engineer for vacation tours. Although somewhat unique in appearance, this odd vehicle, shown in the photo at the left, has a kitchen, dining room and sleeping accommodation for four people. And with all this equipment, which includes also a canoe carried on the roof, the weight of the mobile home is no greater than that of the ordinary automobile seen every day about the streets.

NEW ACCESSORIES FOR ‘59

SWIVEL SEATS will be available on all Chrysler lines, except wagons. Weight-operated seat swings out when you push button, swivel your body. Outside of car, push button, swing it in or out with hand.

MIRROR-MATIC rearview mirror lor Chrysler-made cars has small hole in it (left). When high-beam lights of car behind you strike hole, electronic device on mirror’s back (right) turns it to non-glare position and later returns it to former position automatically.

Taxi of the Future as sketched by industrial designers Martial and Scull, will maneuver more easily in city traffic and be cheaper to use. This one holds 4 or 5 people and has sliding doors, and outside indicator to show when it is not being used. Another marked improvement is a shorter wheelbase, giving it a narrower turning radius.

Zero to 60 in 7 Seconds!

WHEN Donner Denkler of Southampton, N. Y., purchased a Nash-Healey a while back he was impressed with the lines of the car and with its fine handling characteristics. But something was missing; in the acceleration and top speed departments his “bomb” just wasn’t fast enough in its class for racing. He decided to add a shot of jump juice but the question that remained was how to go about it. After due consideration he concluded that instead of souping up the old power plant he would add an entirely new one—a Cadillac V-8.

So Denkler took his car and a brand-new Caddy mill to Jim McGee, an old hand in the racing-and-sports-car field, then stepped out of the picture while Jim went to work. The original engine was taken from the car and after a little switching of manifolds, generator, clutch and battery the big Caddy engine fit into the Healey’s engine compartment like a charm. When acceleration tests were first run on the completed Cad-Healey it conked out; turning the carburetor around to eliminate gas splashing fixed this and Denkler ended up with a real tiger that could accelerate to 60 mph in 7 seconds and hit 140 mph. •

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Interview with a Rolls-Royce

Mechanics love the motor, ladies adore the elegance. Every year 250 Americans pay $10,310 and up to own a Rolls. And one potentate has sixty in his garage!

BY JOHN KOBLER

The vast majority of humankind plod through life without once setting foot inside a Rolls-Royce automobile. This is not astonishing, if only because barely 30,000 Rolls-Royces have been assembled during the half century since three Londoners founded Rolls-Royce Limited. So it may be imagined with what delusions of grandeur this Plymouth-bound reporter in one day rode in two Rollses and drove a third, thus enjoying a fleeting intimacy with approximately .0001 of all the Rollses ever built.

I experienced this heady sensation as a result of a long-smoldering curiosity about a minor phase of the company’s activities—its School of Instruction in London. There, so I had always understood, any gentleman who owns a Rolls and/or his gentleman’s gentleman can obtain thorough training not only in the care and handling of the car but also in Rolls-Roycean etiquette. When I requested permission to visit the school, the management offered to send a car for me at my convenience. And so, a few days later, I emerged from my modest digs in an unfashionable section of London to behold a huge, black, gleaming, postwar Rolls—this model is called the Silver Wraith—standing majestically at the curb, a uniformed chauffeur holding open the door.

The Chauffeur’s Eyebrow Raises

The chauffeur, Stone by name, was clearly an old-school graduate, summa cum laude. He raised an eyebrow when I insisted on sitting up front with him. The school is at a considerable distance from the center of London, where I was staying. It is located in Scrubbs Lane, a remarkably inappropriate address for one of the world’s toniest concerns, and I had almost an hour in which to gape at the car’s numerous wonders. Gradually, Stone unbent far enough to explain some of them.

“Take a look at this, if you please, sir,” he said, pushing a button beneath a dial on the dashboard. An indicator swept halfway around the dial. “Gives the oil level. Saves soiling one’s hands.” He was wearing immaculate black leather gloves. “Now, here, sir,” he went on, “one has a warning light. If one’s petrol supply falls below two gallons, it flashes green.”

“Why the extra emergency brake?” I put in, pointing to a shaft next to the steering wheel.

“Ah, that’s no brake, sir. That’s a grease pedal. When one pushes that, one automatically lubricates the entire car.”

One need not exert oneself very much when changing a tire, either, I learned: The car can be raised on power-operated, built-in hydraulic jacks. The cylinders are chrome-plated and seldom require decarbonizing. To recharge the battery, it is unnecessary to remove it. It can be plugged into the car’s electric circuit through an outlet on the dashboard.

The Silver Wraith was slipping through the London traffic as noiselessly as a fish in water. “Not much vibration,” I commented.

As though he had been awaiting a cue. Stone instantly halted the car, got out. and opened the door on my side. “If you please, sir,” he said, “a little demonstration.” I followed him to the front of the car. “Have you a coin I may borrow, sir?” he asked me with the air of a conjurer. I handed him a dime. He stood it on edge behind the radiator cap. It didn’t budge.

“You’ve cut the motor,” I said accusingly.

“Not a bit of it, sir. She’s purring away quite as usual. Fact of the matter is, sir, when our testers at the factory make their final check for any untoward sounds in the engine, they have to use a stethoscope.”

I was still digesting this information when we arrived at the Scrubbs Lane branch. It consisted of a whole complex of hangarlike structures, which surprised me until Stone explained that besides the school they embraced the Rolls-Royce service headquarters for the entire world.

A guard led me to the office of the head of the school, one William Elwin Mad-docks, or W.E.M. (All Rolls personnel, from Lord Hives, chairman of the board, down to the humblest apprentice mechanic, are known to each other by their initials.) W.E.M. is tall, broad, gray-haired, and heavily spectacled, a figure of boundless dignity. With the exception of four years in the RAF during the war, he has been a Rolls employee since 1916, when he started as an “improver” (grease monkey).

“So you’re interested in our school,” he said. He has a big. deep voice and teeth like piano keys.

I said I was, and he proceeded to guide me through it. “The course lasts twelve days,” he said, “and is open only to owners of Rolls-Royces and their drivers. We charge a nominal tuition fee of ten guineas [$29.40]. Since the war, we’ve graduated about a thousand drivers and a hundred and fifty owners.”

He showed me into a room full of disemboweled engines. Some twenty students and an instructor were clustered around a blackboard. I tried to distinguish the gentlemen from the gentlemen’s gentlemen, but failed miserably.

“Correct method and adjustment of tappets,” W.E.M. whispered.

If the student is a driver, a report goes to his employer. No weaknesses are glossed over. “Meadows,” reads a typical report, “is young, and, taking his age into account, he is likely to develop into a useful servant. His roadwork is very fair, but he lacks experience in London traffic.”

“We retain a copy of every report in our permanent files,”-W.E.M. added. “If there’s trouble with one of our cars, we like to know whether the driver has been to school here and what sort of showing he made.”

No student, however adept, receives a diploma when he graduates. Such recognition comes only after he has driven a Rolls at least three years and 30,000 miles. A serviceman calls on every owner once a year during the life of the three- year unconditional guarantee, and if he uncovers no blots on the graduate’s record during this time, W.E.M. awards the driver a “certificate of merit.” So highly prized are these certificates that when I asked W.E.M. to let me have a blank one as a souvenir, he drew a line through it and wrote “canceled.” “In case it should be mislaid and fall into unworthy hands,” he explained.

It was lunchtime, and W.E.M. led me into a cozy little dining room. We were joined presently by a brisk, stocky man whom W.E.M. addressed as S.B. He is Stanley Bull, the chief service engineer, and he. too, has grown up in the company.

A Mecca for Ailing Rollses Although Rolls-Royce repair service is available in almost two hundred cities scattered throughout the world, many owners will permit none but headquarters to lay a wrench on their car. Thus, many an ailing Rolls arrives in Scrubbs Lane after a voyage of thousands of miles, costing thousands of dollars. (In the garage, I later counted thirty-four license plates in as many different foreign languages. I S.B. sees that they are restored to their owners cured.

S.B. has also been known to respond to cries of distress from customers far from home, where no local service was available. Not long ago, a Rolls owner broke a spring on a mountainous road in Spain. The company flew down two mechanics, who promptly repaired the damage. When, months later, no bill was forthcoming, the grateful owner wrote asking for one. “We do not understand your letter.” came the reply. “Our springs never break.”

Old Rollses, according to S.B., never die. Specimens as old as the company with half a million miles on their speedometers, are still functioning. In fact. S.B. has yet to receive a Rolls that his department cannot resuscitate. It maintains 30,000 bins of spare parts.

W.E.M. and S.B. fell to reminiscing about some of the more unusual orders the company has been called upon to fill. “Nearly every Rolls is unique.” W.E.M. declared. “After all, when a chap spends that much on a car [the lowest basic price is $10,310. the highest $16,000], he wants those additional touches that set it apart from the other chap’s.”

The least inhibited in devising such touches are India’s princes. The Gaekwar of Baroda, for example, has a Rolls upholstered in hand-embroidered brocade. The exterior is painted a specially created shade of scarlet to match the Gaekwaree’s nail polish. After the war, the Maharaja of Patiala bought thirty-five Rollses with fur upholstery and gold-plated dashboards. The Maharaja of Mysore owns all eleven of the most expensive Rollses ever built. Each cost S28,000 and has gold door handles and a built-in cocktail bar. The maharaja owns thirty other Rollses.

But both the Maharaja of Patiala and Mysore are underprivileged compared with the Nizam of Hyderabad, who is frequently described as the richest man in the world. His garages shelter sixty Rollses. His favorite one has a silver chassis, a domed roof, lace curtains, and a gem-encrusted throne instead of a rear seat.

A Chamber Pot in Her Rolls

Eastern potentates, of course, have no monopoly on eccentricity. An English lady fitted her Rolls with a washstand and chamber pot. An English business magnate ordered a built-in safe for his loose cash. An English art collector had the interior decorated to duplicate in miniature his study, with hand-painted cherubs and half a Chippendale table attached to the back of the driver’s seat.

Americans, who now buy more Rollses than any other people (an average of 250 a year), show, surprisingly enough, a conservative taste in decor. No very startling fripperies decorate the Rollses of such American nabobs as Myron C. Taylor. Byron Foy. Tommy Manville; of such Hollywoodians as Jack Warner, Norma Shearer. Clark Gable, Irene Dunne. A possible exception is Mrs. Jessie Woolworth Donahue. Her Rolls contains a vanity case and electric clock together costing $5,000.

Occasionally, the company rises in all its majesty and rebuffs a would-be purchaser. It refused recently to honor an order by a Middle European dignitary because the numerous gingerbread accretions he requested would have unbalanced the body of the car. “We draw the line,” S.B. said, “at specifications incompatible with our engineering.”

Rolls-Royce Limited is not snobbish. It views with equal unconcern each customer’s social standing. Al Capone was a valued customer.

Delivery of a Rolls in England at present takes two years; in the U.S.. whose dollars England so desperately needs, it’s six months. (The handwork on the body alone takes two months.) But delivery of one Rolls model is limited to a rare few. This is the Phantom 4. Because of its lofty dimensions, which raise the occupants above the common herd while permitting them to be clearly seen by all, the Phantom 4 is reserved for heads of state. Only one American President ever used a Rolls in office. He was Woodrow Wilson, and then Rolls was a gift from friends. “I expect,” W.E.M. reasoned, “most Americans would take poorly to the idea of their President favoring a foreign car.”

Queen Elizabeth’s Phantom 4, although by no means the most expensive in existence, is the most advanced technically. It is nineteen feet long and six feet high, and can develop 190 horsepower. “Quite a feather in our cap, really,” W.E.M. said. “The royal family, to be sure, has always preferred the Rolls for private use, but this is the first time it has been chosen as the official state car.”

Because of its longevity, the average Rolls passes through many hands, and the company tries to keep a record of its vicissitudes. If a Rolls has been in a serious accident, such details as may be gleaned from the owner, insurance company, or police go into the dossier. “Should you ever contemplate buying a used Rolls,” S.B. advised me, “you would do well to check with us. There are unscrupulous dealers who will patch up a damaged car that ought to be off the road altogether.”

Most Rollses wind up as hearses or mourners’ cars. “It is their natural destination,” S.B. said. “A cortege of them, silent, dignified, aloof, presents an immensely impressive spectacle. No doubt about it the Rolls has popularized funerals. Every successful undertaker has a fleet of them. The British Cooperative Funeral Service alone has three thousand with which to bury its members, and at least two thousand others are owned by undertakers in this country.”

“Give the poor bloke a splendid last ride is the idea,” said W.E.M.

After luncheon, W.E.M. offered to take me through a condensed version of the lesson in etiquette, and I thus entered my second Rolls since morning, a Silver Dawn.

As I approached the front seat, he observed casually, “If you were a chauffeur, that would be improper.”

“What would be?” I asked, appalled.

“Walking in front of the car. A chauffeur who knows his place always walks around the back. . . . Here, suppose you take the wheel for a bit.” He added helpfully, “I can always tell whether a driver has been properly trained or not. If not, riding with him is painful to me.”

I had scarcely touched the wheel when to my utter bewilderment W.E.M. murmured, “Bad stance.” He tapped my hands, which rested on the wheel more or less parallel to each other. “They should grip the wheel in this manner,”

he said, placing them on a diagonal line, left hand a little below the right. “What we call at twenty to four.”

Although I have been driving cars for some twenty-five years, I felt, under W.E.M.’s glacial scrutiny, as if this were my initial experience. “Now, let’s drive out the main gate,” he directed.

I shifted into first, and the gears emitted a faint sigh. W.E.M. winced. “The only noise permissible in a Rolls-Royce,” he said, “is that made by the passengers’ conversation. Our’ students spend three days just learning how to shift gears.”

I offered him a cigarette and started to light one myself. “We do not approve of smoking at the wheel,” he said. “Now. turn that corner, please.”

Dropping my cigarette, I placed one hand on top of the wheel, the other near the bottom, and swung it to the left. I knew it was wrong the moment I did it. “No, no,” said W.E.M. “Don’t alter your stance. Thread the wheel through.”

A man stepped into the road half a block ahead, and I gave him a blast of the horn. “Softly, softly,” my mentor chided me. “A Rolls-Royce horn should give a gentle warning, never an imperious command. Stop here a moment, will you?”

Before coming to a dead halt, the car lurched slightly. W.E.M. had been expecting it. “A skillful driver so handles his car,” he lectured me, “that a passenger dozing in back should be totally unaware of any change in speed or direction. Do you follow me? The correct method of stopping so that no lurching will occur is to let the foot brake off slowly at the very instant of rest. Try-it again.”

We lurched.

“Assume we’re getting out here,” he continued, passing over my dereliction in pained silence. “Pull your emergency brake.”

I pulled. It made a ratchety sound. W.E.M. lifted a long finger to his lips. “Quietly, man. That’s the kind of distressing noise we want to avoid.”

I managed to drive the two blocks back without distressing him further.

It’s the Driver Who Gets Aligned “To sum up,” he said, as we descended. “We try to line the driver up with the rest of the car.”

I felt like a worm.

Stone was waiting for me at the main entrance in another Rolls, and after thanking W.E.M. and S.B. for their hospitality, I boarded it. I sat in back this time. My sense of inferiority evaporated.

“Where to,, sir?” Stone asked.

“Home, Stone,” I said.

NEW TRUNK RACK FOR SEDAN

AMONG the models seen in the great automobile show at Olympia, England, was a Jowett fabric sedan. This car, as seen in the photo below, is completely covered with Jowett fabric.

Instead of equipping the car with a trunk rack and trunk, the luggage space was built within the body. The panel, in the back of the body, lifts out and upward on hinges. The opening thus exposed is large enough to hold a man and not unnecessarily crowd him.

The English motor car indicates the trend of European design.

Crossing The Atlantic in this overgrown barrel is the intention of Peter Olsen and Mark Charlton. Their $2,500 tub is 10 feet long; 6 feet, 9 inches high at the bilge; weighs more than two tons; and has a four-foot, 700-pound keel and a four-foot rudder. A 22-foot mast fits into the foremost hole of the barrel.