22 THI

not o nsane as many put forward m the carly days, and 1t may be scen that, with his long levers, he at least provides a great deal more effective power than other inventors of manumotors thought necessary. Some years after this (exactly how many is uncertain) Gavin Dalzcll made his bicycle at Tesma- hagow, 1 Scotland. This machine has long been considered the first two-wheeled one-track vehicle m which the rider was placed clear of the ground and provided with a satisfactory driving and stcering apparatus ; 1n fact, the frst prac- ticable bicycle, as we now know it, and, stranger still, the almost exact prototype of the latest pattern of rear-driving safety. But of late it has been found that another machine, on preciscly the same principle, was madce by Peter McMillan, also a Scotsman and a blacksmith, a little before Dalzell made his. Still, there scems no reason to supposc other

T ALZELL'S MACHINE.

than that these were separate inventions of the same thing, and that the whole business was 2 curious coincidence. Dalzell's original machine is vet in existence, much time-

worn and worm-caten, but in working order still. The machine is chiefly of wood, with iron fAttings and tyres. The rear

wheel is 4o inches in diameter and the steerer 3o inches, Tt will be seen that the front fork slopes back just as does the front fork of a modern machine, and that the handles are curved back quite in the fashion- able mode of to-dav. The rear wheel s driven by cranks and levers from aingle- barred pedals. The frame, heavy and clumsy as it is, is not unlike that of a lady's safcty. The rabbit-hutch arrangement over the back wheel is a dress guard. This again, of another sort, is used on the lady's bicycele of to-dav.

Oune of the frst of the crank-drven tricvcles was shown in the Staniey collee-

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STRAND M AGAZINTE.

tion, and 1s here represented. It was of wood, with a Bath-chair steering apparatus, and the cranks were driven by levers hung from the forc part of the frame, by the

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THE FIRST CRANK-DRIVEN

TRICYCLL.

‘tecring-wheel. The pedals were of the shape of a boot-sole, like unto those of a sewing machine, and a hand lever was provided at the =ide to start the machine, and to supply cxtra power when necessary. The maker of this tricyle is not known, but it dates from about 1540.

In 1861 an American, Mr. Landis, patented what seems to have been in- tended rather as a toy than as a vehicle. It consisted of a rocking-horse mounted upon a carriage sct on wheels, the hinder end of the rocker being cranked to the back whecls in such a way that the rocking motion might turn the wheels. It ic, however, described as a * velocipede

MACHINE,

LANDIS

the name at that time applied generally to any human-driven vehicle. Now we arrive at the era of the Done-

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