The Industry in Central Europe.
Page 9
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No Room in Japan for German Agrimotors. Berlin Now Has Fifty Motordriven Fire.-fighting Units. Adler Buses and a Stoewer Sprinkler.
From Our Own Correspondents in Berlin and Elsewhere.
The German Trade Returns.
Returns for the first quarter show that Germany imported 43 commercial motors, valued at 227,800, compared with 27 during a corresponding period of 1911, and valued
at 217,850. France and Switzerland account for most of this trade. Turning to exports, we find that a much bigger trade was done, 140 vehicles having been exported against 55 in 1911. The respective values are placed at £82,050 and £34,850. Germany increased her sales in Holland, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, and Gt. Britain. The Brazil shipments have increased five-fold.
A German Consul on the Japan Market.
The German Consul at Yokohama, in a report to his Government, thus sums up the situation in Japan The establishing of motorbus lines has hitherto made no remarkable progress, cars still playing the main role in Japan's automobile imports. Japan is no field for the agrimotor, since the land is mostly of a hilly character, and almost wholly cultivated in small plots by peasants and leaseholders, who practically live from hand to mouth, and employ primitive methods of cultivation."
Berlin's Fire-Brigade.
Our Berlin correspondent writes :—" I learn from the latest annual report of the Berlin Fire Brigade that the self-propelled rolling stock now consists of 50 vehicles. Eight complete sets, each made up of four vehicles, namely, gas-pump, tender, steam or motor-pump, and escape, are propelled by the electromotorcum-accumulator system. A practice ear, which has already covered 31,250 miles, is also driven by the same system. The remaining automobiles, designed for carrying officers or gear, are driven by
petrol engines. By degrees, the old-fashioned steam-pump is being superseded by the electric or petrol-driven rotatory pump.
" Berlin's electric rotatory pumps can deal with some 330 gallons in a minute. At a recent inundation of the underground electric railroad, one of the brigade's rotatory pumps worked without a breakdown, and with short interruptions only, for 72 hours, and thereby sucked out of the tunnel nearly 1,500,000 gallons of water. The brigade costs £150,500 annually." To Develop French Agrimotors.
A national COMMUI ec, uniting all the leading agricultural societies and such important bodies as the Automobile Club of France and the Syndicate of Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers, has been formed in France for the purpose of assisting the development of the use of motors in connection with agriculture. The president is M. Vigier, senator, and president of the National Horticultural Society, and among the vicepresidents is Prince Pierre d'Arenberg, of the Automobile Club of France. The object of the committee is to assist in every possible way the development of motor-driven machinery in connection with agriculture, and one of its immediate fields of activity will be in connection with the exhibition at Amiens in July, and a little later at the big exhibition at. %urges. In view of the influential nature of this committee its usefulness should be considerable.
An Adler Motorbus Line Worked • by Two Types of Vehicles.
The Automobilgesellschaft Bad Bertrich, whose head office is located in Frankfort-on-the-Main, has acquired Adler omnibuses for working a line between Bad Bertrich and Bullay, a charming stretch of road on the banks of the Mosel. Two types of vehicles have been adopted. Each omnibus possesses a carrying capacity of 2!, tons, and a special slow-running engine developing, if need be, 32 h.p. Transmission is by cardan shaft. The closed vehicle has a rear entrance,
is fitted -with capacious guillotine windows at the sides, has electriclighting, and carries mail-boxes under its seats, which are arranged lengthwise. The glass pane, closing off the amply-protected drive r s compartment, has a speaking-aperture. Particular attention has been paid to the ventilation of this type. The open 'bus shows five rows of cross-seats, with as many lateral doors on the near side and four on the off. Its roof, wood-panelled inside and leaded outside, rests on brass tubes fixed to the carosscrie, and is also attached firmly to the rear panel, into which a big window is built. in this type, the mailboxes lie under the back seats. The 'buses ran remarkably well on the inaugural journeys a little while ago, taking the steep gradients, with a full load, in fine style.
A Stoewer Road-Sprinkler.
Gebriider Stoewer have delivered, for operations in the city of Gorz, in Istria, Austro-Hungary, a vehicle designed to serve the double purpose of laying the dust and carrying loads, the tank being detachable and provided with slinging hooks to this end. Two men are required to work the vehicle as a road-sprinkler, the one to drive and the other to operate the watering apparatus. The latter occupies a sort of crow's nest behind, which he reaches by a four-rung ladder firmly attached to the rear plate of the huge tank. Stripped of its tank. the vehicle presents the familiar form of the Stoewer heavy lorry. We are enabled to reproduce a photograph of this machine. below.