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Correspondence.

Suggested Improvements for the March Show.

The Editor, "Tag COMMERCIAL MOTOR."

Sir :—" Lest we forget," before the next Show, the

annoyance which all have suffered from the dust this year at Olympia, would it not he a wise plan for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders to make some decision, at once, for the betterment of this disagreeable condition? If the aisles were covered with cocoanut matting and lightly sprinkled with water, as in the Paris Show, there would be very little flying dust. Not only is the dust bad for exhibits, and unpleasant to visitors—especially ladies—but it creates a most unwholesome atmosphere for those engaged constantly at the Show for fo days. The condition of nervous exhaustion, known to all concerned in the Show, due to the confinement and long hours, is greatly augmented by the bad ventilation and dust-laden air.

The object of the Show is to exhibit and sell cars, but motorcars are not bought in a moment like cigars, and no one will remain long in a fetid atmosphere who does not have to, and a lack of attention to the seemingly small details of ventilation and cleanliness will, in many cases, drive buyers away, and defeat the purpose for which the Show is established. No effort should be spared to make next year's Show as comfortable as this one has been brilliant and successful.—Yours faithfully,

A. H. ADAMS,

Managing Director, Adams Manufacturing 'Co., Ltd. 147, Queen Victoria Street, E.C., November 26th; 1906.

Leeds Corporation Motorbuses.

The Editor, " THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."

Sir :—When we replied to Mr. Dransfielci's letter in your issue of the ist instant, we did so to correct certain misleading statements which might have done us considerable harm. Our principal aim was to remove the impression, no doubt accidentally caused, that the sum of L:377, referred to, was expended on the buses, instead of on the whole motorcar department. For this purpose, we quoted figures from our books which showed the amount, paid by the corporation to us, as £29 2S., which we think is a reasonable figure enough. We now notice a somewhat heated letter from Mr. Dougill, giving our figures and also those of the Leeds Corporation, and stating that our figures are incorrect. T. We are sorry Mr. Dougill has taken so much trouble about a small matter, as the explanation of the difference is very simple. The amount on June 22nd is correctly stated as £8 19s. 8d. (cheque 468), but, of this, 44 was for a water.circulating putnp supplied for the corporation's "Asèt" wagon, and not for our buses. We, therefore, deducted this amount in showing the expenditure on our machines. The other difference, viz., the sum of E.,9 ss. 3d., was only received on October 23rd, and at the time of our last letter had not been passed through our books. Including this amount, however, we do not think the total, viz., j;38 ss. 7d., is an excessive sum to be spent on two 4oh.p. motorbuses during about nine months' use.

Weare somewhat surprised at the reiteration by Mr. Dougill of his other statements, as we have already stated that, they were incorrect and without foundation.—Yours

faithfully, THE RVIOHELD MOTOR CO., Lm., W: H. Ct.Av, Managing Direclor. Burton-on-Trent, November 22nd,

The Suspension of Drivers' Licenses.

The Editor, "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."

Sir :—An organised effort i.s about to be made by the motorbus drivers of London to bring before the public, and the CommissiUner of Poiret!, the unfairness of the system which prevails at Scotland Yard, of revokiag, or suspending for indefinite periods, a driver's license, when some convictionor other is recorded against hirn. The men have already paid the 'penalty Of their offences once, either by fine, or imprisonment in &fat& (their offence having been, perhaps, some trivial infringement of the traffic regulations),• and must stiffer a Second time for the same offence by having their means of earning a livelihood taken away from them. Hanging a man'ti.Vice for the same crime is contrary to all the known principles of English justice, of which we make such a proud boast, and, with the winter in front of us, surely London's list of unemployed is large enough without adding to it by depriving these men of the right to work I Will all drivers who have had their licenses suspended, or revoked, kindly communicate with the undersigned, giving the fullest particulars, or, for the convenience of those who would like to call, 1 will be at home any evening between the hours of 4 and 6 o'clock.—You's faithfully, J. L. SNOWDON.

26, Buckley Road, Brondeshury, November 24th, 1906.

The Design of the Motorbus.

The Editor, "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."

Sir :—In view of the interest which you are taking in the motorbus problem, may I encroach upon your valuable space to state a few facts?

The motorbus, as it stands to-day, is utterly wrong in design; it is the outcome of the old horse bus, combined with what is, virtually, a large touring-car chassis, and it is unwieldy, noisy, and prone to the dangers of side-slip. Of these disadvantages, let us take noise first, the causes of which may he divided roughly into three heads, namely, loose boards, the engine and the gearbox and differential. Now, the petrol engine, when it is properly designed and looked after, can be made to run quite silently; loose hoards can be remedied by the application of rubber washers and a screw-driver. We have left, then, the gear-box and dif

ferential, and here is the crux. The present system of sliding pinions and bevelled wheels must always be the cause of a great deal of noise; we must, therefore, devise some plan by which we can eliminate gears. Coming to the question of side-slip, the old motto, " Prevention is better than cure," holds good. The inventors' efforts, up to the present, have been directed to " non-skid " devices— this is a " cure." If we replace the back-wheel drive by a front-wheel drive, we have " prevention." Our aim should be, therefore, to evolve a design which will give us a variable velocity ratio between the engine and the road wheels without the use of gears and we must also apply the power to the front wheels. The two methods which suggest themselves are : some system of electrical units, or some hydraulic method of transmission. The electrical system is too heavy : let us consider whether it is possible to do it hydraulically. If we replace the fly-wheel and the clutch by a centrifugal pump, we can obtain water power; if we govern our engine to run at a constant speed, we can make our pump deliver water at a certain constant pressure; we can also control the power, i.e., the water delivered per second, by means of a throttle on the delivery pipe of the pump. We can convey this power, without interfering with the steering, to the front wheels, by means of flexible tubing; in the front wheels themselves, we can mount some form of water turbine, preferably of the Pelton wheel type, as this gives its maximum torque when the buckets are at rest, and, thus, provides us with a perfect velocity ratio. By means of another flexible tube we conduct the water to a central reservoir and then back to the pump, thus closing our water circuit.

This system has been actually worked out, tested to a certain extent, and working drawings of the mechanical details prepared by the firm of which I am a member, and I shall be delighted to supply any further details to anyone interested in motorbus work.—Yours faithfully, R. TEEsont.E DEANE. 28, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W.,

November 24th, iyo6.

Superheated Steam.

The Editor, " THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."

Sir : -I see that two interesting letters have appeared relating to my articles on the subject of " Superheated Steam."

My reply to Mr. F. Dacre, whose fetter appeared in the issue for October igth, is as follows :—Mr. Dacre's idea of putting a superheatingcoil in the smoke-box of a locomotive-type boiler is quite useless, for reasons that I pointed out in article No. 2. The coil must be in the fire-box, if superheating and not condensing is required. The life of a coil is really longer than would he expected. but it must be proportioned as T described, or not only would steam get far too hot, but the life of the coil would be shortened if too much was fitted. Mr. Dacre goes on to remark that "there are some people who believe that the higher they get the temperature the more saving there is." Those people are quite right. Superheat is not a question of the dryness 01 the steam alone, as Mr. Daere seems to think. Dry steam can be obtained with so little superheat, that none of the real advantages of superheat would be obtained. The greater the added heat, the greater the economy and the better the results, up to lubrication limit, of course. In a specially-designed engine, I have carried the temperature up to r,600' F. with surprising results as far as economy was concerned. I do not, as yet, however, advocate such high temperatures for commercial vehicles, but they will not be thought extraordinary in a short time. The temperature in an internal-combustion engine cylinder, at the instant of explosion, is about 2,000u F. or higher. This is only rendered possible by the water jacket, which causes a dead loss of heat. This water jacket on a steam engine would not be a loss but a gain, as the feed water could be passed through it. I do not advise this system; the engine for which I used steam of the above temperature being of quite ordinary design, with a slight modification to the pistons. The rest of Mr. Dacre's letter merely illustrates the truth about the dangers attached to the ignorant use of superheated steam, to which I referred several times.

In reply to " H.I.," whose letter appeared in the issue of November isth, I may say that I am pleased to be able to give him the details he asks for. (a) The price of tubes would depend on the way in which they are coiled, etc. A suitable size coil, fitted with union at each end, would cost about 36$. About 10 to /2 coils would be required in a generator, so the total cost would not be much. The coupling bends, fitted with a union nut at each end, cost about fis. ficl. each, (h) Crucible cast-iron is what I use for cylinders, but any goad close-grained cast-iron does equally well. For the valves, use nickel -steel. The valves last for years, and only need grinding in about once a year.(c) No. Steam ehests used to be fitted, both by Serpollet and myself, but as no deposit was found in the chests, they were abandoned. Whatever becomes of the deposit, no trace of it is ever found in the engine. (d) As a moderate pressure would, no doubt, be advisable on this work, a four-cylinder single-acting engine, 3/ inches bore by 1/ inches in stroke, would be required. The range of cut-off should be from one-eighth to threequarters of the stroke. This engine would be far more economical than any compound engine. (e) About si to 6 cwt. (1) Not the slightest. The tube simply splits, and; there being no water in the boiler, a short, shall) hiss is all that is heard. Nothing happens beyond the stopping of the engine, and this not always, as, if only a slight burst has ixcuffed, the car can get home slowly, if the hissing noise is not too bad. (g) Allowing for cooling of the generator, about two or three hours only.

Kindly note the following errata in Article 4, page 203, first column, line 13 :—Instead of" superheating of steam is not by any means a new departure," read "the use of live steam feed heaters is not, etc." The word "increase," which follows, should, then, obviously, be " reduce." Page 205, second column, top two lines should read " that is to say, it has glands, and its bearings are not under constant thrust,"-.Yours faithfully, DAVID J. SMITH. Compton Street, Goswell Road, E.C.

November 27th, 1906.

Attacks upon Motorbuses.

The Editor, "Tim Comm/tent MOTOR " Sir :—In a recent issue of the " Times," Dr. Henry Morris, of Cavendish Square, renews his attack on the motor omnibus. It is a little difficult to decide whether Dr. Morris is an out-and-out enemy of the motor omnibus in general, or whether his hostility is directed only against those particular specimens of it which may be termed noisy motor omnibuses. If he confines his prejudices to the latter class, he will find, I think, a good many supporters, not the least enthusiastic of whom will be commercial motorists themselves. The objections to the noisy omnibus and the grave risk of its prejudicing the public .against the .entire industry, have been insisted on by "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR" from the very inception of the movement. It was fully a year ago, I think [Issues of February 1st and 8th.— En.], that a very strongly-worded leader appeared in this journal urging manufacturers to pay instant and un

remitting attention to the problem of noise and rattle; and the result of this policy is very clearly apparent in the considerable proportion of quiet and easy-running omnibuses which have been put on the streets since then. If, therefore, Dr. Morris's objection to the motor-omnibus is restricted to that section of the industry which still admittedly leaves room for improvement in the matter of noise, I can promise him that if he will but possess his soul in patience yet a little longer, suffering, no doubt, in the meantime untold agony, physical and mental, with a brave heart, supported by the knowledge that he is more or less a martyr to science and progress-1 can promise him, I say, that he will live to see and to bless the era of the universally quiet motor omnibus it has got to come, and it is corning; slowly, perhaps, but not any the more quickly by reason of such ill-judged criticisms as that of this indignant resident of Cavendish Square, who is doing all he can to delay that millennium which the motorists and the motoring Press themselves are striving to hurry on.

I am by no means satisfied, however, that Dr. Morris's indictment is restricted to that black sheep of the motoromnibus flock—the rumbling rattler. It appears to me that, under cover of an attack on what no reasonable individual or corporation seeks to defend, he is meditating sy,holesale warfare on the motor omnibus proper. Let us

see what he says in one of his most recent letters to the " Times," that which appeared in the issue of November 16th :—" These 400,000 people" (i.e., the estimated number of passengers carried by motor omnibuses) " until the other day were content to be conveyed without difficulty and at no greater cost by other and less noisy vehicles, and the single advantage which they gain from the motor omnibuses is the saving of time at the rate of 20 minutes or thereabout in a point-to-point journey of five miles." If this is not an indictment of the motor omnibus, qua motor omnibus, and a recommendation to revert to the horse omnibus, the English language has no meaning. To suggest to Dr. Morris that all society, all civilisation, all progress—in short, that all life (which is worth the living) consists in rousing people up from a dormant state of contentment with what sufficed for their grandfathers, ought to be superfluous. To refer him to the experience of the past, to the pages of history, to the struggle between the coach and the railway, the horse tram and the electric car, ought to be to insult him ; for we have arrived at altogether too late and too busy an hour of the world's day to linger over the oft-told tale that the keynotes of the age are rapid transit and mechanical power. I shall waste no time, therefore, in arguing the case for the motor omnibus as against the horse omnibus : it is being argued for me in the streets of London to-day : he that hath eyes to see let him see; to which, no doubt, Dr. Morris will add—he that hath ears to hear let him hear.

And this hrings me quite naturally to what must be, after all, the costa belli with Dr. Morris—noise.

Let me, at the outset, try to clear my ground of any possible misunderstanding. But noise I do not mean sound in general, neither, I take it, does Dr. Morris : the presence of ears on the human body is sufficient proof that sound in itself is part of the scheme of nature. Noise, then, must be taken to mean that kind or that degree of sound which exerts an ill effect on the physical or mental organisation of those who hear it, without conferring any benefit as compensation. Some noises, objectionable and prejudicial in themselves. vet justify their existence from a " common weal " point of view. The hammering of rivets in a boiler-making shop damages the aural apparatus of the workman, and cannot have a beneficial effect on the minds of adjacent residents, but the enormous gain to the world accruing from the mannEndure of boilers outweighs these considerations.

Nor, again, must a noise, although of no general benefit to the community, be condemned on the score of offendinephysical or mental organisations which are of an abnormally sensitive or delicate structure. Highly-nervous people suffer excruciating tortures from many of the ordinary noises of daily life, particularly in a busy city : we may extend our sympathy to them without feeling at all bound to suppress the cause of their misery.

Flaying premised this much, I may once more admit what no reasonable motorist has ever denied, that some London motor omnibuses do create noises which are defensible neither on the score of public benefit (for the same benefits are being conferred by quieter types of motor

I have reached a point, therefore, at which I so far side with Cavendish Square as to admit and to condemn the noisy motor omnibus. How do I propose to deal with it, or, rather, bow do 1 suggest that it should be dealt with? Let us see, first of all, how Dr. Morris proposes to deal with it. He says—" On the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, it would have been right and proper to have kept these omnibuses off the streets until their machinery had been so improved that they would travel without undue noise." This reminds one of the advice given by the timid mother to her son " to keep away from the water until he had learned to swim." We must not, therefore, expect too much from Dr. Morris's remedy, admirably as it reads; and I would venture to suggest to him that those numerous examples of the quiet motor omnibus which are now plying the streets of London are the result, not of academical experiments in the back yards of the manufacturers, but of experiments in Dili corpore—on the humble ears and nerves of myself, my fellow residents and workers in London, and (it is vastly to be regretted) the denizens of Cavendish Square.

For this, after all, is the only possible, the only true solution of the problem. Experience and practice in the school of everyday life arc the only roads to success. In an industry whose experience and practice extend over a short score of months, is it to be wondered at that there are still signs of imperfection? A visitor from Mars reading Dr. Morris's indictments might be excused for imagining that the motor omnibus was a hundred years old, and that the noise evil had steadily been growing worse until it had reached such intolerable proportions that London had arisen en masse to condemn it. Certainly the visitor from Mars would be amply justified in coming to any conclusion, however exaggerated, if the fallowing picture, given by Dr. Morris, of a motor pmnibus were the true one :—" But the noise of the motor omnibus, and such-like vehicles, is a noise sui generis, worse than that of any other locomotive or conveyance, except, perhaps, the thunderous rumbling with earthquakelike vibrations caused by a traction engine dragging three or four wagons containing heavy iron boilers, or loose iron ralti, through the streets at night. It is the combination, the variation, the 'break and contact 'of the noises, and the rush of the motor omnibus, heard, too, from such a long distance off, which are so peculiarly disturbing, so distracting,-and so harassing."

I hold no brief for the preventable noises of the motor omnibus, but I submit that in the present state of the industry some noise is unpreventable, and that it more than justifies its existence by the incalculable benefits which the vehicle confcrs on the public of to-day and which it holds out to the public of to-morrow. Just as the old rattling, cumbrous, slow, and unmanageable" bone-shaker " was the fore-runner of the silent, graceful, swift and easily-controlled bicycle of to-day, so was the motor-omnibus of a few years back, noisy and evil-smelling as most of us pronounce it, the prototype of a universal system of public transit which— with its speed, its ease and quietness of running, its capacity,

and its efficiency—bids fair to surpass the wildest dreams a the optimist. The only differerce, so far as I can see, be

tween the analogies of the motor omnibus and the cycle, or the motor omnibus and the railway train, is that the rate of progress will be, both relatively and absolutely, immeasurably swifter in the case of the omnibus.

But although progress in motor-omnibus design and construction will, in the natural course of things, be rapid, we must guard against any hurrying on of the desired 'end. Natural development is healthier than forced development ; and the individual who truly longs for the perfecting of the commercial motor vehicle, and the advance of progressive transit, will wait patiently—amid, it may be, some personal discomfort—in the assured hope that the motoring manufacturer and capitalist are just as eager as he is for the coming of the perfect vehicle. And if this individual who, I make bold to assert, represents the voice of London, is content to wait, why should Dr. Morris do otherwise? To reverse the terms of a catchword familiar some years ago—"Why should-London wait?" —I ask in conclusion, " Why should Cavendish Square not wait?"

SAXON BROW NE: