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THE STRAND MAGAZINE.

not so insane as many put forward in the early days, and it may be seen that, with his long levers, he at least provides a great deal more effective power than other inventors of manumotors thought necessary.


Dalzell's machine.

Some years after this (exactly how many is uncertain) Gavin Dalzell made his bicycle at Lesmahagow, in Scotland. This machine has long been considered the first two-wheeled one-track vehicle in which the rider was placed clear of the ground and provided with a satisfactory driving and steering apparatus; in fact, the first practicable 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 precisely the same principle, was made by Peter McMillan, also a Scotsman and a blacksmith, a little before Dalzell made his. Still, there seems no reason to suppose other than that these were separate inventions of the same thing, and that the whole business was a curious coincidence. Dalzell's original machine is yet in existence, much timeworn and worm-eaten, but in working order still. The machine is chiefly of wood, with iron fittings and tyres. The rear wheel is 40 inches in diameter and the steerer 30 inches. It 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 fashionable mode of to-day. The rear wheel is driven by cranks and levers from singlebarred pedals. The frame, heavy and clumsy as it is, is not unlike that of a lady's safety. The rabbit-hutch arrangement over the back wheel is a dress guard. This again, of another sort, is used on the lady's bicycle of to-day.


The first crank-driven tricycle.

One of the first of the crank-driven tricycles was shown in the Stanley collection, and is here represented. It was of wood, with a Bath-chair steering apparatus, and the cranks were driven by levers hung from the fore part of the frame, by the steering-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 side to start the machine, and to supply extra power when necessary. The maker of this tricyle is not known, but it dates from about 1840.


Landis' machine.

In 1861 an American, Mr. Landis, patented what seems to have been intended rather as a toy than as a vehicle. It consisted of a rocking-horse mounted upon a carriage set on wheels, the hinder end of the rocker being cranked to the back wheels in such a way that the rocking motion might turn the wheels. It is, however, described as a "velocipede"—the name at that time applied generally to any human-driven vehicle.

Now we arrive at the era of the Bone-