Motor-car principles; the gasoline automobile

MOTOR-CAR PRINCIPLES
THE GASOLINE AUTOMOBILE
ROGER B. WHITMAN
ILLUSTRATED
NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK, LONDON  MCMX
Copyright, 1907, 1909, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
The development of the gasoline automobile at home and abroad has produced a great variety of designs, good, bad, and indifferent, but the advancement of the industry has weeded out the unsatisfactory and improved the good until with few exceptions the leading makes show a striking similarity in all but details. The advantages of certain forms of construction have been recognized, and their adoption by the large majority of makers has produced what may be called a standard type.
The object of this book is to explain the principles that underlie automobile construction and operation, and to illustrate the movements and mechanical combinations adopted in present-day practice. It is not the intention to explain the exact details of construction of the different cars, and the illustrations have been prepared with the sole object of making the principles clear, for with an understanding of these there should be no difficulty in comprehending any particular application of them.
The lubrication table on pages 244 and 245, which was prepared by Mr. T. D. Hanauer, is reproduced through the courtesy of the Scientific American .
The advantages of magneto ignition for internal combustion engines are so obvious that designers and inventors have directed their attention to the perfection of apparatus that will improve present methods. The number of systems proposed for the purpose is very large in comparison with the number in actual and practical use, and as in a work of this size it would be impossible to describe the many methods for the application of the magneto that are on the market, attention has been given only to those that are in actual, everyday use. The absence of a practical treatise on the principles, application, and care of low and high tension magnetos is the reason for the addition of the appendix to this work.