ORIGIN OF THE GEAR CASE.
With the Englishman’s idea of utility, the first thought was to completely cover sprockets and chain with a large sheet metal case, upon the same plan as gear cases had been previously used in mills and factories for enclosing running chains. Various devices for gear cases were in use when, in 1886, J. H. Carter patented in England an oil-containing gear case for bicycles. This was a standard in gear case construction for some years, riders thinking it necessary to keep their chains running through a bath of oil in order to insure easy movement of the joints; however, it was discovered a few years later that a chain would run equally well without the oil bath, and, in fact, there were many disadvantages about keeping a chain constantly soaked in oil, especially because the oil would gum and thus retard rather than assist. In the early nineties gear cases were brought out, of many constructions, but the standard set up by Carter remains to this day the English idea of a case, and, with all of their improvements in case construction, they have not gotten very far beyond it.
To the English mind a gear case must be made entirely distinct from the bicycle itself, not a part of it, but an accessory that shall be quickly removable or attachable after it is once fitted. This, of course, necessitates a great many joints, and as joints of thin material, whether sheet metal or celluloid, cannot be perfectly made to exclude dust and driving rains, and as such joints are always more or less noisy when a bicycle is in use, they are not even yet satisfied with the gear case, but realize its great usefulness, even when only partially efficient, so that it has become a fixture on nearly every English wheel. Several attempts were made to introduce English cases into this country, but with lamentable failure, for several causes. In the first place American bicycles are not built to take English cases.