THE EVOLUTION OF AN IDEA
It goes without saying that so elaborate a mechanism as Mr. Brennan's gyroscope was not perfected in a day. Neither was it hit upon by accident. It belongs in the category of inventions that were thought out to meet a mechanical need. Mr. Brennan is an Irishman by birth, but he was taken by his parents to Australia at the age of nine and remained there throughout the years of his early manhood. Observation of the condition of the roads in Australia, and of the enormous retardation of development due to inadequate transportation facilities led him to ponder over the possibilities of improvement in this direction, as he was jolted about the country in a coach with leather straps in lieu of springs. It became clear to him that a way must be found to build railroads more cheaply. Furthermore, it was brought to his attention through observation of the condition of the cattle that were shipped from North Australia across the continent, that a railway car that would enable the cattle to make the journey in comfort, and thus arrive in marketable condition, would have enormous value for this purpose alone.
For years, Mr. Brennan tells me, the problem haunted him, of how to make a monorail car balance itself. He studied the action of rope-walkers, and he attempted various crude methods of balancing a car, which all came to nothing. He thought about the possibility of using the gyroscope, and even purchased several elaborate gyrostats in order to study gyroscopic action. As a friend of Sir Henry Bessemer, he knew of that gentleman's experiments with the gyroscope in attempting to make a steady room in a ship, but these also availed him nothing. It was not until he purchased the toy top at Cannes, as already mentioned, that he got hold of a really viable idea; and then, of course, almost numberless experiments were necessary before an apparatus was devised that could meet all the requirements.
At last, however, a model car, more than fulfilling all his fondest hopes, was in actual operation. It remained to build a car of commercial size. To aid him in thus completing his experiments, Mr. Brennan received a grant of $30,000 from the India Society. He believed that a car one hundred feet long and sixteen feet wide would be balanced by gyroscopes three and a half feet in diameter, so effectively that it would stand erect and rigid though fifty passengers were clustered on one side of its spacious room.
The accuracy of this prediction was put to the test in November, 1909, when Mr. Brennan exhibited the first gyrocar of commercial size. The result was demonstrative and convincing. The large car, carrying forty or fifty passengers, operated exactly as its inventor had foretold, and the doubts of the most skeptical were set at rest. Photographs of the car in actual operation, with its load of passengers, were sent broadcast, and it became apparent that the introduction of the gyrocar in competition with railway, trolley, and motor cars of the old type would be only a matter of time.
When we come thus to consider the gyrocar as a vehicle in which all of us may soon have an opportunity to ride, there is one practical question that is sure to present itself to the mind of almost every reader. What will be the effect should the electrical power that drives the gyroscopes give out at a critical moment, as, for instance, when the car is just crossing a gorge or river on a cable? Mr. Brennan's ingenuity has anticipated this emergency. The gyroscopes that balance his cars operate in a vacuum, and all the bearings are so well devised as to give very little friction. The wheels will continue running for a considerable time after the power is shut off. The large gyroscopes of the commercial car, it is estimated, will perhaps require two hours to attain the highest rate of rotation, but they will then continue revolving at an effective speed for some hours, even if no further power is applied to them.
It may be said, too, that the gyrocar is provided with lateral legs that may be let down in case of emergency or when the car is not in use, to avoid waste of energy in needless running of the gyroscope. All in all, it would appear that the dangers of travel in a gyrocar should be fewer than those that attend an ordinary double-track car; and Mr. Brennan believes that it will be possible, with the aid of the new mechanism, to attain a speed of one hundred and fifty, perhaps even two hundred miles an hour with safety.
TWO VIEWS OF MR. LOUIS BRENNAN'S MONO-RAIL GYRO-CAR.
The gyroscopic mechanism for automatically balancing the car is contained in the cab-like anterior portion. The platform of the car maintains its equilibrium even when the forty passengers are crowded on one side, as shown in the upper picture.
VIII
THE GYROSCOPE AND OCEAN TRAVEL
IT must not be supposed that Mr. Louis Brennan's remarkable monorail car affords the first illustration of an attempt to make practical use of the principles of gyroscopic action. The fact is quite otherwise. The idea of giving steadiness to such instruments as telescopes and compasses on shipboard with the aid of gyroscopes originated half a century ago, and was put into fairly successful operation by Professor Piazzi Smyth (in 1856). More than a century earlier than that (in 1744), an effort was made to aid the navigator, by the use of a spinning-top with a polished upper surface, to give an artificial horizon at sea, that observations might be made when the actual horizon was hidden by clouds or fog. The inventor himself, Serson by name, was sent out by the British Admiralty to test the apparatus, and was lost in the wreck of the ship Victory. His top seemed not to have commended itself to his compatriots, but it has been in use more or less ever since, particularly among French navigators.