"A trip from Rosenau to Old Windsor, to the entrance of Beaumont College, up Priest Hill, descending the steep, rough, and treacherous hill on the opposite side by Woodside Farm, past the workhouse, through old Windsor, and back to Rosenau within an hour, amply demonstrated how perfectly under control this carriage is, while the sensation of being whirled rapidly along is decidedly pleasing."
Another pioneer of motorism was the Hon. C. S. Rolls, whose untimely death at Bournemouth in 1910, while taking part in the Bournemouth aviation meeting, was deeply deplored all over the country. Mr. Rolls made a tour of the country in a motor-car in 1895, with the double object of impressing people with the stupidity of the law with regard to locomotion, and of illustrating the practical possibilities of the motor. You may know that Mr. Rolls was the first man to fly across the Channel, and back again to Dover, without once alighting.
CHAPTER XXI. The Internal-combustion Engine(Cont.)
I suppose many of my readers are quite familiar with the working of a steam-engine. Probably you have owned models of steam-engines right from your earliest youth, and there are few boys who do not know how the railway engine works.
But though you may be quite familiar with the mechanism of this engine, it does not follow that you know how the petrol engine works, for the two are highly dissimilar. It is well, therefore, that we include a short description of the internal-combustion engine such as is applied to motor-cars, for then we shall be able to understand the principles of the aeroplane engine.
At present petrol is the chief fuel used for the motor engine. Numerous experiments have been tried with other fuels, such as benzine, but petrol yields the best results.
Petrol is distilled from oil which comes from wells bored deep down in the ground in Pennsylvania, in the south of Russia, in Burma, and elsewhere. Also it is distilled in Scotland from oil shale, from which paraffin oil and wax and similar substances are produced. When the oil is brought to the surface it contains many impurities, and in its native form is unsuitable for motor engines. The crude oil is composed of a number of different kinds of oil; some being light and clear, others heavy and thick.
To purify the oil it is placed in a large metal vessel or "still". Steam is first passed over the oil in the still, and this changes the lightest of the oils into vapours. These vapours are sent through a series of pipes surrounded with cold water, where they are cooled and become liquid again. Petrol is a mixture of these lighter products of the oil.
If petrol be placed in the air it readily turns into a vapour, and this vapour is extremely inflammable. For this reason petrol is always kept in sealed tins, and very large quantities are not allowed to be stored near large towns. The greatest care has to be exercised in the use of this "unsafe" spirit. For example, it is most dangerous to smoke when filling a tank with petrol, or to use the spirit near a naked light. Many motor-cars have been set on fire through the petrol leaking out of the tank in which it is carried.