A NOVEL MOTOR CAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 44, 1 June 1910, Page 3

A NOVEL MOTOR CAR.

FOE SCOTT'S ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. A HINT FROM THE CENTIPEDE. The first man whom Captain Scott engaged for his forthcoming Antarctic expedition was young Bernard Day, who made himself so useful—with and without the Arrol -Johnston motor car—in the Shackleton expedition. This may be taken not only as a tribute to the handiness of Day but also as proof of the fact that Captain Scott hope's to get very good results with his motor vehicles which liave been designed and built by the Wolseley Company and have undergone successfully some very interesting tests in Norway, not alone on the level, but on considerable slopes an<l over fairly soft snow. The machine neither follows the Shackleton system of being an ordinary sort of motor car, nor does it copy the Charcot system of being a sledge with a sort of paddle drive. Instead, a hint has been taken from the centipede, for this new machine puts one in mind of nothing so much a~ that insect of the many legs. You see not wheels, but sorts of giant sprockets that nre turned round by the motor, and that round them an endless chain equipped with spikes and broad grips, so that the /power given ibv the engine is not delivered on any small surface space on the snow or ice to he traversed as in the case of a wheel-driven vehicle or of one sent forward by paddles. To the contrary, the energy is divided equally over the whole wheel 'base of the Wolseley sledges. You have, as it were, a runner that is in gripping contact with the ground throughout its length. This has an advantage 'in eflicency in travelling over soft surfaces, the chances of doing so successfully being multiplied almost by the numuer of inches of driving contact with the surface, as distinct from the few inches with which a wheel or a paddle can be in contact at 'any given time. Nor is this all. These ingenious vehicles are of the same length that the Nimrod .party found most suitable—a length that enables the sledge to span the average crevass without much difficulty. By having such a long powerdriven contact with the ground, of course, it is possible to go along in circumstances and over country where a car or a, .paddle-driven machine would become bogged owing to getting on to soft snow or slush. In a 'phrase, it may be said that if this Wolseley system of driving is not fruitful of good results, one will almost 'have to give up the notion of motor-sleighs for the Antarctic. In tests, these machines have hauled amply sufficient loads. Of course, the experience gained in regard to carburation, and particularly in the matter o-t lubricating oil, in the Shackleton expedi-, tioh have been kept in mind in the design of the new machine, the fact of Bernard Day's ingenious and improvised methods of enabling the Arrol-Johnston motor to be kept going, rendering it more likely that these difficulties "will not be experienced to any great extent in these new Wolseley machines. It will be observed, I moreover, that a very ingenious system | of allowing a certain amount of "spring" to the machine has been devised. Like j all Wolseley products, these sledges are thorough engineering jobs. The petrol tank is on the top of a casethat covers j the motor, which is wholly enclosed,' only the starting-handle projecting in'j front. The clutch pedal and the hand lever are also carefully placed. What happens to this machine in use is that I the driving wheels, which 'are like giant sprockets, never touch the ground, hut | the sledge itself actually moves bodily forward on its own track, which it lays i by means of the endless chain fitted with ■ spuds and pattens. Thus when seen in action the 'appearance is very curious, because where the chain touches the ground it remains stationary, the sledge itself sliding along within the chain. You are therefore not to picture this. chain as scratching at, the ground like a I cat and slipping backward"*. j