Pneumatics not enough; springs necessary for comfort & safety Sylph spring frame saves muscle & nerves & is perfection. All users delighted. Investigate. We also make a 30 lb. rigid Sylph. Cata. free.
Rouse-Duryea Cycle Co. _Mfrs._ 16 G st., Peoria, Ill.
FIGURE 5.--ADVERTISEMENT of Duryea bicycle company, _Scientific American_, September 9, 1893.]
Going to Hartford, Connecticut, possibly on business relating to his bicycle work, Charles visited the Hartford Machine Screw Company where the Daimler-type engine was being produced,[6] but after examining it he felt it was too heavy and clumsy for his purpose. Also in Hartford he talked over the problem of a satisfactory engine with C. E. Hawley, an employee of the Pope Manufacturing Company, makers of the Columbia bicycle. Hawley, searching for a way to construct an engine that would perform in a manner similar to the Atkinson, yet would have the lightness and compactness necessary for a carriage engine, suggested an idea that Charles believed had some merit. This idea, involving the use of what the Duryeas later called a "free piston," was eventually to be incorporated in their first engine.[7]
[Illustration: FIGURE 6.--J. FRANK DURYEA, about 1894, as drawn by George Giguere from a photograph. (Smithsonian photo 48335.)]
Back in Chicopee again, Charles began planning his first horseless carriage. Frank later stated that they leaned heavily on the Benz patents in their work;[8] but while the later engine and transmission show evidence of this, only the Benz manner of placing the engine and the flywheel seem to have been employed in the original Duryea plan. Charles reversed the engine so that the flywheel was to the front, rather than to the rear as in the Benz patent, but made use of Benz' vertical crankshaft so that the flywheel rotated in a horizontal plane. Previously most engines had used vertical flywheels; Benz, believing that this practice would cause difficulty in steering a propelled carriage, explained his reason for changing this feature in his U.S. patent 385087, issued June 26, 1888:
In motors hitherto used the fly-wheels have been attached to a horizontal shaft or axle, and have thus been made to revolve in a vertical plane, since the horizontal shaft is best adapted to the transmission of power. If, however, in this case we should use a heavy rotating mass, corresponding to the power employed and revolving rapidly in a vertical plane, the power to manage the vehicle or boat would become very much lessened, as the flywheel continues to revolve in its plane. I therefore so design the apparatus that its crank shaft x has a vertical position and its fly-wheel y revolves in a horizontal plane.... By this means the vehicle is not only easily controlled, but also the greatest safety is attained against capsizing.