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714 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
terial, probably Trinidad Lake asphalt,
that is adapted to rapid transit on small
wheels.
These high-speed sidewalks, railed or
fenced to prevent accidents, will link all
the business establishments of the city.
Like the strands of a spider web they
will stretch out in all directions, regardless
of what passes beneath. It is probable
that time will see them on each story
of a skyscraper section of the city, with
elevators to take the wheeled pedestrians
from one floor to another.
Not only will these sidewalks solve the
city's problems of transportation, commerce,
and shopping, but also they will
make life in the suburbs much cheaper,
much more bearable, and more possible.
Instead of poky train service, with its
lung-corroding smoking car, the commuter
will don blithely his seven-league
skates, hop on to the high-speed suburban
sidewalk, and whizz his merry way
to the office at the rate of fifteen or
twenty—yes, thirty, if he wishes—miles
an hour! Cheeks will glow with health,
muscles will lose their softness and lethargy,
and brains will be snapping with a
dynamic energy that mere work cannot
exhaust. Then, too, the yearly bill for
car fare will be cut, enabling the commuter's
family to live better on the same
income.
Even if it were necessary to use the
old-fashioned ball-bearing steel roller
skate, this system would be adopted
eventually. The benefits are great and
the drawbacks nil. As great speed as I
have mentioned in this article would not
be possible to maintain with this old
skate, however. It would be possible
only to double the present pedestrian
rate, without helping the straphanger out
of his difficulty entirely.
Two kinds of skates are on the market,
now, though, which solve the problem.
The first is an unmotored speed skate
which uses the weight of the operator as
a propelling force in addition to the forward
force he exerts while sliding his
feet forward. On the base of this skate,
under the wearer's toes, is a flange of
metal which moves up and down, actuated
by pressure from the shoe as the
operator's weight is taken off and put on
again. The flange is attached to an
arrangement which resembles the pedal
and sprocket of a bicycle. The sprocket,
however, is the front wheel of the skate
itself, and the pedal is the arm which attaches
this to the metal flange. A device
for disengaging this sprocket arm is included,
which frees the flange when the
skate attains the speed of approximately
twelve miles an hour. If the wearer
wishes to go faster, he gets assistance
from the weight of his own body.
This skate, because of its remarkable
ease of operation, its speed, and its lightness
of weight, should be the most in
evidence on the high-speed sidewalks of
the future. No hardship would attach
to taking care of these, and a pair should
last a man at least five years under ordinary
conditions.
For those far suburbanites who could
not depend upon their own weight and
leg-power to get them to the office on
time in the morning, the motor skate
recently invented by Mr. Bruce S.
Eytinge should be the best bet. This is
a three-wheeled skate which is gasoline
motored and completely self-controlled.
Its wheel base is twenty-five inches, and
the wheels themselves are five inches in
diameter and rubber-tired.
Only tbe right skate is motored. It
carries a double-opposed two-cylinder
motor which is belt-connected to the
front wheels. The motor base and crankcase
are made in one aluminum casting.
A three-pound flanged flywheel whirls
between the cylinders. A two-bearing
crankshaft is used, the bearings in the
outer walls of the crank casing being
eliminated to save weight. A steering
post extends upward from the engine;
owing to the dual front wheels, steering
is effected by inclining the post to one
side or the other. Attached to this post
is the gasoline tank, while within—it is
hollow—lubricating oil is carried and fed
to the parts that require it.
The skater carries four dry cells on