AN ENGINE THAT WALKS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 16 April 1908, Page 2

AN ENGINE THAT WALKS.

During the South African war a young colonial engineer noticed how very unsuitable traction engines were for pulling guns up kopjes. Many had to be abandoned 'on~ the hillsides.. The young engineer set "to work to invent an engine that ' would travel quickly over rough country, and after six years' experimenting has constructed a strange machine which has recently been under trial at Aldershot. If the Daily Mail's account is to be believed the engine is a great success. In the final tests it climbed hills which would have proved too much for the ordinary traction engine, .crossed a deep ditch five feet wide, and manoeuvred in its own length. This weird contrivance travels at nearly forty miles an hour over rough ground, which causes it to behave like a vessel in a big sea. It i can turn on one of its wheels as on a I pivot while going at top speed, and the spectacle of the monster careering across country and suddenly turning at an angle of 90 .degrees is said to be terrifying. The machine weighs 30 tons, and is driven by an oil engine developing 400 horse-power. The secret of the invention is the special gear which transmits the power of the pistons to the wheels with less loss than in the ordinary traction engine, railway engine, or motor car. Its eight wheels run in two endless bands studded with 32 feet, this being the reason of its ability to climb hills and" cross ditches. A ride in the cab of the engine is described as exciting, and we can well believe it. On level ground the machine moves with deliberate ease, each great foot, 18 inches square, pressing down on the soil. But when the driver puts it at a grass-covered hill the swaying motion becomes violent, and when the crest is reached the monster is balanced on two. feet, and the passenger is perhaps consider-, ing the advisability of jumping for his life, when the part poised in air comes down again, and the huge bulk of the machine steps swiftly down the other side. Men who ride on it descend with alacrity, but the' inventor regards nis machine „as exceedingly stable and docile, and is always ready to display its power of turning on one wheel. "Caterpillar No. 1," as the soldiers call it, has cost its maker a fortune, but if it pleases the War Office he should be well repaid. An armorplated monster careering across country at 40 miles an hour adds a new terror to warfare.