AN IDEA THAT REVOLUTIONISED THE WORLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 83

AN IDEA THAT REVOLUTIONISED THE WORLD.

WHAT AN INFLATED EUBBER BAND HAS DONE. ! "Five hundred business men—Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, ■ Dutchmen, Scandinavians, Canadians, and ; men from even further afield—met at an | historic banquet at the Hotel Cecil to celej brate the coming-of-a-ge of what a visitor I described as ' just an inflated rubber band.' I But this simple ' rubber band'—the pneui matic tyre—has worked an influence upon | the world that has been almost magical," says the Mail. —The Inventor of the Idea. — It has encircled the globe. The capital i sunk in the industries it has brought into 1 being is now—on the twenty-first anniver- ! sary of its practical annlication —estimated !at many millions of pounds. And the i people employed in connection with it—i the men in the steel, cycle, and motor ! trades, and the natives who go out into ; dark forests to obtain raw rubber —may :be counted in millions also. All owe their ■ livelihood to the idea which flashed through an inventor's brain. I Sitting near the chairman, Prince Francis of Teck, was the man who had worked the wonder. A grey-bearded man of nearly seventy—each is Mr J. B. Dunlop, whose name is known the world over.

—The First Experiment. —

"I tried one of the first pneumatic tyres I ever made on my son's tricycle," he told the Mail. I fitted two tyres en the back driving wheels. "The forks of the machine were too narrow, J remember, for me to attach one to the front wheel. Clumsy things they were, you can imagine. My son told me he wanted very badly to win a cycle race against some other boys. I told him my invention would make his machine much faster than the others. And so it did. He won the race easily. "That was just before July, 18S8, when I patented the tyre. More than once, in working out my ideas for the invention, I was mindful to give the whole thing up. It was sc tedious. I had to buy "rubber and fashion it to my purpose with my own hands. This was the problem in my mind—to invent something, in the form of a tyre, which would flatten on the road and intercept vibration. The very first pneumatic tyre I made I fitted to a block of wood and ran it to and fro across my own back yard in order to test it,"' ' , This genial old gentleman, whose invention has made the annual cycle output rise from 150,000 throughout the whole world in 1888 to 800,000- for England alone at the present time, besides rendering practicable the motor-car ae a vehicle of speed and pleasure, was a veterinary surgeon in Belfast when the idea which has had such world-wide results dawned upon him. —3,000,000 Cycles.— And the history of the invention of this inflated "rubber band," with its millions of money and millions of workeie, was completed, is it was pointed out, by Mr Harvey Du Cros, whose financial .acumen and aid made possible the practical application:" of Mr Dunlop's fortune-making idea, To Mr Du Cros, in commemoration of the historic banquet, was presented a beauti-fully-designed casket. Mr Arthur J. Walter, in proposing the principal toast, that of "The pneumatic tyre industry," said that in 1889 there were 300,000" cycles in use. As the pneumatic tyre became popular they rose in. numbers until now there were, approximately, 3,000,000. "It is estimated," said Mr Waltei, "that £25,000,000 is now sunk in the cycle-making and allied industries throughout the world. All this is due to the pneumatic tyre. And this does not include motor-cars, of which there are now 100,000 in use in this country, representing a capital of £15,000,000."

—The Tyre and the Motor-car. —

The Mail points out that after the cycle had adopted the pneumatic tyre "a still more important development followed when the pneumatic tyre was applied to the motor-car, which in its early days was fitted with iron and solid rubber tyres. The jolting with these was so fearful that there was always danger, when any speed was attempted, of the frame or engine shaking itself to pieces. With the pneumatic tyre to overcome shocks, the motorcar advanced by leaps and bounds. The petrol engine was improved and perfected, as the result of the enormous demand for vehicles in v&ich great distances could be covered witfi perfect comfort. And this development of the petrol engine, again, paved the way for the new art of aviation.

—The Engine and the Aeroplane.—

Tlie dirigible balloon and the aeroplane did not become practically successful till extremely light engines were at the disposal of their designers, and but foi the progress of the petrol engine between 1896 and 1906 would have remained mere dreams. Thus, the pneumatic tyre, that unpretending invention of 1888, may be said to have revolutionised the art of locoanotion, and to have influenced social habits and human life more deeply, perhaps, than any mechanical contrivance of the nineteenth ■ century, with th; single exception of the steam locomotive. It has created gigantic industries, given employment to thousands, and opened new pleasures in life for the poor and the rich.