Laying the Dust Storm.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XII, 19 March 1904, Page 62

Laying the Dust Storm.

Another American inventor has been devising an apparatus for enabling motorists to avoid covering themselves with dust. The car in its forward movement, especially if it is moving rapidly, creates air currents beneath it which stir up the dust, and it also creates behind it a partial vacuum. The dust-laden air from beneath the car rushes up behind to fill this partial vacuum, and, as a result, deposits or almost throws the dust over the rear top edge into the car and upon the occupants. To prevent this a shield has been extended out behind the car, but such shield is only a makeshift, and is more or less unsightly on a touring ear of the tonneau type. The inventor, after studying the problem, discovered that by controlling the air currents thus formed they could be deflected in such a manner as to break up and interfere with the objectionable dust-laden currents.

To accomplish this he uses a shield, preferably a thin sheet of metal, painted to correspond with the tonneau finish, which extends from the side of -the ear well to the rear, terminating just at the edge of the rear door. The air currents which flow into the front ends of these conduits are deflected and discharged across the rear end of the ear in a zone with the upper edge. The inventor explains that as this air, taken from a considerable distance above the ground and thus free from dust, is discharged from the rear of these channels, or air conduits, it creates a partial vacuum behind the ear, and this zone interferes with the usual sudden uprush of dust-laden air, which, thus cheeked, is prevented from flowing over the rear edge of the ear.