Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 15, No 12
Articles in this issue
- The editors announce that from 1910 the Rivista adds eight pages to its usual 48-page American-paper volume, given over to short news, practical advice and technical curiosities, and that the old “Rivista delle Riviste” column becomes an illustrated digest of other publications; the experiment is trialled in this December number.
- The Direzione Generale claims Parliament's cut of the bicycle tax to L. 6 and the new sliding scale on motor cars as the Touring's own victory, won by years of memorials, referendums and delegations to ministers, and promises to press on toward abolishing the bicycle tax altogether.
- Dott. Alessandro Clerici compares Italy's winter climate resorts — the Ligurian Riviera (San Remo, Nervi, Bordighera, Rapallo, Pegli), the lake stations (Pallanza, Cadenabbia, Salò, Gardone) and high-altitude Davos and Saint Moritz — advising which suit convalescents, consumptives, heart patients and sufferers from chronic laryngitis.
- Silio Carpani presents St Ambrose as an early travelling bishop and takes the reader through the secluded piazza and Basilica di S. Ambrogio in Milan, illustrated with Brogi and Ferrario photographs of the ambo, the ciborio of the high altar and the Museo Civico's Gonfalone di S. Ambrogio.
- Report of the Volontari Ciclisti Automobilisti national sub-committee meeting of 30 September 1909 in Milan (Zaffaroni, Vigoni, Chiaria, Barberis, Zanetti): General Tarditi conveyed the Chief of Staff's praise for the volunteer cyclists at the Grandi Manovre, and the Treviso and Ferrara provincial committees were recognised.
- Describes the 34,670-metre aerial ropeway built by Adolfo Bleichert of Leipzig at Chilecito, Argentina, to serve Cordillera copper mines up to 4,600 m: eight separately powered sections, cars 112 m apart running at 2.5 m/s with half a tonne each, replacing a three-day mule track that cost L. 60 per tonne.
- Louis Brennan demonstrated his single-rail locomotive at Gillingham, Kent on 10 November: 40 feet long, 22 tonnes, with two Wolseley petrol engines of 80 and 20 HP driving Siemens electric motors and hauling ten to fifteen tonnes.
- Motoring department: the English builder Max Gradon's dust-proof body, whose chimney-like gap above the rear tank stops the car raising dust; notes on the Olympia (London) and Atlanta shows; and the Paris industrial-vehicle trial where 32 of 57 starters qualified, solid tyres standing up to 40 km/h.
- The English builder Max Gradon Cy.'s dust-proof body: a cutaway above the rear pressure tank forms a chimney so the air rushing under the car escapes upward instead of raising dust at road level.
- Motor shows survive as trade occasions rather than technical demonstrations: the Olympia show in London and Atlanta in the United States offered nothing mechanically new, the industrial and agricultural machines showing better at the Paris and Amiens trials.
- At the Paris industrial-vehicle trial in the first ten days of November, 32 of the 57 starters qualified, and the solid tyres fitted to most competing camions withstood speeds of 40 km/h.
- Marks the fortieth anniversary, on 17 November, of the opening of the Suez Canal, recalling the company floated in 1859 with 200 million lire of capital and Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had until then shown himself more diplomat than engineer.
- Aviation department: Milan's first international aeroplane exhibition, where only the Voisin had actually flown, and the Frassinetti monoplane with its 30 sq m wing and Anzani engine; Wilbur Wright's flight over the Hudson with a flotation canoe; the first airwomen Mme Laloe and the Baronne de Laroche; Henri Farman taking the Michelin Cup with 200 km; and the night cruise of Zeppelin II, Gross II and Parseval I and III.
- Milan's aeroplane show is only nominally the first, Brescia's having preceded it, and the Voisin is the one machine exhibited that has actually flown; the engines and accessories show off promising Italian industry, and models abound.
- The Frassinetti monoplane: an elongated frame of special wood built on concentric rigid hoops tapering from nose to tail, 30 sq m of wing, 130 kg, with the elevator set above the wings and coupled to the tail rudder, to be driven by an Anzani engine.
- Boxed progress statement on the T. C. I.'s Carta d'Italia at 1:250,000 — 4 sheets in 1906 (Milano, Torino, Venezia, Genova), 8 in 1907, 8 in 1908 and 8 in 1909 (Pesaro, Sciacca, Ravenna, Caltanissetta, Portomaurizio, Macerata, with Chieti and Palermo to follow); the whole block of 28 sheets costs L. 14.
- Wilbur Wright, unwilling to be eclipsed by the European aviators, flew his biplane over the Hudson at New York with a canoe fitted to the machine to float it in case of a fall; a full-width photograph shows the flight above the Manhattan skyline.
- Two portraits of the first women in the air: Mme Laloë, among the earliest to go up as a passenger, and the Baronne de Laroche, the first woman pilot, who made several flights on a Voisin biplane over the Mourmelon plain the previous month.
- History of the Michelin Cup from Wilbur Wright's 39.095 km at Auvours in September 1908 and his 124.700 km on 31 December, through Rougier's 130 km at Berlin and Paulhan's 150.500 km at Brooklands, to Enrico Farman's 200 km on 3 November; the trophy carries 20,000 lire.
- Picture item on the recent night cruise of the German military airships Zeppelin II, Gross II and Parseval I and III.
- Warns members that the 1910 subscription must be paid by 15 January or dispatch of the Rivista and other publications will be suspended, and sets out the rules for writing to the Touring, claiming missing issues, notifying a change of address and having a tessera validated for customs.
- Americo Scarlatti traces the proverbs and Latin epithets that ranked women city by city (Romanae graves, Senenses pulcrae, Venetae petulantes), quotes Giggi Zanazzo's stornello on the women of Trastevere and Leon Battista Alberti on the ruinous face-paint of Florentine women, and argues the regional types are dying out as travel mixes the races.
- Full-page display of the Touring's Christmas and New Year gifts: an 1910 membership with the 28 back sheets of the Carta d'Italia, the Attraverso l'Italia at L. 25–32, the Annuario dell'Automobilismo, the Carta Automobilistica, the mobiletto and cartella-atlante for the map sheets, placca and guidone badges, medical satchels and a binding case for the Rivista.
- Proposes sinking geothermal shafts three to six kilometres deep and 200–300 m wide, cast-iron lined and dug by an international legion of soldiers, to settle whether the earth's interior is molten or steel-rigid; recalls the Maupertuis–Voltaire dispute and calculates that a body dropped through a pole-to-pole shaft would oscillate forever, passing the centre at 9,546 m/s on an 84-minute round trip.
- Prof. Camillo Tovo catalogues crimes committed with cars and bicycles — Mrs Bobb Walter's Paris elopement agency charging 10,000 lire for a three-car convoy, the abduction of Miss Agnes Mac Muller in New York, a baby left from a car at Siders — then explains how police read tyre tracks to fix a machine's direction, and the shutter cameras and Groenendael, Airedale and mastiff police dogs used against offenders.
- Il Medico del Touring on Henriet's hygienic model town near Paris with every street aligned north-east to south-west; Flemming's balloon sampling finding living micro-organisms up to 4,000 m; the air in submarines after two hours down (oxygen falling from 21 to 19.6 per cent); and London's daily 2,000 tonnes of carbonic and 2,700 of sulphurous acid from coal smoke.
- Henriet's plan for a model hygienic town near Paris: every street aligned north-east to south-west to catch the ozone-rich wind, houses one room deep on streets 16.85 m wide, balconies only at the rear, low shrubs instead of trees and terrace roofs in place of mansards.
- Flemming's balloon sampling found living micro-organisms up to 4,000 m — 0.37 per litre above 600 m against 12.9 below 500 m — and far more in shaded than in sunlit air; over the sea germs persist to about 400 miles from the coast.
- Belli and Trocello's study of submarine air after two hours at 30–40 m: oxygen falling from 21 to 19.6 per cent, with sulphurous anhydride and hydrocarbons making it irritant; white mice are proposed as an alarm and sodium peroxide as a means of regenerating the oxygen.
- On smoke and gas in industrial cities such as Milan, and London's daily 2,000 tonnes of carbonic and 2,700 of sulphurous acid from burnt coal, with the Zeitschrift für Hygiene's proposal that municipalities sell cheap gas as motive power to suppress smoky furnaces.
- World round-up: the Aéro Club de France requiring pilot certificates from 1 January 1910 and the projected Paris–Bruxelles flight; Millerand's backing for “keep to the left”; the Count of Turin's hunting expedition in Uganda and the Congo; Giovanni Cuniolo of Tortona winning the Giro di Lombardia over 193 km in 6h 13'21"; the Stresa–Mottarone electric railway; and the proposed Georgian Bay canal in Canada.
- Aviation notes: the Aéro Club de France requiring pilot and airship certificates from 1 January 1910; the Automobile Club de France's projected Paris–Bruxelles flight of some 164 miles with controls at Compiègne, S. Quentin and Mons; the Belgian aviation fortnight at Stockel and an Algiers meeting; and the London and North Western's wagons built to carry aeroplanes.
- Motoring notes: Dieppe's bid to revive the Grand Prix de France with 250,000 lire; Denmark's ban on night motoring outside 1 March–16 August and the bill easing it; Millerand's advocacy of “keep to the left” at the Paris congress; new motor services at Sestri Levante, Cesenatico–Cesena–Bagno di Romagna and Chiavari; and trials of the Guerrini motor sweeper.
- The Conte di Torino's shooting expedition through British East Africa, Uganda and the northern Congo sent home over 40 cases of skins, elephant and hippopotamus teeth and rhinoceros horn, and brought a cordial meeting with Theodore Roosevelt; also an English motorist's timing of a hare at 51.5 km/h.
- Giovanni Cuniolo of Tortona won the Giro di Lombardia over 193 km in 6h 13'21" at 30.850 km/h from Beaugendre, Trousselier, Lapize and Tibiletti; also the Touring Club de France on cyclists' drinks — local wine, light beer, Norman and Breton cider, with cold tea or coffee preferred — and new bicycle luggage carriers.
- From the hunting review Diana: Chinese butchers selling dog meat favour a special short-legged breed resembling the Pomeranian, yellow and black or orange-red, not to be confused with the black dog of China.
- A new building regulation for the Comune di Roma, governing construction under the city's development plan, has gone before the Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici.
- Railway notes: the 9.400 km Stresa–Mottarone electric line approved for completion within two years, the Belluno–Cadore concession about to be tendered alongside Borgo S. Lorenzo–Pontassieve and Asti–Chivasso, works under way on the Rocchette–Asiago, and new tram, trolley and motor-bus lines from Frosinone–Piperno to Mestre–Treviso.
- Motor-boating notes: the French government's projected tax on motor launches on the same scale as motor cars, the Monaco meeting of 100,000 lire in prizes fixed for the first half of April 1910, a Berlin international motor-boat exhibition on 19 March–3 April, and the Sables d'Olonne trial of motor fishing boats.
- The projected Georgian Bay canal in Canada, cutting the peninsula between Lakes Huron and Superior and using Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa river to reach the St Lawrence at Montreal, so that lake shipping can carry grain straight to the Atlantic.
- Father Guido Alfani, director of the Osservatorio Ximeniano in Florence, has begun lecturing at the Florentine university on what is said to be the only chair of seismology in the world.
- Road notes: a royal decree classing the road from the Via Appia to Civita Lavinia among Rome's provincial roads and subsidising Castellabate and Maretto d'Asti; complaints about the G. B. Fardella and Borgo Annunziata roads at Trapani and roads in the Ferrara province; the new Casa Selvatico–Berceto road; and the Chianni–Bagni di Casciana road under construction.
- President Taft opened the Alaska exposition by wireless telegraph without attending, and the King of England likewise inaugurated the Edward Institute for tuberculosis at Montreal by pressing an electric button at Chichester Park.
- Winter fashion notes: the jacket is now tolerated at any length, from a knee-length redingote to just below the hip; the tailleur in plain (not fancy) velvet is in vogue in greens, blues and browns with moiré revers; silk-muslin scarves float over heavy winter cloth; and dress for women flying aeroplanes remains a curiosity.
- Picture page: work on Rome's new Ponte Vittorio Emanuele and the iron bridge it replaces, a new palm garden in Piazza Cavour, the Portuguese Gomez da Silva biplane and the Marquézy monoplane with Clerget engine, the sedan chair back in fashion in Berlin, the Olympia motor show in London, and Christmas in the German Cameroons and Greenland.
- Book notices, mostly aeronautical: Dumas's Ceux qui ont volé, Desmons's and R. Petit's aeroplane-building manuals, Lelasseux and Marque's L'aéroplane pour tous, Charles Fontaine's account of Blériot's Channel crossing, Bonnefoy's and Giulio Castelli's studies of air law, Pierron on liability for motor accidents, and Mazuyer's doctoral thesis on the tip.
- The Touring opens a competition, endowed with 7,000 lire in prizes plus gold and silver medals and diplomas for public administrations, for a paper on road-metalling materials and a matching collection of rock samples from every region of Italy, the programme drawn up by its Commissione strade.
- The Touring's attempt to have the 1 January 1910 tax deadline deferred failed; the Ministry of Finance will instead issue provisional Buoni, dry-stamped by the Milan technical finance office and, for bicycles and motorcycles, stamped and signed by the mayor, in place of the usual metal plates until the reform bill passes.
- The rules exempting manufacturers' and dealers' cars run on test stay temporarily in force pending the new tax bill, which extends the concession to motorcycles; the special trade taxes are to be collected at once through provisional Buoni carrying a distinguishing stamp.
- Council business: approval in principle of the road-gravelling competition rules; cav. Innocenzo Vigliardi Paravia replacing engineer Gavazzi on the board of the Milan Automobile Club's driving school; a gold medal to Colonel Moris and a silver plate for the airship's gondola after the military dirigible's Bracciano–Roma–Napoli flight; and the jury named for the river-signalling competition.
- List of the twenty-three members taking up five-year membership, from ing. Lorenzo Barge of Turin and Leonello Botti of Mistretta to Orfelio Iguain in Buenos Ayres and ing. Manlio Lega in Asmara.
- Twelve members honoured for recruiting, among them Gerolamo Bianchini of Lucerne, Amilcare Bollo of Pesaro, Alfredo Savini of Las Varas and cav. Vittore Teixeira de Mattos of Rome, bringing the total to 1,612.
- Names those who applied to join the T. C. I. between 10 and 30 September 1909, opening with the life members from Abbiategrasso and Biella to Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Vienna, then the annual members listed province by province.
- Membership table: 74,233 annual members at 15 October 1909, less 151 resignations, untraceable and defaulting members, plus 264 new admissions to 15 November, giving 74,346; with 2,329 life members at 31 December 1908 and 659 more since 1 January, the total is 77,334.
- Recruiting appeal setting out what a 1910 member gets free — the renewed Annuario Generale, eight sheets of the 1:250,000 Carta d'Italia (Ancona, the index sheet, Bergamo, S. Severo, Susa, Gargano, Domodossola, Orbetello), the monthly Rivista and the illustrated regional Guides — a claimed L. 27 of value for a L. 6 annual, L. 30 five-year or L. 100 life subscription.