first four-cycle engine of the Otto type and the start on a double
cylinder I had made a great many experimental engines out of tubing. I
fairly knew my way about. The double cylinder I thought could be applied
to a road vehicle and my original idea was to put it on a bicycle with a
direct connection to the crankshaft and allowing for the rear wheel of
the bicycle to act as the balance wheel. The speed was going to be
varied only by the throttle. I never carried out this plan because it
soon became apparent that the engine, gasoline tank, and the various
necessary controls would be entirely too heavy for a bicycle. The plan
of the two opposed cylinders was that, while one would be delivering
power the other would be exhausting. This naturally would not require so
heavy a fly-wheel to even the application of power. The work started in
my shop on the farm. Then I was offered a job with the Detroit Electric
Company as an engineer and machinist at forty-five dollars a month. I
took it because that was more money than the farm was bringing me and I
had decided to get away from farm life anyway. The timber had all been
cut. We rented a house on Bagley Avenue, Detroit. The workshop came
along and I set it up in a brick shed at the back of the house. During
the first several months I was in the night shift at the electric-light
plant--which gave me very little time for experimenting--but after that
I was in the day shift and every night and all of every Saturday night I
worked on the new motor. I cannot say that it was hard work. No work
with interest is ever hard. I always am certain of results. They always
come if you work hard enough. But it was a very great thing to have my
wife even more confident than I was. She has always been that way.

I had to work from the ground up--that is, although I knew that a number
of people were working on horseless carriages, I could not know what
they were doing. The hardest problems to overcome were in the making and
breaking of the spark and in the avoidance of excess weight. For the