rds that any attempt to select the most striking only
results in bewilderment. The best that can be done is to recite a few
representative ones.

That was a most interesting illustration, for instance, of the capacity
for sustained high speed made by a Stearns car on the mile track at
Brighton Beach in 1910. In twenty-four hours the car covered the
amazing distance of 1,253 miles, which was at the average speed of
52-1/5 miles per hour. This record is all the more remarkable from the
fact the car was not a racer, but a stock car which had been driven for
some months by its owner before it was borrowed for the race, and did
not have any special preparation. The men who drove it were not
notified that their services were wanted until the morning of the race.

While this is about the average rate per hour of the fastest train
between New York and Chicago, it should be remembered that the trains
run on steel rails, that curves are comparatively few, and they are not
sharp, while the automobile was spinning around a mile track made of
plain dirt, and was obliged to negotiate 2,506 sharp curves. Besides,
the locomotives on the fast trains are changed every 120 to 150 miles,
while the entire run of 1,253 miles was made by one auto which had
already run 7,500 miles in ordinary service before it was entered in
the race.

Unfortunately for the automobile, it has achieved so many remarkable
speed records that its name is suggestive of swiftness. If the English
language were not the stereotyped, inelastic vehicle for the
communication of thought that it is we should now be speaking of
"automobiling" a shady bill through the city council instead of
"railroading" it. There are few places where it is permissible to
attain record speed, and fewer men who, with safety to others, may be
entrusted with the attempt. The true value of the automobile to the
average man lies in its ability to keep right on going indefinitely at
moderate speed under any and all conditions.

One of the innumerable tests in which the staying qualities of the
automobile were brought out was the trip from Pittsburg to Philadelphia
by way of Gettysburg by S.D. Waldon and four passengers in a Packard
car, September 20, 1910. This run of 303 miles over three mountain
ranges, with the usual accompaniments of steep grades, rocks, ruts, and
thank-you-ma'ms to rack the machinery and bruise the feelings of the
riders, was made in 12 hours and 51 minutes.

A little r