Much difficulty has been experienced by makers of lever cycles in finding a suitable clutching device, a difficulty with which most of the experience the writer has had is concerned. In conducting experiments in this line I have found that the rattle of the old ratchet was annoying, and it was quite a problem in my mind why makers used them; but any one who undertakes to make a bicycle clutch will soon discover the reason, though at what cost “deponent sayeth not.” A neophyte in the bicycle experimenting ranks might justly suppose that the matter of clutches is a well-developed art in mechanics; to a certain extent it is, but not in the direction he will need. Clutches may be divided into three classes,—first, the common ratchet and pawl, either spring or gravity; second, the ratchet and friction pawl; third, surface-friction clutches proper. The first two grip on corrugated surfaces, the last on a perfectly plain or smooth surface. The first class rattles according to the pressure on the pawl or the weight of the same, and also to the amount of drop. The second class rattles only under certain conditions; that is, when both ratchet and pawl are in motion in the same direction, one moving a little faster than the other. The third class is entirely noiseless. Let us pass over the first class, as being familiar to everybody. The second class is not so well known and has never been used in any of the arts in this country so far as I know, except as recently applied to bicycles. This clutch is very similar in appearance to a regular ratchet, the difference being that in the former the pawl is held out of contact by friction against some of the moving parts, and when the motion is reversed the friction in a certain direction throws the pawl into action. A good mechanic would have hardly conceded such an arrangement as practicable in any machine, much less in a bicycle, for the reason that when the motion is reversed the pawl plunges into the teeth with so much force that damage would be supposed to result. Several patents are registered in England upon the noiseless ratchet; they are all alike in general principle, but it is due to the energy of an American maker that it has been made a success in cycle construction, and I am inclined to think it is the first time such a ratchet has ever been used to any extent in any kind of machinery. [Illustration: Noiseless ratchets.]