A characteristic trend of the present age is toward increased speed in everything, and the most conspicuous example of accelerated speed in late years is the bicycle. It has, with its fascination of silent motion and the exhilaration of flight, driven the younger generation wild with enthusiasm, has limbered up the muscles of old age, has revolutionized the attire of men and women, and well-nigh supplanted the old-fashioned use of legs. It is the most unique and ubiquitous piece of organized machinery ever made. The thoroughfares and highways of civilization fairly swarm with thousands of glistening and silently gliding wheels. It is to be found everywhere, even to the steppes of Asia, the plains of Australia, and the ice fields of the Arctic. The true definition of the bicycle is a two-wheeled vehicle, with one wheel in front and the other in the rear, and both in the same vertical plane. Its life principle is the physical law that a rotating body tends to preserve its plane of rotation, and so it stands up, when it moves, on the same principle that a top does when it spins or a child’s hoop remains erect when it rolls. [Illustration: FIG. 180.--THE DRAISINE, 1816.] A form of carriage adapted to be propelled by the muscular effort of the rider was constructed and exhibited in Paris by Blanchard and Magurier, and was described in the _Journal de Paris_ as early as July 27, 1779, but the true bicycle was the product of the Nineteenth Century. It was invented by Baron von Drais, of Manheim-on-the Rhine. See Fig. 180. It consisted of two wheels, one before the other, in the same plane, and connected together by a bar bearing a saddle, the front wheel being arranged to turn about a vertical axis and provided with a handle for guiding. The rider supported his elbows on an arm rest and propelled the device by striking his toes upon the ground, and in this way thrusted himself along, while guiding his course by the handle bar and swivelling front wheel. This machine was called the “Draisine.” It was patented in France for the Baron by Louis Joseph Dineur, and was exhibited in Paris in 1816. In 1818 Denis Johnson secured an English patent for an improved form of this device, but the principle of propulsion remained the same. This device, variously known as the “Draisine,” “vélocipède,” “célérifère,” “pedestrian curricle,” “dandy horse,” and “hobby-horse,” was introduced in New York in 1819, and was greeted for a time with great enthusiasm in that and other cities. [Illustration: FIG. 181.--VELOCIPEDE OF 1868.]