SOURCES OF INFORMATION In AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERING

In 1862 a Frenchman named Beau de Rochas patented in Paris a four‐stroke cycle engine, and although this original design was neglected and forgotten for many years its principle formed the basis for the phenomenal development of the internal combustion engine. In the intervening hundred years, whether we like it or not, the automobile has become one of the more important factors in our private and national lives. The early engineers, from Otto and Daimler to Lanchester and Ricardo, synthesized in their work the theory and applications of the machines they designed and built; but the last thirty or forty years has seen such a development in complexity of the machine and importance of the industry that it is no longer possible for one man, or group of men, to be in complete control of all phases of development. This suddenly accelerated progress is probably one of the reasons why engineers are not usually literature conscious and why the literature is even more uncontrolled and disorganized than in other subjects. The object of this survey is to show some of the in‐adequacies in the services and sources of information at present available to members of the industry in this country and perhaps to indicate some lines on which development in documentation might take place.