For some miles the road out of Erie was soft, dusty, narrow, and poor—­by no means fit for the proposed Erie-Buffalo race.  About fifteen miles out there is a sharp turn to the left and down a steep incline with a ravine and stream below on the right,—­a dangerous turn at twenty miles an hour, to say nothing of forty or fifty.

There is nothing to indicate that the road drops so suddenly after making the turn, and we were bowling along at top speed; a wagon coming around the corner threw us well to the outside, so that the margin of safety was reduced to a minimum, even if the turn were an easy one.

As we swung around the corner well over to the edge of the ravine, we saw the grade we had to make.  Nothing but a succession of small rain gullies in the road saved us from going down the bank.  By so steering as to drop the skidding wheels on the outside into each gully, the sliding of the machine received a series of violent checks and we missed the brink of the ravine by a few inches.

A layman in the Professor’s place would have jumped; but he, good man, looked upon his escape as one of the incidents of automobile travel.

“When I accepted your invitation, my dear fellow, I expected something beyond the ordinary.  I have not been disappointed.”

It was a wonder the driving-wheels were not dished by the violent side strains, but they were not even sprung.  These wheels were of wire tangential spokes; they do not look so well as the smart, heavy, substantial wooden wheels one sees on nearly all imported machines and on some American.

The sense of proportion between parts is sadly outraged by spindle-wire wheels supporting the massive frame-work and body of an automobile; however strong they may be in reality, architecturally they are quite unfit, and no doubt the wooden wheel will come more and more into general use.

A wooden wheel with the best of hickory spokes possesses an elasticity entirely foreign to the rigid wire wheel, but good hickory wheels are rare; paint hides a multitude of sins when spread over wood; and inferior wooden wheels are not at all to be relied upon.

Soon we begin to catch glimpses of Lake Erie through the trees and between the hills, just a blue expanse of water shining in the morning sun, a sapphire set in the dull brown gold of woods and fields.  Farther on we come out upon the bluffs overlooking the lake and see the smoke and grime of Buffalo far across.  What a blot on a view so beautiful!

“Civilization,” said the Professor, “is the subjection of nature.  In the civilization of Athens nature was subdued to the ends of beauty; in the civilization of America nature is subdued to the ends of usefulness; in every civilization nature is of secondary importance, it is but a means to an end.  Nature and the savage, like little children, go hand in hand, the one the complement of the other; but the savage grows and grows, while nature remains