other down the sides of the rim, and they repose in ledges formed at about half way down the rim sides. There were modifications of the Welch patents, but the one used is one of the original ideas and upheld by the Dunlop Co. against a host of litigation that they were compelled to institute against infringers of their rights.
The names of tyre companies that made tyres for bicycles that were copies of the Welch patents would fill a page of this book and very, very few got through the Dunlop meshes. Many were very ingenious in the way they tried to overcome the master patents by means of hooks and pins and nuts, but gradually they were either bought up, forced to relinquish business by legal pressure brought against them by the proprietors of the patents, or died a natural death.
The original patents have run out now and all and sundry are free to make tyres, but there are comparatively few well-known makers.
In addition to the Dunlop, there are in the first rank the Palmer Tyre Co., who make a specially woven fabric outer cover knitted on a special machine which is a marvellously ingenious piece of mechanism in itself and well worth a study by those mechanically inclined. Then there is the North British Rubber Co., who make the Clincher tyre, Bartlett's original patent. W. and A. Bates, the Avon India-Rubber Co., the Midland Rubber Co., etc., etc.
All the firms mentioned have large works and a very complete sales organization.
I must not close this chapter without a reference to wood rims and single tube tyres. The introduction of single tube tyres in this country was due to Mr. Boothroyd, the inventor of the Facile bicycle referred to in Chapter I.
The simplest method of describing it is to say that
