Rob gave a couple of turns to the flywheels of the two outboard motors and adjusted his feet to the special steering gear.
"The Young Alaskans on the Missouri"
Emerson Hough
In a few weeks they will be unceremoniously pushed from their boxes by an inanimate thing of vapour and flywheels-by a meddling fellow in a clean white jacket and a face not ditto to match, who, mounted on the engine platform, has for some weeks been flourishing a red hot poker over their heads, in triumph at their discomfiture and downfall; and the turnpike road, shorn of its glories, is left desolate and lone.
"Hints on Driving"
C. S. Ward
Previously most engines had used vertical flywheels; Benz, believing that this practice would cause difficulty in steering a propelled carriage, explained his reason for changing this feature in his U.S. patent 385087, issued June 26, 1888: In motors hitherto used the fly-wheels have been attached to a horizontal shaft or axle, and have thus been made to revolve in a vertical plane, since the horizontal shaft is best adapted to the transmission of power.
"The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology"
Don H. Berkebile