All intermediate speeds were obtained by throttling the engine.

The engine was easily governed, and on the level any speed from the lowest to the maximum could be obtained without juggling with the clutches; but on bad roads and in hilly localities intermediate gears are required if one is to get the best results out of a motor.

As the gasoline motor develops its highest efficiency when it is running at full speed, there should be enough intermediate gears so the maximum speed may be maintained under varying conditions.

As the road gets heavy or the grades steep, the drop is made from one gear down to another; but at all times and under all conditions--if there are enough intermediate gears--the machine is being driven with the motor running fast.
With only two gears where roads or grades are such that the high gear cannot be used, there is nothing to do but drop to the low, -- from thirty miles an hour to five or six,--and the engine runs as if it had no load at all.

American roads especially demand intermediate gears if best results are to be attained, the conditions change so from mile to mile.
Foreign machines are equipped with from three to five speed-changing gears in addition to the spark control, and many also have throttles for governing the speed of the engine.
Going at full speed down a long hill about two miles out of Canandaigua, we discovered that neither power nor brakes had any control over the machine.