The shaft drive was not well accepted in Britain, so in 1894 Fearnhead took it to the United States where Colonel Pope of the Columbia firm bought the exclusive American rights. Belatedly, the British makers took it up, with Humber in particular plunging heavily on the deal. Curiously enough, the greatest of all the Victorian cycle engineers, Professor Archibald Sharp, was against shaft drive; in his classic 1896 book "Bicycles and Tricycles", he wrote "The Fearnhead Gear ... if bevel-wheels could be accurately and cheaply cut by machinery, it is possible that gears of this description might supplant, to a great extent, the chain-drive gear; but the fact that the teeth of the bevel-wheels cannot be accurately milled is a serious obstacle to their practical success".