The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-07-15

Can anybody imagine the time when it will be
common for a traveller upon our ordinary country
roads to demand at the wayside stations feed for
his horse of ten bushels of coal and fifty gallons of
water? Will the day ever arrive when fashiona-
BILE people shall turn up their at Black Hawks
and Morgans and other roadsters of choice blood
and high lineage, and take an airing or visit their
town friends or country acquaintance, drawn by
metal steeds instead of steeds of mettle ?-when
iron thews and snews shall be substituted for those
of muscular fibre-when the coachman shall grasp
the lever in lieu of the rens and instead of accee.
rating the pace by the of the whip shall quietly
open a valve and ''put more steam?' ~ Are far
mers at no distant period to break up their fields
with gangs of ploughs drawn by BUcEPHALUs,
mghtier and more fiery than the one which ALEX
AMBER the Great alone possessed the skill and cour-
age to subdue? Are diminutive Camel-backs to
supersede the Camels in use in the desert, and but
lately introduced into Texas Are "Geer' and
''Haw p to become obsolete terms, to be replaced
by ''stop her ~ tease her r' 'back her ~ ego
"aheadP' and is the turf to find its future racers
in locomotive ToxoPHILITEs and FLORA TEMPLES
1t would be difficult to answer satisfactorily the
whole of these questions. Some of them are al
ready in process of solution and, for the rest who
can tell to what extent mind is destined TO achieve
fresh triumphs over matter? Various efforts have
been made, and with a certain amount of success.
so to perfect the steam plough to substitute the
power of the latter for that of horses. Thus far
however opinion has been very much divided with
respect to the merits of the numerous machines
that have been invented for this especial purpose
In some instances they have been found to work
well, and economically, and to be easily managed,
guided and controlled; but none of the machines
that were fairly tested were found entirely free of
defects. FAUKE's steam plough, an American in
vention, approximates the nearest to a success of
any machine of the kind that has been tried either
in this country or in England; and the compare
lively few faults it displayed when practical
operation, are said to be such as easily admit
of being remedied. But the far more important
problem, which it is confidently stated has been
solved within week or two past, is that which
relates to steam propulsion on common roads
Years ago. when a committee of the English House
of Commons reported decidedly in favour of the
use of the locomotive upon public roads, GEORGE
STEPHENSON, the father of Railway Engineering
and the highest authority that could be appealed
to on the subject, ridicued the idea The council
of the Institute of Civil Engineers, however,
thought differently. They conceived that it was
possible to suppant the locomotive as combined
with the rail; but STEPHENSON argued that they
could never be advantageously separated. ''Were
mot" said he, ''the wheel and rail- man and
'wife ?" In spite however of the ad-
verse opinion of that able and thoroughly practi-
cal machinist, numbers of ingenious men have en-
deavored by various contrivances, to overcome
the difficulties which were known to stand in the
way; but the means resorted to were, for the most
part of an exceedingly clumsy nature, and the
best of the machines constructed, were not only