Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-11-27

to affect the bite OF the India-rubber
tyres. The road was so slippery from the
frost that horses had the greatest difficulty
in keeping on their legs, but no difficulty
was found in going over the glazed surface
with the India-rubber wheels. India-rub-
Der does not slip even on ice, as may be
easily ascertained by trying to slide in
pair Of Indiarubber goloshes. aA w.
Anumber of trials have just been COM
pleted with powerful road steamer which
has been constructed for hauling wagons
loaded with coffee over the billy roads in
the island of Ceylon. This road steamer
has two cylinders, each 71a-inch diameter
by 10.inch stroke, and a vertical "pot"
boiler 8 feet diameter by ~ feet high.
The engine is arranged by means of spur
gearing to make either six or fifteen reyo-
lutions, as may be desired, for each revolu-
ton of the driving wheels. This road
steamer weighs, with water and coal for
two hours work, about 81 tons, 1t was
intended to haul twelve tons gross weight
up gradients of one in sixteen. 1t was
found on trial that it was capable of doing
great deal more than the stipulated
amount of work. It was first tested by
going up very crooked and steep street
in Edinburgh, viz, Cockburn street, with
wagon in tow weighing 2234 tons. This
street rises with gradient in some places
of one in eight, but the road steamer went
up with the greatest ease. @ aat f.
The next trial was of q very severe
kind. Four heavy wagons, constructed
to carry 81 tons of Goals each, were at
tached to the road steamer. Each wagon
weighed when empty 224 tons. With this
train in tow the new steamer ran from
Leith to New Battle collieries, q distance
of about eleven miles. The wagons were
then loaded with 81 tons of Goals each,
and the road steamer drew the whole four
from New Battle to Leith over roads with
gradients rising one in sixteen in several
places. The total weight of Goals was
twenty-one tons; if to this the weight of
the four wagons is added it makes gross
weight of thirty-two tons, and including
the weight of the road steamer the weight
of the whole train was upwards OF forty
tons. With this train of 80 #. long no diff
f1culty was found in passing through the
most crowded streets of Edinburgh and
Leith in the middle of the day and in the
midst of great stream of ordinary traffic.
The india rubber tyres are durable be-
yond all conception, and they are not in
the least affected by either heat, cold, or
moisture.
In commenting on this new road steamer
the Western Railroad Gazette says:
When we recall the number OF years
which nave elapsed since the first applica-
ton Of the power Of steam, or even since
its first application to locomotion, it seems
strange that it has not hitherto been made
more generally available. We are still
dependent almost entirely upon draught
animals, which eat grain and hay whether
Il sH1a f0 ,a1O oh Ct1r
farms, to reap our fields, to move and
operate nearly all farm machinery, and to
transport the products Of the farm to their
primary market We are dependent upon
them, too, for the transportation of all
private carriages, and many merchant
feeds horse year for the sake of SER
vice which does not occupy sixty hours.
We are, in fact, compelled to use an engine
which requires fuel to keep tin existence
as well as to work it.
Hitherto all engines intended for COM
mon roads or fields have failed because OF
the difficulty of adapting a solid, round
wheel to a. varying surface of various ma
terials. When the road was rough and
rocky the wheels would slip, and conse-
quently the vehicle would not move On
any road of ordinary roughness the force
of the engine seemed so divided between
tearing the wheels to pieces and tearing
the road to pieces that very little
was left to move the load. The problem
which seemed simple after the locomotive
was made successful has yet baffied the
inventive genius of the age.
The machine here described certainly
gives better promise than any OF its pre-
decessors. Indeed, it seems probable that
it is the long sought solution OF the prob
lem +; to find an engine which can be moved
over any surface practicable for horses, and
which can be economically applied to small
loads as well as to large ones III it
is what the scientific men who have ex-
amined it and reported upon it believe it
to be, it may make a revolution in loco
motion and in those mechanical operations
which are accompanied by locomotion-
such as ploughing, moving, and the like
which will equal in Importance the
change produced by the steamboat and
the railroad. ektt
Nowhere in the world will such an in
vention be more valuable, and nowhere in
the world can such an invention be more
easily employed than on the prairies of
the Northwest Such machinery is eco
nomically used where the grades are easy
and the angles to be turned few-that IS,
on large and level fields. What should
prevent the road steamer which Professor
Archer describes from drawing behind it
a gang of ploughs, turning up prairie soil
for a breadth of six or eight feet, and in
one day completing fifteen or twenty
acres With the help of two network
which would require eight or ten men and
at least twice as many horses as We work
now? Why, too, should we not have min
allure engines Of one, two or three horse
power, for the propulsion of private gar
riages-horses which would need no food
except pint or two of petroleum, and
that only at the time of the drive?
The economy Of fuel over food cannot
be too strongly insisted upon. With liy-
ing organisms we are compelled to pro-
duce power daily whether we use it
or not. Every farmer who has a
stable full of horses "eating their
heads of" all winter can appreciate this.
1t is to be hoped that some Of our large
farmers viii procure one Of these engines
and thoroughly test it. Both by saving
the labor of horses and the labor of men
they may be of the greatest value in the
Northwest. If fully successful they would
give an impulse to production which
would in short time make fruitful fields
IF our boundless prairies and FL the
world with plenty.
5 IL Sickness Ayoidabin