The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-08-04

q
when an observant fellow named Slavery
took a hint from the accidental condcu-
sation Of steam in an empty wine bottle
which he had thrown into the fire. Since
that time steam engines and not horses
have pumped water. Nearly 80 years la
ter. in 17S2, James Watt. another observer
who knew how to put his observations
to good use, found out how to make the
double acting steam engine. Since then
steam and not horse power has turned
the wheels Of the worlds factories. Near
ly forty years later, in 1872, George Sic
phenson built the first successful auto
mobile carriage, and straightway steam
began hauling goods and passengers, and
the horse. the freight wagon and the
stage coach have year by year come 10
be less and less in evidence.
As far back as 1926. more than two gen.
erations ago., and before the railroad To-
connective was an assured success, an En-
glishman named Quincy thought he had
solved the problem of the horseless car
rage In this he had the support of DR..
Lardner, then the most reliable authority
on steam engineering, who. in his book
issued early in the 30s, carried the idea
that Gurneys turnpike locomotives"
would very shortly be hauling stage
coaches up and down me post roads Of
England, to the great detriment, If not
the actual wiping out of many projected
railroad enterprises. Nor was Quincy the
only one who had the turnpike locomo-
tive on the market seven decades ago.
Lardner mentions a dozen such, though
he believed Gurney's the only practical
BILE one and printed picture of
it in his book 1t will be seen that Cur
ney proposed to build the locomotive sep
arate from the carriage though many Of
his competitors planned to combine loco
motive and carriage as do the inventors
Of to-day.
Some of the old inventions were *
ceedingly quaint "a notion having been
impressed upon their minds" says Lard
ner, that adhesion between the face OF
the wheel and the surface of the road
must necessarily be of very small amount
ard that in every practical case the wheels
thus driven would either slip altogether
and produce no advance of the carriage,
or that a considerable portion of the inn
pelling power would be lost by partial
slipping. 1t is singular" adds Lardnsr,
that it should never have occurred to
the many ingenious persons engaged in
such speculations to ascertain the truth
by experiment" but it did not, hence such
contrivances as "a pair of mechanical
legs and feet, which were made to walk
and propel in a manner somewhat resem-
bling the feet of an animal" were put IN
operation.
Lardner's sketch of this machine, which
suggests nothing so much as a great
grasshopper is reproduced here. 1t was
not practical of course, but it was almost
as successful as any of the later steam
road carriages has been.
So much for the early history of the
horseless carriage, which appears so far
to have been entirely overlooked.
Now, however the problem of dispens-
ing with horses on ordinary roads ap-
pears TO have been solved, though steam
is not the motive power Neither are tile
most successful horseless carriages Of to-
day operated by electricity, although
scores of inventors have burned the mid
night oil with great persistence in the
attempt to harness the mystic current TO
successful carriage populsion. Down 10
date petroleum products appear to have
been used with most success in operat-
ing road wagons. Steam carriages tha-
will go have been made. to be sure, and
so have electric ones, but both are lack
ing in the requisite lightness and fiexibil-
ity. Besides, the steam carriages are no.
they have to stop OCCASIONALLY for fresh
supplies of water and the noise of the
EXHAUST Is ulSdBreedDle.
Electrical carriages are more satisflc-
tory than those propelled by steam, but
they are much too heavy to be wieldy
and are subject to all the draw backs
that attend storage battery street cars,
being expensive easily deranged and en-.
tirely dependent upon proximity to charg-
ing stations for ability TO do continuous
work. The gravity of this drawback IS
apparent when it is understood that the
Distance limit Of the ~
storage battery carriage yet experimental
with, is from 80 to 100 miles, according to
grade and speed. At the end of such Il
run a halt must be made and new Bate
ries taken on or the ones in use recharg-
ed. at the loss of considerable time.
All these things may ultimately be over
come, Of course, and win be, the instant
some one invents a storage battery that
combines lightness with sufficient ca
pacity to make it safe to get more than
twenty-five miles away from a charging
station. Till then, however, electric mo-
tors in carriages, as in launches, viii be
at a disadvantage as compared with the
various forms of petroleum motors. This
seems to have been conclusively shown
by the horseless carriage races in France,
where the petroleum motors proved so
much superior in speed to the electric
ones, the winner making the round trip
of $50 miles a the remarkable high aver
age speed of sixteen miles an hour But
1t should be said for the electric carriages.
that they are vastly superior TO all others
in cleanliness and GOODNESS, and would be
far and away in the lead if these were the
only consideration.
So far Europe leads America immensely
with regard to horseless carriages, which
are rapidly coming into common use in
almost every city on the other side. es-
pecially Paris. On the streets of the
French capital, indeed, these vehicles
cause no moreacomment than did bicycles
a few years ago, and the rapidity of their
introduction appears to depend almost al
together upon the capacity of the factories
to turn them out. one of the greatest OBJ
stacles to their use here has been furnished
by the poor roadway Not only are our
country highways infinitely worse than
those of Europe, but the pavements of our
cities are so rough and uneven. as a rule
as to interfere very seriously with the
use of self-propelling vehicles.
Some months ago, an American. desir-
Gus OF introducing horseless carriages
on this side of the water, brought over
some twenty different vehicles of for
eign make and experimental with them
in the vicinity OF New York. In every in
stance, although the carriages expert
mented with had done excellent work
In Europe and could be made to 20 over