40 AXXUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



case of difficulty of this nature, although it run for a considerable part of 

 several days in crowded streets. 



Mr. Joseph Battin, of Newark, N. J., has also recently built a steam car- 

 riage on a different plan, which he has run successfully on several short trips. 

 The performance is such as to corroborate the view that steam may be used 

 with advantage, even on a small scale. 



It is known to most well informed persons that there were about seventy 

 steam carriages built in England between 1827 and 1840, many of which 

 were reported to have attained speeds of twenty to thirty miles per hour with 

 full loads, and to have worked more economically than horses, and to have 

 been free from the objections attributed to them by popular rumor, such as 

 that they would make smoke, throw out sparks and dust, frighten horses, 

 slip their wheels, and be unable to steer well and stop quickly. 



In reply to all reports of these favorable performances, from 1831 down to 

 this day, the question has been asked : " How happens it, if these reports be 

 true, that capitalists or practical engineers have not brought the invention 

 into common use ? }i It seems on all hands to have been inferred, from the 

 fact it has not come into use, that the invention is incapable of competing 

 with horse-power, in point of economy, or that it is dangerous or otherwise 

 objectionable. 



To this question, Mr. John Fazey, author of a well known Treatise on 

 the Steam Engine, in his testimony before a committee of the House of 

 Commons on steam carriages, replied that the protection by patents was in- 

 sufficient to induce business men to incur the expenses that attend the intro- 

 duction of a new invention. The first machines always cost more, and gen- 

 erally are far less efficient than those built after there has been time to effect 

 the details and proportions, and methodize and cheapen the construction ; 

 and unless it is tolerably sure that the invention will not lie open to compe- 

 tition, there is no inducement to incur the certainty of extraordinary expense 

 in the outset, even if there were no apprehension whatever that the enterprise 

 mi-ht fail from defects of the invention. There were at that time and soon 



O 



after, six different plans, nearly equal in merit, which had no patentable fea- 

 tures but their boilers ; and the proprietors of these plans were in competition, 

 and some of them were hostile to each other, and disputed in public print, 

 and even opposed each other in applications to Parliament ; these proceed- 

 ings indicated that there would be such competition as Avould prevent capi- 

 talists from obtaining high profits, however useful the invention might prove 

 to be ; and it was observed that after the coming up of these competing plans, 

 there was little capital subscribed, although immediately after the first suc- 

 cessful demonstration by Gurncy, abundance of capital Avas subscribed, on 

 condition that Parliament should sanction the enterprise, by granting char- 

 ters and repealing Prohibitory Toll Acts. 



In 1831 Gurney and his supporters petitioned for the abatement of tolls, 

 which were from two to thirteen times higher on steamers than on horse 

 coaches of equal capacity. The Commons appointed a select committee to 

 examine into the merits of the invention or the obstacles in its way ; which 

 committee, after receiving the testimony of several eminent engineers, besides 



