THE GROWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



259 



47. In 1765 that singular genius, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, whose 

 celebrity was acquired by speculations in poetry and philosophy as 

 well as in medicine, urged Matthew Boulton (subsequently Watt's 

 partner, and just then corresponding with our own Franklin in relation 

 to the use of steam-power), to construct a steam-carriage, or "fiery 

 chariot," as he poetically styled it, and of which he sketched a set of 

 plans. 



A young man, named Edgeworth, became interested in the scheme, 

 and in 1768 published a paper which had secured for him a gold 

 medal from the Society of Arts. In this paper he proposed railroads 

 on which the carriages were to be drawn by horses, or by ropes from 

 steam-winding engines. 



Fig. 25. Cugnot's Steam-Carriage, 1770. 



48. These were merely promising schemes, however. The first 

 actual experiment was made, as is supposed, by a French army officer, 

 Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, who in 1769 built a steam-carriage (Fig. 25), 

 which was set at work in presence of the French Minister of War, 

 the Duke de Choiseul. The funds required by him were furnished by 

 the Comte de Saxe. Encouraged by the partial success of the first 

 locomotive, Cugnot, in 1770, constructed a 

 second which is still preserved in the Con- 

 servatoire des Arts et Metiers, Paris. This 

 more powerful carriage (Fig. 25) was fitted 

 with two non-condensing single-acting cylin- 

 ders, thirteen inches in diameter. Although 

 the experiment seems to have been successful, 

 there appears to have been nothing more done 

 with it. 



An American of considerable distinction, 

 NathanRead, patented a steam-carriage, 17S0, 1 IP 

 of the form seen in Fig. 26, which is copied 

 from his patent. The cylinders F F lie 

 under the body of the carriage: the pistons Fig. 26. Read's Steam- 



7-t t-. -1 -i -r, -* 1 . , , , 1 Carriage, 1790. 



L I* drive racks U 6r, which turn the wheels 



A K. The steering-wheel I moves the large wheels A IT, which lat- 



1 Nathan Read and his Steam-En<rine." New York : 



Hurd & Houghton, 1870. 



