EVOLUTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE. 411 



but as coal was used for fuel and the engines were of large capacity, 

 it is probable that the smoke, exhaust steam and noise of the machinery 

 were decidedly objectionable features. A line of these coaches was 

 put in commission in Glasgow in 1846, each one having a seating 

 capacity of twenty-six, six inside and twenty on the top. After several 

 months of successful operation, the line was withdrawn on account of 

 the opposition of the authorities and of the general public. 



These few examples of the early attempts to solve the problem 

 of mechanical propulsion of vehicles are sufficient to show that the 

 automobile is not entirely a creation of the progressive mind of the 

 latter part of the nineteenth century, but thai it engrossed the atten- 



iA. Dr. Church's steam Coach on iiii. K.hi 



tion of inventors more than one hundred and thirty years ago. The 

 success attained by the workers in this field at different periods was 

 directly in proportion to the degree to which the form of power used 

 had been perfected at the time. The first inventors attained but 

 slight success, owing to the fact that, in their time, the steam engine 

 was in a crude form, but as the construction of the latter improved, 

 so did that of the vehicles operated by it. 



Before the days of steam, the power of wind mills was utilized to 

 propel vehicles, and with such success that in the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries wind-propelled wagons or 'Charvolants,' as they were 

 -called, were very numerous upon the flat plains of the Netherlands. 



