2 BULLETIN 198, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



vacations are readily enjoyed, and emergencies are quickly met, all 

 with a machine that two generations ago was in its infancy. 



True, there were huge self-propelled road vehicles many generations 

 earlier, but they were clumsy steam vehicles which contributed little 

 to the development of the light-weight, flexible, and more practical 

 gasoline-engined vehicles that appeared in the last decades of the 

 nineteenth century both here and abroad. 



In addition, many unusual and less practical vehicles powered by 

 sails, clockwork, pedals, treadmills, and various forms of lumian and 

 animal power had been conceived, if not actually constructed. The ma- 

 jority of these probably were never built, but extant drawings of them 

 remind us of the ingenuity of their designers. One of them was the 

 jet-propelled steam vehicle suggested by Sir Isaac Newton toward the 

 end of the seventeenth century. 



One of the first known self-propelled road vehicles was constructed 

 in 1769 by the French military engineer Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. 

 Capable of carrying four passengers, it could attain a speed of about 

 2 miles an hour with a steam supply lasting a little over 10 minutes. 

 Although hardly practical, it proved that the idea of self-propulsion 

 by steam could be developed and led to the construction in 1770 by 

 Brezin, after Cugnot's design, of another vehicle (pi. 1, a) intended 

 for the transportation of artillery. It is preserved in the Conserva- 

 toire National des Arts et Metiers at Paris. Supported on three wheels, 

 the machine is powered by a steam engine comprising two vertical, 

 single-acting cylinders attached to the single front wheel. The front 

 wheel is steered, the engine and copper boiler turning with it. This 

 self-propelled vehicle is one of the oldest known to exist today. 



Among the many early steam-propelled conveyances constructed in 

 England were those of William INIurdock, Richard Trevithick, Sir 

 Goldsworthy Gurney, Sir Charles Dance, Walter Hancock, William 

 Church, and Squire and Maceroni. Including small operating models, 

 as well as full-sized vehicles used to transport passengers and freight 

 over the highways, they were built in the period from 1786 to 1838. 

 Some had three wheels, while others had four or six, and some of 

 Gurney's used mechanically operated legs for propulsion, with wheels 

 for support. 



By 1786 Murdock had built a small 3-wheeled model, a copy of 

 which is now in the Science Museum at South Kensington, and there is 

 good evidence that he constructed other models. However, under 

 pressure from his employers, Boulton and Watt, he ultimately aban- 

 doned his experiments. 



Trevithick's full-sized steamers operated on the roads of Camborne 

 in Cornwall in 1801 and on the streets of London in 1803. They were 

 antedated by a small 3-wheeled model built about 1797, also in the 

 Science Museum. 



