TPIE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



first person to construct such a vehicle was probably 

 the Frenchman, Cugnot, who manufactured a steam- 

 driven wagon, using the old Newcomen type of engine, 

 in the very year — by a curious coincidence — in which 

 James Watt took out his first patent for a perfected 

 steam engine; that is to say, in the year 1769. 



Cugnot 's automobile was a heavy four-wheeled affair 

 intended for military service. It actually progressed 

 along the road at the rate of three or four miles an 

 hour. But the problem of carrying fuel and water 

 had not been solved, and either for that reason or be- 

 cause the authorities in charge lacked imagination and 

 did not regard the device as offering advantages over 

 traction by horses, nothing came of Cugnot 's effort 

 except the scientific demonstration that the idea of a 

 self-propelled vehicle was not merely the dream of a 

 visionary. A second automobile truck of similar de- 

 sign, made by Cugnot a year or two later, may be seen 

 to this day in the Museum of Arts and Measures in 

 Paris. 



A few years later — namely in 1785 — an Englishman, 

 William Murdoch by name, whose interest in steam 

 engines is evidenced by the fact that he was in the em- 

 ploy of Bolton and Watt, manufactured a small tricycle 

 driven by a Watt engine. This vehicle, running under 

 its own power, developed a good degree of speed; 

 and had not Murdoch's employers forbidden him to 

 continue his experiments, the practical automobile 

 might perhaps have gained popularity an entire century 

 earlier than it did. 



As the case stands, however, the automobile of Mur- 



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