FROM CART TO AUTOMOBILE 



doch failed as signally as had that of Cugnot to gain 

 general recognition. But it is quite possible that a 

 knowledge of the device had come to the attention of 

 another Englishman, Richard Trevithick by name, who 

 was at once a practical experimenter of great skill and 

 a man of fertile imagination. Trevithick, himself the 

 inventor of a high-pressure steam engine, adjusted his 

 engine to a large road vehicle, and in the year 1804 

 exhibited this automobile on the roads of Cornwall, 

 and subsequently in London, where it would probably 

 have made its way had not the inventor been an ex- 

 tremely erratic genius, who presently shut up his coach 

 and turned his attention to another form of vehicle. 

 This, it will be observed, was full twenty-five years 

 before that memorable date on which Stephenson 

 launched his famous Rocket. Nothing came of Trevi- 

 thick's experiment at the moment, beyond the demon- 

 stration of a principle — which indeed was much; but 

 it was not long before various other inventors took up 

 the idea, and as early as 1824 a number of automobiles, 

 some of them weighing as much as three or four tons, 

 were in successful operation on the highways of Eng- 

 land. Some of these even gave regular passenger 

 service, and attained the unprecedented speed of twelve 

 or fourteen miles an hour. All this, it will be observed, 

 was before the first locomotive running on rails had 

 attracted any attention. Stephenson had indeed begun 

 his experiments, but up to this time they had been con- 

 fined exclusively to tramways in connection with 

 collieries. 

 In the year 1829 Stephenson made his famous 



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