180 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



, iu^vh. 



vehicle. They use, all the year round, a sledge made 

 of bent saplings fastened with wooden pins and raw- 

 hide thongs. 



The invention of the solid disk-wheel was a stroke 

 of genius which should have immortalized the name 

 of its author, and yet history records neither that 

 nor his nationality. It is certain, however, that he 

 lived thousands of years before the Christian era. 

 The disk-wheel being in use, ingenious men gradu- 

 ally punched holes in it to reduce the weight, until at 

 last they arrived at the modern spoked wheel. Cen- 

 turies more elapsed before anything that can be dig- 

 nified with the name of carriage was built. It was 

 about the beginning of the thirteenth century that 

 carriages were first used by the nobility in England ; 

 and the roads were so bad and the vehicles so heavy 

 that they were of little service until toward the end 

 of the sixteenth century. A contemporary account 

 of the city of London, written in 1550, speaks of the 

 streets as being even then "very foul, full of pits 

 and sloughs, very perilous and noxious." Fifty years 

 later, coaches had become so numerous that a bill was 

 introduced in Parliament to restrain their use, one 

 argument in its favor being that the watermen were 

 losing custom because people travelled by the road 

 instead of by river. This bill was rejected, but in 

 1660 Parliament reduced the number of coaches in 

 London from two thousand to four hundred. About 

 the same time, the present custom of driving for 

 pleasure and for show in Hyde Park was established. 



But until the end of the seventeenth century 

 coaches and chariots must have afforded very rough 

 riding ; for springs were not invented till about 1665, 



