242 DRAUGHT AND HARNESS. 



carriages the fore wheels are made of considerably less 

 height than the hind ones, for the convenience of 

 turning, the room required being thereby considerably 

 lessened, therefore it is proposed to load the weaker 

 pair of wheels more heavily than the stronger ones. In 

 point of fact, however, the matter would be still worse 

 than this, for the fore wheels, whatever their relative 

 height may be, have always heavier work to do than 

 the hinder ones, for whom they crush obstacles and 

 Open smooth tracks planing the way, as it were, for 

 them. It is, however, altogether unnecessary to go into 

 theory here, as we have abundance of practical expe- 

 rience that this notion is altogether incorrect. In the 

 older systems of Artillery Gribeauval's, for instance, 

 which had 46-inch fore and 62-inch hind wheels it was 

 considered impracticable to put more than one-half the 

 load on the front axle that the hinder one carried. When, 

 however, the English Artillery, at the beginning of this 

 century, determined on carrying a much greater quantity 

 of ammunition on the limber than had been hitherto done, 

 the fore wheels were made of the same height as the hind 

 ones ; but even then, with the old smooth-bore guns, the 

 front wheels were not loaded equally with the hind ones. ::: 

 It is therefore a mistake to suppose that four-wheeled 

 vehicles should be loaded in the manner indicated ; and 

 if the 12-stone cad of a 'bus took as much out of the horses 

 as the 24 -stone driver, why then the breaksman of a 

 railway train of some forty waggons might be considered 

 equivalent to a battalion of the Grenadier Guards in the 

 front carriages, and a break would be almost unnecessary. 



* One of the defects of the modern systems is, that they dis- 

 arrange the entire balance of the guns and limbers, the gun itself 

 being lighter and the ammunition heavier. In this respect the 

 reverse of progress has been made. 



