74 



SAILING WAGGONS. 



CHAP. VI. 



seldom wanting near the sea) one man and a small sail 

 do the work of twenty." l 



This method of impelling coal-waggons, however, 

 could not have come into general use, as it was lost 

 sight of for more than a century, when it was again 

 proposed as a new method of transit by Eichard Lovell 

 Edgworth, with the addition of a portable railway, 2 

 since revived in Boy dell's patent. But although Mr. 

 Edgworth devoted himself to the subject for many 

 years, he failed in securing the adoption of his sailing 

 carriage. 3 He made numerous experiments with his 

 machines on Hare Hatch Common, but they were aban- 

 doned in consequence of the dangerous results which 

 threatened to attend them. It is indeed quite clear that 

 a power so uncertain as wind could never be relied on 

 for ordinary traffic, and Mr. Edgworth' s project was 

 consequently left to repose in the limbo of the Patent 

 Office, with thousands of other equally useless though 

 ingenious contrivances. 



A much more favourite scheme was the application 

 of steam power for the purpose of carriage traction. 

 Savery, the inventor of the working steam-engine, was 

 the first to propose its employment to propel vehicles 

 along common roads; and in 1759 Dr. Robison, then a 

 young man studying at Glasgow College, threw out the 

 same idea to his friend James Watt ; but the scheme 



1 The writer adds, "I believe he 

 (Sir Humphrey Mackworth) is the 

 first gentleman in this part of the 

 world that hath set up sailing-engines 

 on land, driven by the wind ; not for 

 any curiosity, or vain applause, but 

 for real profit, whereby he could not 

 fail of Bishop Melkin's blessing on his 

 undertakings, in case he were in a 

 capacity to bestow it." 'An Essay 

 on the Value of the Mines late of Sir 

 Carberry Price.' By William Waller, 

 Gent., Steward of the said Mines. 

 London, 1698. 



2 Specification of patent, No. 953. 



3 Mr. Edgworth says in his ' Me- 

 moirs,' that he devoted himself to im- 

 proving his scheme for a period of not 

 less than forty years, during which he 

 made above a hundred working models 

 in a great variety of forms; and he 

 adds, that he gained far more in 

 amusement than he lost by unsuc- 

 cessful labour. "Indeed," he says, 

 "the only mortification that affected 

 me was my discovery, many years 

 after I had taken out my patent, that 

 the rudiments of my whole scheme 

 Were mentioned in an obscure memoir 

 of the French Academy." 



