CHAP. VI. 



TREVITHICK'S STEAM-CARRIAGE. 



79 



chandise throughout the country." In the course of 

 the following year the same idea was taken up and 

 strongly advocated by Dr. James Anderson, of Edin- 

 burgh, in his 'Becreations of Agriculture.' He held 

 that if railways were laid along the existing turn- 

 pike roads, and worked by horse-power, the cost of 

 most articles of consumption would be diminished, 

 whilst all departments of human industry would be 

 greatly benefited. Mr. Edgworth, also, continued his 

 enthusiastic advocacy of railways, and urged their 

 general employment for the conveyance of passengers 

 as well as goods. " Stage-coaches," he said, " might be 

 made to go at six miles an hour, and post-chaises and 

 gentlemen's travelling carriages at eight both with 

 one horse ; and small stationary steam-engines, placed 

 from distance to distance, might be made, by means of 

 circulating chains, to draw the carriages, with a great 

 diminution of horse-labour and expense." 



While this discussion was going forward, Richard 

 Trevithick, a captain in a Cornish tin-mine, and a pupil 

 of William Murdock's influenced, no doubt, by the 

 successful action of the model engine which the latter 

 had constructed determined to build a steam-carriage 

 adapted for use on common roads as well as on rail- 

 ways. He took out a patent to secure the right of his 

 invention in the year 1802. . Andrew Vivian, his 

 cousin, joined with him in the patent 1 Yiviaii finding 

 the money, and Trevithick the brains. The steam-' 

 carriage built on this patent presented the appearance 

 of an ordinary stage-coach on four wheels. The engine 1 

 had one horizontal cylinder, which, together with thel 

 boiler and the furnace-box, was placed in the rear of; 





1 The patent was dated the 24th 

 March, 1802, and described as "A 

 grant unto Richard Trevithick and 

 Andrew Vivian, of the parish of Cran- 

 bourne, hi the county of Cornwall, 

 engineers and miners, for their in- 



vented methods of improving the con- 

 struction of steam-engines, and the 

 application thereof for driving car- 

 riages, and for other purposes." No. 

 of the patent 2599. 



