664 On the Advantage of Employing 



respect ; but the people at large, always slow in all 

 countries to interest themselves in novelties which 

 have only their utility to recommend them, are still 

 very far from suspecting the great advantages which 

 must result in the end from this change in the con- 

 struction of wheels, when it is generally adopted for all 

 sorts of vehicles, as it can hardly fail to be sooner or 

 later in all countries where roads are well finished. 



As long as the roads were bad and the ruts deep, it 

 was impossible to use any wheels except those with 

 narrow felloes ; but, now that there are good roads 

 almost everywhere, one cannot long avoid the con- 

 viction that wheels with broad felloes are preferable to 

 others, especially when they are intended for use on a 

 paved road. 



If we watch carefully the wheel of a carriage which 

 is being drawn over a paved road, we shall see that it 

 is tossed about very much, slipping continually to the 

 right and left, falling into all the spaces between the 

 stones, and then striking roughly against the stone 

 immediately before it. These sharp blows, following 

 one another rapidly, give very disagreeable shocks to 

 the carriage, and strain the wheels so that they soon 

 wear out. They strain the carriage still more, and 

 affect the horses by giving them severe jerks, and 

 make the draught unequal and very toilsome. Nor 

 does the evil end here : the tires, although flat when 

 new, are soon rounded at their edges by this continual 

 slipping right and left, so that the wheels, if narrow, 

 become every day more inclined to slip ; the stones of 

 the pavement itself, in the course of time, become worn 

 and rounded ; the spaces between them become wider 

 and deeper; the wheels fall into these holes more 



