REFOilTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES OF THE AMERICAN 



INSTITUTE. 



REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON MR. J. K. FISHEr's STEAM 

 CARRIAGE FOR COMMON ROADS APPOINTED, JUNE TtH, 1855. 



The special committee appointed to examine Mr. Fisher's steam 

 carriage, respectfully report : 



That they have carefully examined his " steam carriage," con- 

 structed for travelling on common roads, and also various draw- 

 ings made by him, since the construction of the carriage, contain- 

 ing improvements thereon. 



The application of tlie steam engine for the purpose of locomo- 

 tion upon common or hard roads, is neither novel, nor of recent 

 origin. Almost cotemporaneous with the discovery of the steam 

 engine, we find scientific men turning their attention to its appli- 

 cation as a motor of vehicles over common roads. As early as 

 1758, we are told that the late Dr. Robinson, while yet a student 

 at Glasgow, conceived the possibility of propelling wheel carriages 

 by the agency of steam, and suggested the idea to his friend Watt, 

 who commenced the construction of a model contrivance for that 

 piu'pose, but for some reason abandoned it before completion. It 

 appears, however, that he never lost sight of the idea, for in 1784, 

 in his patent, he describes a " steam carriage" — he proposed that 

 the boiler shoiUd consist of wooden staves, hooped together like 

 a cask, having an iron sui'face within it, surrounded with water — 

 the reciprocating action of the piston was to be converted into a 

 rotary motion by the old sun and planet wheel, and the rotation 

 was to be communicated to the running wheels by toothed gear- 

 ing, with provision for varying the relative velocities of the pis- 

 ton — and the wheels, according to the varying resistances of the 

 road. These were mere ideas. Tlie first complete model was 

 constructed in 1763, by John Theophilus Cugnot, a native of Lor- 

 raine, and was exhibited by him to the Comte de Saxe. Cugnot, 

 having removed to Paris, constructed, under the patronage of the 



