7 lo 



I'he National Geographic Magazine 



Reindeer Carrying U. S. Mail, Alaska. Photo from Wm 

 Hamilton, Bureau of Education 



country in which no roads exist ; but 

 that art has at last been attained. The 

 introduction of the bicycle brought the 

 rubber tire, and the application of the 

 rubber tire brought a self-propelled ve- 

 hicle which could be operated on country 

 roads — the automobile. Then came the 

 development of the freight motor, which 

 would carry heavy loads of merchandise 

 over the ordinary highways and even over 

 sections where no roads exist, and today 

 thousands of horseless vehicles are mov- 

 ing hundreds of thousands of tons of 

 merchandise over roads of a type which 

 can be supplied everywhere, in the tropics 

 or the orient, as well as in the temperate 

 zone or the Occident. 



AUTO TRUCKS 



The possibility and practicability of 

 applying the self-propelling vehicle to 

 the transportation of merchandise and 

 people in deserts, in the tropics, and the 

 orient has already suggested itself, and 

 the experiments made have already as- 

 sured success. 



In the deserts of New Mexico and 

 Arizona motors are successfully carry- 

 ing freights in a temperature of from 

 120° to 140° in the sun, where, owing to 



the extreme heat, horses 

 or mules can only be 

 jsed at night. In Nevada 

 a single motor truck 

 is now performing the 

 work of 30 horses, carry- 

 ing freight over 100 

 miles of mountain roads. 

 In California a train of 

 motor cars is carrying 

 over dirt roads in the 

 mountain regions as 

 much ore at each trip as 

 would require 200 pack 

 horses for its transpor- 

 tation. In Porto Rico a 

 line of three motor 

 vehicles, established to 

 carry passengers and 

 mails, performs the 

 work for which more 

 than a score of vehicles 

 and over 100 horses had been rec[uired. 

 Numbers of American motor vehicles 

 for carrying heavy loads have been put 

 on the roads of Cuba and Santo Domingo 

 with success, and more are being ordered. 

 In Honduras motor trucks are convey- 

 ing minerals to the seaboard from the 

 mines 100 miles inland, a single motor 

 performing in one day as much work as 

 could be performed by 100 mules in the 

 same time. 



In South America the horseless ve- 

 hicle is carrying passengers and freights 

 to the inland cities over roads where 

 only the donkey was utilized, and doing 

 so at an enormous saving of time and 

 expense. 



In Egypt the freight and passenger 

 motor is beginning to take the place of 

 the camel : hundreds of horseless ve- 

 hicles are in operation, some of them over 

 long stretches of desert, and roads are 

 being constructed through the desert, on 

 which the product of certain mines will 

 be brought to market. In Turkey motor 

 cars are making regular trips over covm- 

 try roads, carrying both freight and pas- 

 sengers. In India motor cars are being 

 imported at the rate of nearly two mil- 

 lion dollars' worth per annum, and put 



