48 Automobiles or Horuless Carriages. 



illustrate its working. In concluding his remarks the lecturer 

 pointed out that the tendency for people to crowd into towns 

 would be relieved by the cheaper means of transit that would 

 allow them easy access to town while living in the country ; 

 that the advent of cheap power in small portions might lead to 

 the re-establishment of some " cottage industries," which had 

 been concentrated into factories, because power can only be had 

 cheaply in large engines. The application of motors to waggons 

 will enable producers of all kinds to send products to markets 

 cheaply and quickly. Each man may thus have his own light 

 railway wherever there is an ordinary road. The benefit to 

 our fisheries and to farmers at distant points is obvious. Oil 

 motors would no doubt also be applied to agricultural machinery, 

 to navigation, and would make aeriel navigation possible, if 

 not probable. For tramway purposes there were great 

 possibilities, and the lecturer ventured to say that our own city 

 was possibly somewhat behind the times in adopting a system 

 which, although admittedly preferable to horse traction, might, 

 in the rapid march of invention to-day, almost be called 

 antiquated already. The attention of so many engineers was 

 now directed to small and powerful motors that one need not 

 be surprised to see in a year or two motors that could be put 

 into our present cars with very little alteration of the car, with 

 no alteration of the track, with no encumbrance on the street, 

 with no extensive outlay on a central power station and electric 

 conductors, and with the assurance that we could feel our way 

 by trying one car at a time, and if unsuitable abandon or alter 

 it without incurring any important outlay of capital to begin 

 with. 



At the close of the lecture, 



Mr. George Andrews moved the following resolution : — 

 " That this meeting approve of the proposed modification of the 

 Locomotive Acts so as to promote the use of mechanically 

 propelled carriages on public roads, subject to suitable provisions 

 for the safety and convenience of the public." Such an 

 amendment of the Acts as the resolution approved was, he 



