DRAINING AND CULTIVATING LAND. 
generating or communicating motive power ; 
this carriage is mounted on a series of wheels, 
w'hich conduct an endless flexible floor rail- 
road or way, within and upon which the 
carriage travels. 
The endless flexible floor, rail-road, or 
way, affords an extremely broad and ex- 
tended surface, for the purpose of sustain- 
ing a carriage of great weight upon soft, 
swampy, boggy, or unstable land. 
Secondly, in place of the series of wheels 
and broad flexible endless floor, rail-road, 
or way, I substitute, in certain cases, 
rollers or drums, presenting considerable 
surfaces to the ground ; I employ carriages 
mounted on such broad rollers or drums on 
lands or soils which naturally possess or 
have acquired sufficient solidity to sustain 
their weight. 
Thirdly, I modify thecarriageby mounting 
it upon wheels suitable for travelling on 
land of a sufficiently firm and compact 
nature, in order to simplify the application 
of the machinery and apparatus to the 
culture of such soils. 
Fourthly, I employ auxiliary carriages, 
which I place on each side of the principal 
carriage, at a distance from and parallel 
therewith, and by means of ropes, bands, 
chains, or other media of traction, issuing 
from and actuated by the machinery of the 
principal carriage ; and passing round a 
wheel, pulley, or barrel, on the auxiliary 
carriages, I drag the ploughs or other agri- 
cultural implements to and fro between the 
said principal carriage and auxiliary car- 
riages at right angles, or at any other con- 
venient angles, to the line of progress of the 
principal carriage. By these means, a wide 
extent of land is brought under operation 
by my machinery and apparatus. 
These auxiliary carriages are mounted on 
wheels, rollers, drums, or flexible flooi’s, 
rail-roads, or ways, similar to those provided 
for the principal carriage, and suitable to 
various soils, by which means they are ca- 
pable of being made to advance or retro- 
grade as circumstances may requrie. 
Upon the platform of the principal car- 
riage described under the first, second, and 
third heads, I fix a boiler and the several 
parts of a steam-engine or other actuating 
machinery, which, through the agency of 
wheels and suitable gearing, I employ for 
the purpose of giving locomotion to the 
carriage in its longitudinal direction, and 
also for driving the drums or barrels, that 
work the track ropes, bands, or chains, 
which draw the ploughs or other implements 
to and fro between the principal carriage 
and the auxiliary carriage. 
59i> 
In the accompanying drawings, see Plate 
5, the same letters are used to denote 
similar parts in all the figures. Fig. 1, is a 
plan or horizontal view of the skeleton or 
frame of the principal carriage, showing- 
twelve large wheels, a, flf, a, and also twenty- 
four wheels, b, b, b, of smaller diameter, 
supporting the carriage. These wheels are 
fixed upon shafts lying transversely to the 
length of the carriage, the shafts of the 
larger wheels being mounted on pedestals 
standing upon the upper beams or timbers, 
of which the framing of the carriage is con- 
structed, and those of the smaller wheels 
turning in pedestals fixed on the lower 
beams of the framing. 
Round the six wheels a, a, a, and under 
the twelve smaller wheels b, b, b, on each 
side of the carriage, an endless flexible floor 
is extended, the upper part being removed 
in this figure the better to show the parts ; 
the w'eight of the upper part of these floors 
being sustained in the middle by wheels 
placed at suitable distances, to allow the iron 
plates of the endless floor, hereinafter de- 
scribed, to rest upon and pass over them, as 
shown in the side elevation of the locomo- 
tive engine at fig. 3, and which wheels are 
supported from the platform of the carriage. 
This endless flexible floor e, c, c, I pro- 
pose to make of painted or tarred sailcloth, 
which is stretched transversely by the bars 
of wood d, d, bolted at intervals to endless 
strips of sheet iron e, e, upon which strips 
or bands of iron the wheels run. 
The heads of the bolts by which the 
stretchers are connected with the iron bands 
(excepting those which would come in 
contact with the teeth of the spire wheels 
m, and n,) are made so long as to project 
inwards about two inches ; the space 
between the heads of each pair of bolts is 
somewhat greater than the width of the 
rims of the wheels, and the insides of the 
heads are bevelled in order to allow the 
wheels to enter more freely between them. 
Thus the bolts serve not only to unite the 
several parts of the flexible floors, (that is 
to say) the endless iron bands and trans- 
verse wood stretchers with the sailcloth 
held firmly between them, but also to keep 
the iron bands in the tracks of the wheels. 
In some cases I propose to dispense with 
the sailcloth, and in lieu thereof to use a 
greater number of wooden stretchers, placed 
as near to each other as may be necessary, 
in order to bear the weight of the carriage, 
and prevent its sinking too deeply into the 
land or soil. The construction of the endless 
flexible floor is represented in several of the 
annexed figures. 
