Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common RoadsWeeks, Lyman Horace
History
Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common Roads
Weeks, Lyman Horace
Automobiles -- History
An engineer, of Edinburgh, Scotland, T. Burtsall, in conjunction with J.
Hill, of London, got out, in 1824, a patent for flash or instantaneous
generation boilers. His aim was to make the metal of the boiler store heat
instead of a mass of water, and he accomplished this by heating the boiler
to anywhere from two hundred and fifty degrees to six hundred degrees
Fahrenheit, keeping the water in a separate vessel and pumping it into the
boiler as steam was required. A coach that he built to run with this
boiler weighed eight tons, and it was a failure, simply because the boiler
could not make steam fast enough.
T. W. PARKER
A working model of a light steam carriage was made by T. W. Parker, of
Illinois, in 1825. Three wheels supported the carriage, the two hind
wheels being eight feet in diameter. The double-cylinder engine was used.
GEORGE POCOCK
One of the most curious of the wind vehicle productions that held the
fancy of scientists to a slight extent in the early part of the nineteenth
century was the charvolant or kite carriage that was devised by George
Pocock in 1826, and built by Pocock and his partner, Colonel Viney. This
was a very light one-seated carriage, drawn by a string of kites harnessed
tandem. With a good wind these kites developed great power and it is said
that the carriage whirled along, even on heavy roads, at the rate of a
mile in three or even two and one-half minutes. Once Viney and Pocock made
the trip from Bristol to London, and they often ran their carriage around
Hyde Park and the suburbs of London. As the wind could not always be
depended upon the charvolant was provided with a rear platform, upon which
a pony was carried for emergencies.
SAMUEL BROWN
In 1826, Samuel Brown applied his gas-vacuum engine to the propulsion of a
carriage, which was effectively worked along the public roads in England.
It even ascended the very steep acclivity of Shooter's Hill, in Kent, to
the astonishment of numerous spectators. The expense of working this
machine was, however, said far to exceed that of steam, and this formed a
barrier to its introduction. Experiments with this engine for the
propulsion of vessels on canals or rivers were also made by the Canal Gas
Engine Company. Brown patented a locomotive for common roads in 1823.
JAMES NEVILLE
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