It appears, then, that the idea of an automobile travelling on an ordinary highway preceded that of the locomotive railway. It was, indeed, by far the more natural idea of the two, since tramways were at that time but little used outside of collieries. And it seems scarcely open to doubt that the repressive legislation was directly responsible for deflecting the progress of mechanical invention away from what seemed the more natural direction of development. It is always hazardous in such a case to attempt to guess what might-have-been under different circumstances; but considering the practical results already achieved as early as 1824, one can scarcely avoid the conviction that had legislation favored, instead of opposing, the inventor, the automobile might have been developed in Great Britain as rapidly as railway traffic; in which event the middle of the nineteenth century would have seen the world at least as near the horseless age as we are in reality at the close of the first decade of the twentieth century. What this would have meant in its economic bearings on civilization during the past fifty years, the least imaginative reader can in some measure picture for himself. In opposition to this view it might be urged that the real progress of the automobile has taken place since 1885, when the Daimler oil engine was substituted for the steam engine in connection with motor vehicles. But in reply to this it must be remembered that the workable gas engine had been invented as early as 1860, and that the Otto engine, of which the Daimler is a modification, was patented as early as 1876. These developments, it will be noted, took place at just about the time when the new interest in the automobile had been aroused, as evidenced by the repressive British legislation just referred to. It can be but little in question that had the early interest in the British automobile been maintained, inventive genius would long since have provided a suitable motor. There was no incentive for the English inventor during those long years when the automobile was under legislative ban; and in the meantime the idea of the highway automobile seems not to have taken possession of other nations. When that idea did make its way, it was very soon put into tangible operation, as everybody knows. And the fact that England made no progress whatever in this line until the repressive laws were repealed in 1896, whereas France, Germany, and America had leaped far ahead in the meantime, is in itself demonstrative. Moreover, as regards the question of a motor for the automobile, it should not be forgotten that the steam-engine is by no means obsolete. The victories of Mr. Ross' machine at Ormonde in 1905, and of the Stanley steamer in 1906 (a mile in 28-1/5 seconds), show that steam is distinctly a factor, notwithstanding the popularity of the gasoline engine. The steam motor might have served an admirable purpose until such time as a better power had been developed.