The first of all cycles--if it can be dignified by such a name--made it début in 1808 in Paris. It was called a "hobby-horse" and consisted of two wheels placed one behind the other, and connected by a bar on which was a small saddle. The rider kept his feet on the ground, and when he came to a hill raised them and let the machine carry him down. At corners, however, he had to lift up the hobby-horse and turn it round. The dandy-horse, which had a movable front wheel, came next, and then there was a long succession of strange inventions, many of which hailed from America. One of these consisted of a large rocking-horse mounted on two wheels, and another had one very large wheel in which the rider sat. Some of these machines were propelled with the feet, others with the hands. Croft's invention was punted along by two long poles in the hands of the rider, and Mey's machine had a large front wheel in which a dog ran round like a squirrel in a cage. While experiments were being made with these extraordinary contrivances, more practical bicycles were already in use. They were called velocipedes, or bone-shakers, and very wonderful they were thought to be, although to our modern eyes the high bicycle of thirty years ago with its large front wheel on which the rider was perched and small back wheel, seems almost as curious as the quaint hobby-horse of earlier times. [Illustration: EARLY CYCLE.] The present form of bicycle was first made towards the end of the last century, after the invention of pneumatic tyres, but motor-cycles are now beginning to take its place, and we are all familiar with these wonderful little vehicles, many of which have a side-car for an extra passenger, and are able to travel at the rate of thirty, forty, or even fifty miles an hour. [Illustration: EARLY MOTOR-CAR.] From cycles we go to motor-cars, and now when the roads are thronged with these swift conveyances it is strange to think that for a long time "horseless carriages" were considered an impossibility and spoken of with jeering incredulity. More than a hundred years ago, however, a Frenchman invented a steam carriage which could travel at the rate of two miles an hour, and during the next half-century other vehicles of the sort were patented besides several very curious mechanical carriages. A picture and description of one of these appears in a magazine of the time, and we see that it was a large carriage with four wheels. One man sits in front, holding what are apparently quite useless reins, while a second man, standing behind in a kind of box, works a machine with his feet and so propels the heavy conveyance along. Another and an even more extraordinary-looking carriage was invented by a Mr. Boller in 1804. It was propelled by a very complicated arrangement of large and small cog-wheels.