_The Automobile._--Gliding silently along our city streets without the customary accompaniment of the clatter of the horse’s hoofs, the automobile suggests to the average observer a very recent invention. This is, however, not the case. The automobile is older even than the locomotive, and is, in fact, the early model from which the rail locomotive was evolved. As early as 1680 Sir Isaac Newton proposed a steam carriage in which the propelling power was the reactionary discharge of a rearwardly directed jet of steam. Cugnot, in 1769, built a steam carriage, which is still preserved in the museum of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Hornblower also in the same year devised a steam carriage. Watt’s patents of 1769 and 1784 contemplated the application of his steam engines to carriages running on land. Symington in 1770, and Murdoch in 1784, built experimental models. In 1787 Oliver Evans obtained a patent in Maryland for the exclusive right to make steam road wagons. Nathan Read in 1790 also patented and built a steam carriage. Of these, Cugnot represents the pioneer in the heavier forms of self-propelled vehicles, but the steam carriage which best deserves to be regarded as the prototype of the modern passenger automobile is that of Trevithick, in England, who may also be considered as the father of the locomotive. On Christmas eve, 1801, this steam carriage made its experimental trip along the high road carrying seven or eight passengers. The next day the party, with Trevithick in charge of the engine, visited Tehidy House, the home of Lord Dunstanville. They met with an accident, however, and the carriage turned over. It was placed under shelter, and while the party were at the hotel regaling themselves with roast goose and popular drinks, the water in the engine boiled away, the iron became red hot, and nothing combustible was left either of the carriage or the building in which it was sheltered. On March 24, 1802, Trevithick and Vivian obtained a British patent, No. 2,599, on this device, and another carriage was built, and in the spring of 1803 started a run from Camborne to Redruth, but it stuck in the mud. It was popularly known as Capt. Trevithick’s “Puffing Devil.” It was subsequently reconstructed in London and run upon the streets of that city. Fig. 185 presents an illustration of the first steam automobile. The cylinders and pistons were enclosed within the fire box in the rear. Clutches (called striking boxes) on the axle of the front gear wheel allowed either running wheel to move independently of the other in turning. A pair of small front steering wheels was arranged to turn about a vertical axis and was manipulated by a handle bar. A brake was provided for in the specification, as were also variable gears for changing speed, and an automatic blower for the fire. The carriage had an elevated coach body mounted on springs, and the running wheels were