In the prosaic work of conveying stores, motor-tractors with lorries are fast becoming integral parts of our complicated war-system, and the report of the trials held at Aldershot in December, 1901, is decidedly in favour of their employment on a large scale. The tests were severe, and included two days’ running (with full loads) of thirty miles a day, and a march of 197 miles (also with full loads) in six consecutive, days on roads both hard and soft, and even over boggy ground, the gradients being various, and in places very stiff. The first prize was awarded to the Thorneycroft Steam Waggon Company, but although the committee believed that these steam lorries were serviceable and useful for the present, they were much struck with the great possibilities of machines burning heavy oil. Their observations were as follows:-- “Compared with horse-draught, these trials have shown that self-propelled lorries can transport five tons of stores at about six miles an hour over very considerable distances on hilly, average English roads under winter conditions. The load transported by each single lorry (five tons) if carried in horse-waggons of service pattern would overload three G.S. waggons, requiring twelve draught horses, besides riding horses, whose pace would not ordinarily exceed three miles an hour. Moreover, the marching of 197 miles in six consecutive days would not have been accomplished by horses even at that speed without the assistance of spare horses.” To this report appeared the following appendix of considerable importance:-- “The committee, in carrying out the tests, travelled in motor-cars, and as a result of their experience they remark, ‘The committee desire to bring to special notice the incidental demonstration afforded by these trials of the great possibilities for staff work, and for work in connection with the command of long transport trains, of the motor-car. No vehicles drawn by horses could have possibly covered the distances or kept up the speeds required; portions of the roads, sometimes miles in length, had to be traversed and retraversed several times, and at speeds beyond the capabilities of horse-flesh. Riding horses would have been knocked up to an extent necessitating large relays. The staff officer, moreover, instead of being fatigued, is always comparatively fresh at the end of the day.’” No wonder that the Army, from the Commander-in-Chief downwards, is quickly becoming devoted to motoring. The quantity of work that can be got through by means of the automobile is a revelation to those who have been used to travelling by means of horses. [Illustration: FIG. 30. THE “HERCULES” TRACTION ENGINE, AS USED DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR _By permission of_ _Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., London_]