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Motor-Propelled Vehicles 305 minutes. Then it again came to a stop, to resume its journey after another long drink. The citizens marvelled. To them it appeared to be uncanny, if not actually flying in the face of Provi- dence, to travel along the street in a carriage to which no horse was attached. But they remarked that the animal—they confidently believed that some creature was imprisoned within—evidently was afflicted with a prodigious thirst, because observe how fre- quently the carriage had to be stopped, and what a quantity of water was swallowed ! Such was the first steam-propelled carriage, which, designed and built by the ingenious French military engineer, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, proved its ability to move along the highways without the assistance of animal or manual effort. After several short runs along the road adjacent to the workshop, which had been regarded with so much curiosity for so many months, the inventor essayed to give a public demon- stration. But he had not completely mastered the eccentricities of his strange steed. The master mind at the wheel attempted to make a turn while running at full speed. Unhappily his car was top-heavy. It canted and shot into a building which proved immovable, and the car was reduced to a hopeless, overturned wreck. But Cugnot had accomplished sufficient to attract the attention of his superiors—the Military Depart- ment. Two years later the Government commissioned him to build another steam tractor, for the haulage of artillery. They stipulated that it should be able to carry a load of 4J tons and have a speed of 2| miles an hour. As evidence of their faith in the inventor’s work, they advanced him £800 with which to build u