All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

3o6 All About Inventions the vehicle. It was duly completed, but unfortunately never was used. The French Revolution supervened and destroyed all the inventor’s hopes. His efforts, however, did not go unrewarded. Napoleon extended his appreciation of the military engineer’s ingenuity and industry by the award of a pension. Cugnot’s carriage to-day would be described as a steam tricycle, a three-wheeled fore-carriage or a tractor. The chassis comprised a timber frame, while the boiler, fashioned from copper and of peculiar shape, was placed over and slightly in advance of the front wheel, which acted as the driver. The steam passed from the boiler to operate two single- acting inverted cylinders having a stroke and bore of 13 inches, the transmission to the front wheel, which was also the steering wheel, being through pawl-and-ratchet gearing. Cugnot’s second carriage, although never used, did not pass to the scrap-heap during the great national upheaval. It was subsequently brought to light, and is now preserved as an historic relic of great interest in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Cugnot’s carriage may be said to have opened and closed the first stage in the self-propelled carriage era, because nothing farther in this field appears to have been done for another sixteen years. Then a British engineer, William Murdock, revived the interest in the problem by building a small three- wheeled model fitted with a steam-engine. He is stated to have demonstrated it to his intimate friends in his drawing-room, where he illustrated its carrying capacities by loading it with the fire-irons and sending it upon wild trips in an obstacle race among the