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

320 All About Inventions which has the advantage of working upon a less volatile and consequently safer liquid fuel. Twenty years ago the horse was supreme upon the highways. To-day it is rapidly becoming relegated to the limbo of things that were, not in one, but in all its realms of application. The humble toiler favours the motor-bus for expeditious transportation between his home and the field of his labours. The taxi-cab has wellnigh driven its horse-drawn contem- porary from the streets. The farmer employs the motor for breaking his ground, sowing and garnering his crops, hauling them to market, and for the con- veyance of any and everything necessary to his call- ing. In mining districts, where the horse and mule have packed tediously and slowly over barely dis- tinguishable trails, roads have been laid out to permit heavy vehicles to pass swiftly to and fro. The cyclist no longer pedals hard and laboriously to enjoy a rural excursion, but allows the high-speed engine to work for him and to carry him greater distances in less time. The enterprising tradesman dispatches his goods to customers by the commercial vehicle, which not only enables him to fulfil “ express delivery,” but provides him with the means to serve throughout a wider radius with less staff and conveyancing facili- ties, as well as rendering him independent of the railways. Indeed, to recapitulate all the fields in which the motor-car has achieved a decisive conquest would be wearisome. Nor is the motor-car a luxury for the privileged few. Standardisation of parts, the more extensive employment of automatic tools, is enabling the cost of manufacture to be reduced to such a low figure