Horse-drawn vehicle

“ A powerful engine, of the six-drive-wheel construction, is required to propel a very moderate load of passengers, and as it laboriously puffs along the grades, the forests echo and re-echo with the sound, while the traveler feels thankful that the iron horse, instead of flesh and blood, is being employed in his service. ”

“ What strange vehicles these volantes are!—A pair of very long, limber shafts, at one end of which is a pair of huge wheels, and the other end a horse with his tail braided and brought forward and tied to the saddle, an open chaise body resting on the shafts, about one third of the way from the axle to the horse; and on the horse is a Negro, in large postilion boots, long spurs, and a bright jacket. It is an easy vehicle to ride in; but it must be a sore burden to the beast. Here and there we pass a private volante, distinguished by rich silver mountings and postilions in livery. ”

“ It was thus that the earlier motor-cars were greatly under-powered. The average man imagined that a one-horse engine was equal to one horse, that therefore a six-horse was equal to six horses, and that a carriage propelled by six horses was good enough for anyone. ”

“ With steam-power, the gain by careful grading and excellence of construction of the road-bed becomes still more important. The animal mechanism is less affected in its power of drawing heavy loads than is the machine. With the horse, a bad road impedes transportation principally by resisting the movement of the load rather than of the animal, while with the traction-engine the motor is as seriously retarded as the train which follows it, and frequently much more, on soft ground. ”

“ On a steel track the size of the wheel does not make so much difference as it does on a road because the track surface is smooth and is but little depressed by the wheel. It has been estimated that a horse can pull ten times as great a load on rails as on an ordinary macadamed road. Some years ago broad steel tracks were laid in some of our city streets for the use of horse-drawn trucks. They served very well as far as the vehicles were concerned. The road friction was reduced considerably, but the fact was overlooked that the horses needed a good friction surface under their feet. ”

“ It is not probable that man will ever be able to get along without the horse, but the release of the noble animal from the bondage of city traffic, which was begun only a few years ago with mechanical street car propulsion, promises now to be extensively advanced by the substitution of the motor carriage and the auto-truck for team-drawn vehicles. ”

“ Each step corresponds to our many-sided wheel falling on to a flat side—and the "hammer, hammer, hammer on the hard high road" is the horsey counterpart of the metallic rattle.
On rough ground a horse has a great advantage over a wheeled tractor, because it can put its feet down on the top of objects of different elevations, and still pull. A wheel cannot do this, and, as we have seen, a loss of power results. Our inventor, therefore, created in his pedrail a compromise between the railway smoothness and ease of running and the selective and accommodating powers of a quadruped. ”

“ The competitors that drove the horse from its field of labor were the electric and compressed air horseless vehicles. As early as 1899 the horseless carriage was rapidly striding into popularity. In 1920 they were common sights everywhere. In 1950 they had crowded the horse to the wall and in 1999 horseless vehicles for business or pleasure were exclusively employed everywhere. ”

“ No sooner comes the alarm than one sees with a shudder the rush of one of these engines through the crowded streets—the tearing horses covered with foam—the heavy vehicle swerving from side to side, and the black helmeted attendants swaying to and fro. The wonder is that horses or men ever get safely to their destination; the wonder is still greater that no one is ridden over in their furious drive. ”

“ In machinery, the steam shovel and steam roller were already in limited use but the new steam tractor, with its broad iron wheels, foreshadowed the retirement of the horse and mule from the road construction scene.
Grading a new location at a washout in 1914. At right a man uses a plow to form a ditch, others drive horsedrawn wheel scrapers. ”

“ If your light vehicle has such a rail as a rest for the feet, either take it out or put another rail across parallel to it so that it is impossible to catch even the toes underneath it.
If a horse gets his tail over a rein, stop him and lift his tail off the rein; do not jerk the rein from under the tail. A clever whip, driving tandem or four, can often, by a judicious turning of the horse and a flick with the whip, make the horse take his tail off the rein himself, but this is for the cognoscenti ”

“ Block-Carriages are also used by the horse-artillery as curricles. They are particularly useful on mountain service. The original inventor of them, is the British Colonel Congreve, author of many other important military inventions.
Truck-Carriages are to carry timber and other heavy burthens from one place to another, at no great distance: they serve also to convey guns or mortars upon a battery, whither their own carriages cannot go, and are drawn by men as well as horses. ”

“ Neither of these movements could have been achieved before the advent of motor transport. As this war progresses, the need for really capable and cool-headed motor drivers will steadily increase. But it will be none the less invaluable to know how to manage a horse—whether to ride it, drive a wagon, or ride-and-drive in a limber. One of our limber horses is a grey captured from the Germans last year. He is a very good worker and doesn't seem to mind being a prisoner in the least. ”

“ The damage is done, and your horses in a tangle while you are still groping with your right hand for the proper reins. In passing other vehicles, or any object that you think may cause your leader to shy, always have a small loop of that side rein under your thumb, and your right hand ready to put on the brakes on whichever rein requires it, instantly, before either horse can make much of a détour. A horse met at once with a rebuke is half persuaded already to come to terms. The cart, if ponies are driven, should not be too light nor too low. ”

“ With the first stroke of the great gong the horses leave their stalls and stand beside the pole of the engine. The harness, suspended in mid-air, falls upon their backs, and almost before the men can jump up and cling to their places on the engine, the driver picks up the reins, the horses plunge through the open door and gallop madly down the street. ”

“ By the evidence laid before this committee it was satisfactorily established, not only that carriages propelled by steam were not more injurious than carriages drawn by horses, but that they were considerably less so. To adapt horse coaches to move with the speed necessary for travelling, and for despatches, the tires of the wheels should be of very limited breadth ”

“ In the road traction-engine the need for what may be termed effort on the part of the mechanism is much greater, more especially as the competition against horse-traction is conducted on terms so much more nearly level. A team of strong draught-horses driven by one man on a well-loaded waggon is a far more economical installation of power than a two-horse buggy carrying one or two passengers. ”

“ We at times encountered a string of waggons at some narrow sharp turn of the corkscrew path, and were whirled by them, with our off-wheels curiously circling the unguarded ledge of a precipice some four or five hundred feet deep, where a wheel-horse suddenly jibbing, or a leader shying or falling, would, in all human probability, have provided the wolves and bears with a banquet, and the journalists with a neat paragraph, headed, "Melancholy result of fast driving, attended with serious loss of valuable lives." ”

“ Even the officers whom we saw from our motor car were dressed in scarlet and gold, red breeches, and sky-blue tunics with gold braid.
A little farther on we passed several motor cars filled with French officers; just behind them came a dozen Berliet trucks of a heavy military type, loaded with meat and ammunition. These are the times of motor war. The automobile has revolutionized the old method of food supply. The long, slow train of transport wagons, unwieldy and drawn by horses, [Pg 162] has been replaced by swift motor trucks. The French army is unsurpassed in mechanical equipment. ”

“ It was possible to go round all the likely positions for a searchlight in one day at every station, which frequently meant considerably over fifty miles of most indifferent roads—more than a single horse could have been expected to do—and the car generally carried two persons on these occasions. The car was also used as a tender to a searchlight plant, on a gun-carriage and limber, being utilised to fetch gasolene, carbons, water, &c., &c., and also to run the dynamo for charging the accumulators used for sparking, thus saving running the gasolene motor for this purpose. ”

“ An old tandem driver, to whose judgment I defer, informs me that, having tried all sorts of draughts, he prefers that from hooks fixed to the cross-bar, which he used many years without a galled shoulder, but which would be unsuited to carts with very high wheels and high, straight shafts. If a horse in a well-fitting collar is properly put to a cart by his harness, with saddle firmly fixed in its place, and back-band loose to allow the shafts to play in their tugs, he will work from fixed draughts without being injured. ”

“ The Verbiest model was for a four-wheeled carriage, on which an aeolipile was mounted with a pan of burning coals beneath it. A jet of steam from the aeolipile impinged upon the vanes of a wheel on a vertical axle, the lower end of the spindle being geared to the front axle. An additional wheel, larger than the supporting wheels, was mounted on an adjustable arm in a manner to adapt the vehicle to moving in a circular path. ”

“ The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. ”

“ The motor-trucks, with a few gallons of oil, lighter than water, carried at least four times as heavy a load as a wagon of equal size drawn by animals, and carried it at a speed at least ten times greater. As compared with animal traction, the motor-truck had a capacity for military purposes of perhaps forty to one. ”

“ In addition to these motors, we have the gas-engine, which, within the last few years only, has become a really useful working and economical machine. With respect to horse-power motors, we have not only the old horse engines, but we have a new application, as it seems to me, of the work of the horse as a motor. I allude to those cases where the horse drawing a reaping or thrashing machine, not only pulls it forward as he might pull a cart, but causes its machinery to revolve, so as to perform the desired kind of work. ”

“ Even though the driver motions to come on, it is seldom safe to do so; for of all horses the one that is brought to a stand-still in front of a machine is surest to shy, turn, or bolt when the machine starts up to pass. If one is going to pass a horse without stopping, it is safer to do so quickly,—the more quickly the better; but that is taking great chances.
Whenever a horse, whether driven or hitched, shows fright, a loud, sharp "Whoa!" from the chauffeur will steady the animal. ”

“ In these days of gasoline travel one need not be greatly surprised to meet a car, or see the traces of one, in almost any out-of-the-way spot where four wheels can possibly be made to travel. On the other hand, the man at the wheel is not likely to send his machine over rocks and through sand where the traction is poor, and across dry ditches and among greasewood, just for the fun of driving. There is sport with rod or gun to lure, or there is necessity to impel, or the driver is lost and wants to reach some point that looks familiar, or he is trying to dodge something or somebody. ”

“ The event aroused the greatest interest, and the failure of the vehicle to realise the expectations formed of it by no means disheartened the horseless carriage enthusiasts. They declared that before long a reliable horseless carriage would certainly be invented. In 1790 there was a belief that their prophecy had been fulfilled, for invitations were sent out to members of the Society of Arts, engineers, and all interested in mechanics and vehicular tratlie to attend a certain place on a stated day to inspect a horseless carriage, which possessed the additional novelty of having one wheel only. ”

“ In first gear, avoiding the deceptively smooth but slimy roadside, we made for the deepest ruts, racing the engine till it left a trail of thick white smoke behind, clinging to the steering wheel, while the heavy car rocked and creaked in the tyrannical grip of the ruts like a ship in the trough of the waves. Without our friend, we never should have got through. ”