Title:  The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829

Author:  Various

Release Date:  September 3, 2004 [EBook #13359]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

Vol. 14, No. 391.] Saturday, September 26, 1829. [Price 2d.

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[Illustration:  Gurney’s improved steam carriage.]

MR. GURNEY’S IMPROVED STEAM CARRIAGE.

Mr. Gurney, in perfecting this invention, has followed Dr. Franklin’s advice—­to tire and begin again.  It is now four years since he first commenced his ingenious enterprise; and nearly two years since we reported and illustrated the progress he had made. (See mirror, vol. x. page 393, or No. 287.) He began with a large boiler, but public prejudice was too strong for it; and knowing people talked of high pressure accidents; the steam, could not, of course, be altogether got rid of, so to divide the danger, Mr. Gurney made his boiler in forty welded iron pipes; still the steam ran in a main pipe beneath the whole of the carriage, and the evil was but modified.  At length the inventer has detached the engine and boiler, or locomotive part of the apparatus, which is now to be fastened to the carriage, and may be considered as a steam-horse, with no more danger than we should apprehend from a restive animal, in whose veins the steam or mettle circulates with too high a pressure.  Fair trials have been made of the Improved Carriage on our common roads, the Premier has decided the machine “to be of great national importance,” from sundry experiments witnessed by his grace, at Hounslow Barracks; and the coach is announced “really to start next month (the 1st) in working—­not experimental journeys—­for travellers between London and Bath."[1] Crack upon crack will follow joke upon joke; the Omnibus, with its phaeton-like coursers will be eclipsed; and a journey to Bath and the Hot Wells by steam will soon be an everyday event.

Descriptions of Mr. Gurney’s carriage have been so often before the public, that extended detail is unnecessary.  Besides, all our liege subscribers will turn to the account in our No. 287.  The recent improvements have been perspicuously stated by Mr. Herapath, of Cranford, in a letter in the Times newspaper, and we cannot do better than adopt and abridge a portion of his communication.