The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And
Instruction, No. 391, by Various
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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.
* * * * *
[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 _Om
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