The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction

The Mirror Of Literature,
Amusement, And Instruction

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Instruction, No. 391, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone
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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: ISO-8859-1
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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 _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.
"The present differs from the earlier carriage, in several improvements
in the machinery, suggested by experiment; also in having no
propellers;[2] and in having only four wheels instead of six; the

apparatus for guiding being applied immediately to the two fore-wheels,
bearing a part of the weight, instead of two extra leading wheels
bearing little or none. No person can conceive the absolute control this
apparatus gives to the director of the carriage, unless he has had the
same opportunities of observing it which I had in a ride with Mr.
Gurney. Whilst the wheels obey the slightest motions of the hand, a
trifling pressure of the foot keeps them inflexibly steady, however
rough the ground. To the hind axle, which is very strong, and bent into
two cranks of nine inches radius, at right angles to each other, is
applied the propelling power by means of pistons from two horizontal
cylinders. By this contrivance, and a peculiar mode of admitting the
steam to the cylinders, Mr. Gurney has very ingeniously avoided that
cumbersome appendage to steam-engines, the fly-wheel, and preserves
uniformity of action by constantly having one cylinder on full pressure,
whilst the other is on the reduced expansive. The dead points--that is,
those in which a piston has no effect from being in the same right line
with its crank,--are also cleared by the same means. For as the cranks
are at right angles, when one piston is at a dead point, the other has a
position of maximum effect, and is then urged by full steam power; but
no sooner has the former passed the dead point, than an expansion
valve opens on it with full steam, and closes on the latter. Firmly fixed
to the extremities of the axle, and at right angles to it, are the two
'carriers'--(two strong irons extending each way to the felloes of