The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction

The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And
Instruction, No. 391, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
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.

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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.
"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 the wheels.) These irons may be bolted to the felloes of the wheels or not, or to the felloes of