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- Steam Traction on Roads
- Superstitious horses?...
STEAM TRACTION ON ROADS. - Prof. R. W. Thurston recently gave a
very interesting address before the Polytechnic Branch of the
American Institute. He showed conclusively that for heavy trucking
on common roads and streets, the steam traction engine may be
used with an economy of seventy-five per cent over the cost of
employing horses. In other words, steam-carts can be employed
at only one-fourth of the present expense of horse-carts. During
the subsequent conversation, the subject of steam street-cars
and carts was talked over, and one of the member expressed the
ridiculous opinion that the reason why horses were frightened
at the steamers was because the animals were superstitious. They
saw the machines were without horses, and instantly assumed that
the movement was the work of the devil.
- BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- "Steam Traction on Roads." The
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science & Art [New
York] March 1873: 379.
- "Steam Traction on Roads." The
Popular Science Review [London] 1873: 97.
