but I cannot speak respecting it with the same confidence, as the specification of his patent has not yet been enrolled, neither has Mr. Fraser's.
In both these boilers, the draft is produced by a fanner worked by the engine. The inferiority of this to the steam draft, and the great extent to which it must rob the engine of its power, are so obvious that I need not here enlarge upon them.
When it is considered that seven years have now elapsed since the practicability of propelling a carriage on a common road by steam was established by incontestible experiment, it will naturally be enquired, why in a nation celebrated over the world for its mechanical skill and commercial enterprise, and abounding in capital, the project has not yet attained a more advanced stage? The facts detailed in the pamphlet of Mr. Gurney, the title of which is placed at the head of this article, will furnish a solution of this question satisfactory to the reader, and little creditable to some parties, whose conduct is there brought before the public.
It appears that after several years of indefatigable exertion, during which he had to encounter and refute the innumerable objections urged against the scheme,—such as the expense, the public annoyance, the removal of horses from employment, the putting of coachmen, &c., out of bread, and all the hackneyed topics by which great improvements in machinery have been ever opposed,—Mr. Gurney, at length, succeeded in getting a steam carriage established as a public conveyance between Gloucester and Cheltenham in February, 1831. It commenced running on the 21st of that month, and continued until the 22d of June,—a period of four months—during which it performed the journey of nine miles
