Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/106



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. but not so much as to displace the neighbouring stones laterally, then I think the hinder wheels should follow in the tracks of the fore wheels; certainly that is best for the Carriage; and I believe it will be found that it makes but little difference to a good hard road whether the four wheels of a Carriage follow in the same track or not, provided that the wheels are not loaded so as to indent deep into the solid materials of the road. All Carriages ought to have their wheels of such a breadth that they will not leave any material indentations in the road; they should rather consolidate the materials than break them up. If the fore wheels are only so much loaded, in proportion to their breadth and to the hardness of the road materials, that they will consolidate the materials over which they have passed, then I think it is quite as well for the road and much easier for the Carriage, that the hind wheels should follow in the tracks of the fore wheels: the loading of the Carriage may be so arranged that the principal weight will be borne on the hind wheels, and the fore wheels may (by a suitable apportionment of breadth) be qualified to consolidate the road in their tracks, and thus prepare the way for the passage of the hind wheels, with the least wear of the road and the greatest ease to the Carriage. It is quite as much the interest of the proprietors of Carriages, as of the Road Trusts, that the roads should not be cut up by too narrow wheels, for it is always at the expence of horse-labour that the road is thus injured, independently of the evil of having a worse road to travel over the next time. If the wheels are too narrow for the load upon them, and the road materials soft, so that the wheels do print tracks in the road, that evil will be greater, if the hind wheels follow the fore wheels than if they run in new paths; but it is better to remove the evil, by using broader wheels or less load, or harder road materials, and to run the wheels in the same tracks; because the résistance to a Carriage is, in all cases, increased by running the wheels in different tracks, and that with little or no benefit to the road;