Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/67



Mr. G. Gurney. 5 August, 1831. in order to attend to this subject, because I was convinced of its importance and practicability; I have always entertained the same idea as I do at present. Imperfections will exist in the machinery; but I conceive that the main points of difficulty have been removed by the experiments I have made, and that all those now remaining are practical difficulties, which will be removed by further experience; and if there is no cause opposed by the Legislature, or any other source. I will be bold to say, that in five years Steam Carriages will be generally employed throughout England. I have not hesitated, having these feelings, to devote all my time for the last six years to the subject, and am mentally recompensed by the present state of the subject. Private carriages also will be used. Under this opinion I have given directions for building a small one I expect it will go quicker, safer, more easily, and certainly more independently than a common carriage, because it does not need the food of a horse.

Do you apprehend much decrease in the price of your Engines?—I do, and I also anticipate that steam will be supplanted by the use of other elementary power; but I do not think that will take place in our day. I think that steam will be generally introduced, and that the public will feel the importance of it; and that scientific men will be directed to examine and employ in its stead other substances, and new compounds are continually turning up, and some will eventually be applied to mechanical purposes.

Do you believe that there will be other ways of raising steam?—I do not now speak of steam, but, certain compounds; I do not specify any particular compound at this moment; I state those generally which are known to produce power by chemical change; some peculiarly explosive and aëriform bodies for instance. I am informed that at present there are between 20 and 40 different Carriages building or about to be built by different persons, all of which have been occasioned principally by the decided journey which I took of 200 miles in 1829, and which