Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/83



John Farey, esq. 10 August, 1831. they had no chance of success, and have been abandoned.

Will you state generally your opinion as to the probability of this mode of propelling Carriages super seding the necessity of using horses?—All that has been hitherto done, or which is now doing, in that way, must, I think, be considered as experimentaltrials. I have no doubt whatever but that a steady perseverance in such trials will lead to the general adoption of Steam Coaches, and that at an earlier or later period, according to the activity and intelligence with which an experimental course is conducted; and I am firmly convinced that the perfection which is essential to their successful adoption will never be attained by any other course than that of reiterated trials. The difficulties with which the Steam Coach inventors are at present contending are chiefly of a practical nature, which, I think, are not likely to be avoided by any great efforts of genius or invention; but I expect that they may be surmounted one after another by the experience which may be gained by competent mechanicians in a course of practice. I do not look for much more invention as necessary to the establishment of Steam Coaches; but it is certain that the practice is indispensable. Each of the three inventors I have named has brought his Steam Coach to that state which renders it a full-sized model for making such experiments as serve to prove the principle of action, and to teach how a better Coach may be made the next time, but nothing more. The probability that such next better coach will be sufficiently perfect to answer as a trading business, depends as much upon the natural judgment and acquired skill of each inventor, as upon the qualifications of his present production.

Has the experience which has already been had of Steam Carriages been such as to enable us to say that it is not merely in theory we have calculated on these Carriages?—Yes; what has been done by the above mentioned inventors, proves to my satisfaction the practicability of impelling Stage Coaches by Steam on good common roads, in tolerable level parts of the