Hasluck Paul N. The Automobile: A Practical Treatise on The Construction of Modern Motor Cars: Steam, Petrol, Electric and Petrol-Electric

New and Enlarged Edition. — London: Cassell and Co Ltd, 1908. — 832 p. To 832 pages completely re-written up to date. With 804 illustrations.The automobile, which now is developing with such rapidity, is not - at least as far as the employment of the steam engine is concerned - so novel a vehicle as many people believe. It already has a long history, which deserves to be epitomised, because in it are successively revealed most of the parts whose combination constitutes the modem steam carriage. Speculations upon the possible road use of fire- and steam-engines were made in England by Roger Bacon (1214-1294), and in the year 1619 a patent granted to Ramsay and Wildgoose had as part of its subject, drawing-carts without horses." Already spring power had been tried in Germany, and wind-driven vehicles in the Netherlands. By letters patent, dated October 10th, 1644, Louis XIV. granted to "Jean Theson the privilege of employing a little four-wheel carriage set in motion without any horses, but merely by two men seated "; and the Royal almanack of the period states that in the year 1748 Vaucanson, in the presence of Louis XV., drove " a carriage with clockwork springs," but in respect of which no details are given. It is, however, another Frenchman, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, who should be regarded as the inventor of the steam automobile. In 1769 he constructed, with State funds placed at his disposition by the Due de Choiseul, the first steam trolley, which the next year was followed by another somewhat further developed.