The Evening Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1870.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 77, 7 April 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1870.

It is generally to America that we must look for modifications of inventions with a simplifying and laborsaving tendency; but it is to the Scottish capital that we are indebted for the latest thoroughly practical application of steam power for facilitating locomotion. The road traction engine, invented b\ Mr. Thompson, is destined, we believe, to revolutionise our whole system of locomotion, and to meet a want, especially in young and thinly-peopled countries, that has been one of the greatest obstacles to colonisation. The attempt to adapt the steam engine to ordinary roads has engaged attention since locomotion by the aid of steam was first found possible ; but the necessity for giving enormous weight to the engine, in order to give proper " grip" to the wheels, and the difficulty of preventing the wheels ploughing up the surface, have hitherto presented an insuperable obstacle to success. By the mere employment of indiarubber tires, Mr. Thompson has secured a perfect " grip " ou almost any surface; and this difficulty overcome, the process of simplification was easy ; and from every trial made we have tie unanimous testimony that an invention has been introduced to the world of the most practical and universal application. On the roughest macadamisation it moves silent, steady, and without jolting; on the softest meadows it crushes the grass, but leaves no surface-mark behind ifc ; over ploughed fields it moves, barely disturbing the regularity of the " score ;" while French engineers, after official enquiry, have resolved on applying it to the traction of heavy ordnance anywhere. Up and down the streets of Paris, with gradients of 1 in 9, it lias drawn an. omnibus with fifty passengers, at the rate of twelve miles an hour ; ascending seemingly without an effort, and stopping in the descent in mid career without the application of a " break." Loaded with many tons of railway iron, it has threaded its way1 through crowds of drays and cabs and passengers, more manageable than a horse, and occupying the space of an ordinary gig. The engine, with the power of twelve horses, can turn the sharpest corner as quickly as a single one, and being more thoroughly under command, reduces the liability of accidents to the minimum attaching to any system of locomotion. All these results are shown by the testimony of every experiment, and it is not to be wondered at that the invention is coming into use with extraordinary rapidity. One of the 1 steamers has just been landed in Queensland, and has fully answered expectations, fears only being entertained as to the effects on the indiarubber tires from a Queensland sun. To a neighbouring province we learn that there are two Thompson engines already on the way from Scotland; and there can be no doubt that, in all sparsely-populated countries, the road steam-engine will become an institution. It is needless for us to point to the advantages our own province would derive from such a simple means of locomotion. The triangular duel between railways, tramways, and common roads is still being fought. Bring the Thompson engine on the scene, and> if report be true, the conflict will soon cease. An ordinary road once made, and confined to the use of indiarubber tires, would require no turnpike tolls, no provincial grants; and difficulties of intercommunication —the bane of settlement — would at once disappear.