Thompson’s Road Steamer.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 37, 27 July 1870, Page 6

Thompson’s Road Steamer.

Country settlors need no longer complain of tho impossibility of getting their produce to market. Bad roads, or distance from a portage, need no longer appal tho struggling farmer, for scientific invention has come to tho rescue, and a species of traction engine has been patented by Mr 11. W. Thompson, of Edinburgh, which will draw from six to twenty-five tons over tho softest roads at from three to twelve miles an hour, run over grass fields, turn in less space than horses, and carry its own fuel and water. For £SOO an engine can bo purchased which will draw eight tons at the rate of two and a half to six miles an hour ; while for double that sujn, a thirtyfive horse-power engine may bo obtained, capable of drawing a weight of twenty-five tons up the same gradient and at tho same speed. The great drawback in all previous traction engines has been their extrorno weight and liability to breakage. In running on soft roads the ordinary traction engine has constantly become “ bogged,” or has moved along so laboriously as to rentier it of no practical advantage over horses; while on hard roads the weight of tho engine itself, and the shocks experienced by the machinery, caused frequent breakages, and cut up the roads fearfully. But in Mr Thompson’s engine these defects are entirely absent. It runs with equal ease, over hard and paved streets without jo ting, over soft roads without sinking, over muddjr roads without slipping, and over ploughed fields, upon ice and frozen snow, and through loose sand. 'lt is small and tight, and easily manageable. Indeed in Paris one of these engines ran for weeks with one of tho great Versailles omnibuses attached to it, carrying fifty passengers. It went up a paved street beside the “ Tro cadere,” where the gradients are one in nine \ it crossed the Bound Point at hours when it was thronged with vehicles and equestrians j and in the beautifully-level Paris streets, it easily attained a speed of twelve miles an hour. Another road steamer was used on the sands at Portobollo, where it ran at the rate of ten miles an hour, in the midst of a torrent of rain ; and at Aberdeen a five-ton road engine dragged out a twenty-ton load, climbing a gradient of one in twenty, in single gear. The engine can be employed equally well in ploughing, carrying manure, reaping, mowing, or taking produce t* market. But wo will give a few more instances of the extraordinary powers of Thompson’s '-toad Engine. At Edinburgh, a six-ton engine was attached to four huge waggons filled with pig iron, and altogether weighing thirty-four tons, which it drew with the, greatest ease from the foot of Granton Road, with inclines of one in eighteen to one in twenty-five. Arrived at tho top, it turned with its train in the road itself, and ran hack again. Another road steamer conveyed a party of gentlemen from Granton to Leith, a distance of two milfes and three-quarters, in twenty-one minutes and a-half. Another six-ton road steamer is employed regularly between Aberdeen and the Kettock flour mills, its duty being to carry a load of ten tons along a strip of narrow, crooked, and greasy road, up and down inclines of one in nine to one in seven and a-half. The engine makes four trips daily, and the whole consumption of coal each clay Is barely half-a-ton. The Thompson Eoad Engine owes all its facilities, and its exemption from the disabilities of other traction engines, to one device, as simple as it is efficacious. The wheels, which are of great width, are surrounded by tires of vulcanised india-rubber. These thick bends of india-rubber enable the road steamer to float over the surface of the ground without the slightest damage, while they likewise protect the machinery from all concussion. The intervention of the elastic tires between the wheel and the road acts, in fact, in the same way on the roadway as if the engine were running over a tramway of india-rubber. To prove how small is the crushing-power between the surface of the road and the outer edge of the wheels, bits of coal, potatoes, carrots, &c., were placed in the path of the engine, and after it had passed over them theywere picked up uncrushed. The road steamer is exceedingly firm and compact. It runs on three wheels, two large ones, and a smaller one in front. The india-rubber tires for the three wheels of a ten-horse power engine weigh 14cwt., and the tires are guarded by flexible shields, formed of open steel bars, which give an excellent bite or hold upon the ground ; and while they do not in any way interfere with tho elastic play of the india-rubber, they afford such protection to it as to render it virtually indestructible. The shields are moveable, and are not used for driving over snow, as on such surfaces iron will not bite. In running through sand, also, as in Egypt, the shields are dispensed with, Holloway's Ointment and Pills. —Astonishing Remedies for .Scrofula.—Mr Henry Judjl,.,9!, Malagas, 0.0. H., was in a most alarming state' of health ; lie had bfecn a great sufferer from scrofula for a numbar of years, and finally ajjt' parts of his body broko out into sores, rendbrmg him an object of horror to every ono: •■some of the most routed remedies knojidi, but they did not touch nis complaint, add in the greatest alarm, he consulted a friend as to what course hemight.adopt, when Holloway's Ointment and fills aero recommended, which he commenced using, and by persevering witli these re-, incdies for short time ho was perfectly cured, after every other remedy had iailed.