Improved Traction Engine
A look at an early American attempt to build a self-propelling steam road carriage adaptable to farm work, at a time when traction engines were common in England but rare in the U.S.
NewsPipe summary
Scientific American · January 19, 1867 · Part 1
2 min readIt is well known that the traction engine is largely used in England for farm and draft purposes, but it has not yet assumed the same importance here. For agricultural labors American engineers have been mostly directed to the completion of a successful road-running machine. The object, however, of the builder of the machine, one of which is represented in the engraving, is to produce a self-propelling steam carriage for running on common roads, or on the ice, and an engine that can be adapted to the work of the farm, to driving thrashing or other machinery, pumping from wells, watering gardens, and many other purposes.
The appearance of the machine in one form is seen by the engraving. As a carriage it presents a graceful appearance. The boiler is hung between the forks of a frame of steel, which meet on the forward axle and thence backward diverge, holding the boiler suspended in the triangle thus formed. This frame of steel, edge up, is twisted a half turn on each side of the boiler, thus acting as a spring. The engines work on an incline and drive a shaft with a chain wheel, which, by a machine chain, rotates the driving shaft and wheels. The engine is intended to give three revolutions to the first shaft to one revolution of the driving wheels, thus gaining power for ascending inclines. The difference can be multiplied to nine times. A lever in front of the driver's seat serves, by a simple mechanism, to guide the machine when used as a carriage, and a rod with handle connected to the engine shaft readily reverses the motion of the engine.
As will be seen, the machine is a complete engine in itself, capable of doing the work ordinarily done by the portable or stationary engine, and also adapted for locomotion. The inventor is confident that his machine can be made a success, as all those he has yet built perform their work admirably.
For further particulars address Elijah Ware, Bayonne, N. J.
Was this worth reading?
This is how the site learns what to look for. Ratings move the weights behind the front page; notes go into the editorial brief that guides what gets pulled from the archives next.
Elsewhere in the archive
Sanitary House Warming
Scientific American · January 19, 1867 · New York, New York
A description of a Victorian-era furnace design meant to solve the perennial complaint of dry, arid heated air by adding moisture back into the warmed atmosphere of a house.
Borax--American and Foreign
Scientific American · January 19, 1867 · California
An 1867 survey of the borax trade explains how a newly discovered California lake deposit was poised to break a longstanding European monopoly on this essential chemical used in soldering and metalworking.
Patent Office Decision on Strip Tickets
Scientific American · August 4, 1877
A dry but telling glimpse into 1870s patent law, as the Patent Office ruled against a street railway ticket redemption scheme as unoriginal.
Torpedoes and the Need for Naval Defense Invention
Scientific American · August 4, 1877
A period editorial on the growing menace of torpedo warfare, calling for American inventors to devise defenses against these new naval weapons—an early glimpse of the arms race that would define modern sea warfare.