Newton was one of the first Englishmen to conceive the idea of the propulsion of vehicles by the power of steam. Taking up for consideration Hero's hollow ball filled with water from which steam was generated by the outward application of heat, he added these conclusions: "We have a more sensible effect of the elasticity of vapors if the hole be made bigger and stopped, and then the ball be laid upon the fire till the water boils violently; after this, if the ball be set upon little wheels, so as to move easily upon a horizontal plane, and the hole be opened, the vapors will rush out violently one way, and the wheels and the ball at the same time will be carried the contrary way." Beyond this philosophical suggestion, however, Newton never went. The steam carriage attributed to him by some writers is merely an imaginative creation, by writer or artist, based upon the above proposition.
A professor at Jena, Saxony, in the seventeenth century, Vegelius constructed, in 1679, a mechanical horse, which was propelled by springs and cased in the skin of a real horse. This machine is said to have traveled four German miles an hour.
A physician of La Rochelle, France, Elié Richard was a man of science, and a considerable celebrity in his day. He had built, in 1690, a dirigible vehicle that he used to travel about in on his professional work. The carriage was propelled by mechanism operated by a man-servant by means of a treadle. The operator was placed on the rear of the carriage, and the occupant, seated in front, steered by a winch attached to a small wheel. This construction was frequently referred to by contemporaries of Richard, and even later on, and was copied by others during the following hundred years or so.
Born at Leipsic, Germany, July 6, 1646. Died at Hanover, November 14, 1716.
Leibnitz, in addition to his work as a philosopher and mathematician, was also interested in mechanics. He gave some attention to the study of the possibility of making improvements in common road vehicles, and he endeavored to encourage, though without results, his contemporary, Denis Papin.
A celebrated English politician and capitalist, Sir Humphrey Mackworth matriculated at Magdalene College, Oxford, December 11, 1674. He was entered at the Middle Temple, in June, 1675, and called to the bar in 1682. In 1695 he was engaged in developing collieries and copper and smelting works at Melencryddan, near Neath, Wales, and the improvements introduced by him there were of the greatest value. Among other improvements he constructed a wagon-way from the mines, and propelled his coal-carrying cars by sails.