ders
past humble stations, and whistles imperiously at crossings, it attracts
the attention of all. It is the spectacular thing that makes fame for
the road, appears in large type in the newspapers, and makes havoc with
the time-tables, while the steady-going passenger trains and labouring
freights do the work and make the money.

[Illustration: THIRTY YEARS' ADVANCE IN LOCOMOTIVE BUILDING]

HOW AUTOMOBILES WORK

Every boy and almost every man has longed to ride on a locomotive, and
has dreamed of holding the throttle-lever and of feeling the great
machine move under him in answer to his will. Many of us have protested
vigorously that we wanted to become grimy, hard-working firemen for the
sake of having to do with the "iron horse."

It is this joy of control that comes to the driver of an automobile
which is one of the motor-car's chief attractions: it is the longing of
the boy to run a locomotive reproduced in the grown-up.

The ponderous, snorting, thundering locomotive, towering high above its
steel road, seems far removed from the swift, crouching, almost
noiseless motor-car, and yet the relationship is very close. In fact,
the automobile, which is but a locomotive that runs at will anywhere, is
the father of the greater machine.

About the beginning of 1800, self-propelled vehicles steamed along the
roads of Old England, carrying passengers safely, if not swiftly, and,
strange to say, continued to run more or less successfully until
prohibited by law from using the highways, because of their interference
with the horse traffic. Therefore the locomotive and the railroads
throve at the expense of the automobile, and the permanent iron-bound
right of way of the railroads left the highways to the horse.

The old-time automobiles were cumbrous affairs, with clumsy boilers, and
steam-engines that required one man's entire attention to keep them
going. The concentrated fuels were not known in those days, and
heat-economising appliances were not invented.

It was the invention by Gottlieb Daimler of the high-speed gasoline
engine, in 1885, that really gave an impetus to the building of
efficient automobiles of all powers. The success of his explosive
gasoline engine, forerunner of all succeeding gasoline motor-car
engines, was the incentive to inventors to perfect the steam-engine for
use on self-propelled vehicles.

Unlike a locomotive, the automobile must be light, must be able to carry
power or fuel