Fig. 492.—On the Kansas Pacific Railway.
But Bishop Wilkins had not to reproach himself on this account, for he adapted the principle of the windmill to carriages, “so that the sails would turn and move his car, no matter in what direction the wind was blowing.” He proposed to make these sails act upon the wheels of a carriage, and trusted to “make it move in any direction, either with the wind or against it!” This suggestion has been lately adopted in the United States, and it is curious that after two hundred and fifty years no better mode for utilizing wind-power on land has ever been found. Perhaps the ice-boats already mentioned may be the forerunners of some new system of “land transport,” for which enormous kites have been made available.
It is somewhat remarkable that if the introduction of railroads quite “took the wind out of the sails” of any other mode of locomotion on terra firma, it is that very iron track which has led to the reintroduction of sails as a mode of progression upon the rails. In the United States at the present time there are many vehicles propelled by sails across the immense prairies at a pace, with a strong wind, which equals that of the trains. We are indebted to Mr. Wood, of Hayes City, Kansas, for the photograph from which the picture of the sailing-waggon, invented by Mr. Bascom, of the Kansas Pacific Railway, is copied. This carriage travels usually at thirty miles an hour, and a speed of forty miles an hour has been obtained when the wind has been high and blowing directly “aft.” The distance of eighty-four miles has been accomplished in four hours when the wind was “on the beam,” or a little forward of it, and on some curves with an almost contrary breeze.
The newest machine has four wheels, each thirty inches in diameter; it is six feet in length, and weighs six hundred pounds. The sails are carried upon two masts, and they contain about eighty-one square feet of canvas. The main, or principal mast, is eleven feet high, four inches in diameter at the base, and two inches at the top. As in the case of the ice-boats, it is claimed for the sailing carriage that it frequently outstrips the wind that propels it along the track. On the other hand, there is a difference between the best sailing points of the two kinds of vehicle. The ice-boat goes quickest with the wind “dead aft,” the carriage makes best time with the wind “on the beam”—i.e., sideways. The greater friction and larger surface exposed to the influence of a side-wind no doubt will account for the difference between the speed of the railway sailing-carriage and the ice-boat.
Mr. Bascom informs us that the carriage we have described is in frequent use upon the Kansas Pacific Railway, where it is employed to transport materials for the necessary repairs of the line, telegraph, etc., etc. It is a very cheap contrivance, and a great economizer of labour. We all have noticed the cumbrous method of “trolly-kicking” by “navvies” along the line. A trolly fitted with a sail would, in many cases, and on many English lines, save a great deal of trouble, time, and exertion to the plate-layers.
