FIG. 4.—A PRIMITIVE SLEDGE.
(From a Model in National Museum.)
FIG. 5.—THE FIRST CART.
FIG. 6.—HAULING TOBACCO.
(From a Model in National Museum.)
In many cases it is easier to roll a thing than it is to drag it. This fact led to another step in the development of the carriage; it led from the cart without wheels to a cart with a wheel—a most important step in the history of inventions. The first wheeled cart was simply a log from each end of which projected an axle (Fig. 5). The axle fitted in the holes of a frame upon which the body of the cart was placed and to which the horse or the ox was attached. As the cart moved along, wheel (log and axle) turned together. The very ancient method of moving a load by rolling it along was in use in the United States not so very long ago. As late as 1860 in some of the southern States hogsheads of tobacco (Fig. 6) were rolled over country roads in the manner just described and as late as 1880 the fishermen of Nantucket used as a fish cart a vehicle that had only a barrel for its wheel. (Fig. 7.) The common wheel-barrow and the one-wheeled carts which are still used in China and Japan had their origin in the rolling log.
FIG. 7.—A NANTUCKET FISH CART.
(From a Model in the National Museum.)
FIG. 8.—A CART WITH WHEELS AND AXLE IN ONE PIECE.