the earliest if not the most spectacular instances of the success of American genius abroad."[1]
A horse-power locomotive was another invention, prior in date to the sailing car. "A horse was placed in a car and made to walk on an endless apron or belt, and to communicate motion to the wheels, as in the horse-power machines of the present day. The machine worked indifferently well; but, on one occasion, when drawing a car filled with editors and other representatives of the press, it ran into a cow, and the passengers, having been tilted out and rolled down an embankment, were naturally enough unanimous in condemning the contrivance. And so the horse-power car, after countless bad jokes had been perpetrated on the cowed editors, passed out of existence, and probably out of mind."[2]
The fate of the railway hung suspended on the successful solving of the question of motive power.[3] Peter Cooper's locomotive
