imperishable, and tires of bronze are fitted thereover, a marvel to look upon; and the naves are of silver, to turn about on either side. And the car is plaited tight with gold and silver thongs, and two rails run round about it. And the silver pole stood out therefrom; upon the end bound she the fair golden yoke, and set thereon the fair breaststraps of gold, and Hera led beneath the yoke the horses fleet of foot, and hungered for strife and the battle-cry." (Iliad, v. 730.)

From gods and demi-gods we must descend to mortals, and from the inspiring times when the world was young we must pass to the fin-de-siècle.

Mr. Hamilton* states that in 1823, in the Brown Hall estate in Donegal, "carts they had none; most of the carrying was done in creels on ponies' backs. Some superior farmers had what were called lowbacked cars a sort of platform with shafts, and under it a pair of solid block-wheels. One rich man had spoke wheels, which were greatly admired. Crowds came to see the first cart that was turned out; but though it was voted 'illegant,' it was declared useless. 'For,' said a sage among the spectators, 'who ever heard of a cart in this country?' And his argument seemed to weigh much with his auditors. However, in a few years later the Scotchmen had at one time orders on hand for fifty carts.”

Spoke-wheel vehicles jostled block-wheel cars a

* J. HAMILTON, Sixty Years' Experience as an Irish Landlord, [1894],

century ago in Dublin, as they still do in parts of Ulster. The country carts with solid wheels are laggards from the early Bronze Age-possibly from Neolithic times; the spoke-wheel carts are perhaps the modified descendants of the war-chariot which the Gaelic-speaking Celts introduced into the British Islands. We have here, in the evolution of the wheel, another example of the stimulus to invention and improvement that war gives to technology, which improvements may be later introduced into the peaceful avocations of life.

Further investigations must decide whether the eccentric spokes of the modern Basque and ancient Greek wheels were characteristic of the vehicles of the agricultural Mediterranean Race, and whether the radiating spoke-wheels were invented, or introduced into Europe, by the mobile Aryan peoples.

A most interesting series of spoke-wheels can be seen, for example, at Dundonald, near Belfast, in Co. Down. The cart itself is of the same type as that associated with block-wheels; but there are two varieties of spoke-wheels. In that both the wheels are small-scarcely larger than the solid wheels; but in the one case they are placed within the shafts, and in the other case outside of them. Thus we get the same two varieties that we find among the block-wheel cars. It is obvious that in the first variety the wheel must be kept small, otherwise there would not be

room enough for it beneath the floor of the cart; but this necessary limitation does not obtain for the second variety. Here the conditioning factor appears to be a blind adherence to traditional methods, for the

FIG. 32.

B

A

Two Carts at Dundonald, Co. Down; from photographs.

people are accustomed to the old style of cart, with its familiar small wheels.

We have seen that it is more convenient to make block-wheels of small size, and this necessitates a considerable slant in the shafts, which has to be recti

fied by propping up the hinder part of the floor of the cart. If this particular form of cart is persisted in, the wheels must be kept small, even when they are outside of the shafts, or else they would make the floor of the cart slope downwards in front.

I have a photograph of another cart which shows two interesting features: first, a slight reduction in the upright back-staves; and second, the shafts proper are added on to the lower framework of the cart, and are placed at such an angle to it that they approximate to the horizontal position of ordinary shafts.

From this last it is but a small step to so increase the diameter of the wheel that the shafts can lie in a horizontal position, and thus form the foundation of the floor of the cart. This is the present condition of

the ordinary cart.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ORIGIN OF THE IRISH JAUNTING-CAR.

IN

N the last chapter we studied a series of primitive vehicles which are either in use at the present day in Ireland, or which comparatively recently were employed in various parts of the British Islands. We have now to investigate the origin of a conveyance which is absolutely confined to Ireland, a true insular variety of carriage.

There is very good evidence that the jaunting car was evolved at the end of the last century, or more probably within the first few years of this century. It is therefore by no means an ancient vehicle, and unlike many other implements it has no long ancestry of progressive improvements from an early type, but, once started, it rapidly passed through its developmental history.

We have not far to seek for the parental form; in fact, we have already made its acquaintance as a cart. In his Hibernia Curiosa Mr. Bush* gives the following

* J. BUSH," Hibernia Curiosa. A Letter from a Gentleman in Dublin to his Friend at Dover in Kent. Giving a general View of the Manners, Customs, Dispositions, etc. of the Inhabitants of Ireland. . . . Collected in a Tour through the Kingdom in the Year 1764." Dublin, 1769, p. 30.