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THE CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO CANAL
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pool and Manchester Rail Road steam locomotives were used more successfully than had been the case on other English roads, where their speed had never exceeded the gait of an easy-going road horse—six miles an hour. It was greatly doubted whether such a machine was possible; and if, under good conditions, steam locomotives could haul a "brigade of cars" faster than a horse or mule on straight track, the thing would never get around a curve; and it was never the plan of the builders of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road to avoid curves. Other locomotives than steam were being prepared for trial on the new rail road. Evan Thomas, brother of the president of the road, invented a car which was moved by sails! It was named "Æolus." "I well recollect," recorded Benjamin H. Latrobe, "the little experimental locomotive of Mr. Evan Thomas; it was 'a basket body,' like that of a sleigh, and had a mast, and, if I recollect, 'a square sail, and was mounted upon four wheels of equal size.' It ran equally well in either direction, but of course only in that in which the wind happened to be blowing at