Archive for June, 2008

June 29, 2008: 7:00 pm: AutoblogGeneral

from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the
navigable communication, which has been accomplished between our
Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years,
to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by
the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the people of the State
of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and the Earth smile
most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the
best interests of the human race
‘This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels
from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the
navigable communication, which has been accomplished between our
Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years,
to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by
the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the people of the State
of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and the Earth smile
most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the
best interests of the human race.’

: 7:00 am: AutoblogGeneral

Fifth Gear - Ferrari Enzo vs McLaren F1

June 28, 2008: 9:00 pm: AutoblogGeneral

Valley of Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by
German and Irish traders probably as early as 1700
The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the
Valley of Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by
German and Irish traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the
people of Maryland were petitioning for a road from the ford of
the Monocacy to the home of Nathan Wickham. Four years later Jost
Heydt, leading an immigrant party southward, broke open a road
from the York Barrens toward the Potomac two miles above Harper”s
Ferry. This avenue by way of the Berkeley, Staunton, Watauga, and
Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and Kentucky–was the longest and
most important in America during the Revolutionary period. The
Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed commissioners to view this
route and to report on the advisability of making it a wagon road
all the way to Kentucky. In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky
to turn the Wilderness Trail into a wagon road, and in this same
year the Kentucky Legislature passed an act making the route from
Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap a wagon road thirty feet in width.

June 26, 2008: 9:00 pm: AutoblogGeneral

of such epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in
some brief measure delayed Fulton”s adoption of paddle wheels, it
gave him an entry to the waters of New York
It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was
of such epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in
some brief measure delayed Fulton”s adoption of paddle wheels, it
gave him an entry to the waters of New York. Livingston and
Fulton thus supplemented each other; Livingston possessed a
monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the value of paddle
wheels and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It was a rare
combination destined to crown with success a long period of
effort and discouragement in the history of navigation.

June 23, 2008: 5:00 pm: AutoblogGeneral

shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign
trade, following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few
years, had been so busy
The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland
shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign
trade, following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few
years, had been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio
Valley was ruined. By this time the successful voyage of Fulton”s
steamboat, the Clermont, between New York and Albany, had
demonstrated the possibilities of steam navigation. Not a few men
saw in the novel craft the beginning of a new era in Western
river traffic; but many doubted whether it was possible to
construct a vessel powerful enough to make its way upstream
against such sweeping currents as those of the Mississippi and
the Ohio. Surely no one for a moment dreamed that in hardly more
than a generation the Western rivers would carry a tonnage larger
than that of the cities of the Atlantic seaboard combined and
larger than that of Great Britain!

June 22, 2008: 1:00 am: AutoblogGeneral

Intro of magnum P.I.
From RetroJunk.com

June 21, 2008: 11:00 pm: AutoblogGeneral

Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam
They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou
Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at
the forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the
cast the party pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian
guidance, and soon noted the change in the character of the soil
from black loam to sandy gravel, which indicated that they had
reached the Piedmont region. Indian marauders stole one horse
from the camp, and three of the party fell ill. The others,
pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men in an
improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their aid
the first Indian they should meet ‘who understood herbs.’ After
appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the
Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches,
for they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville,
seeing, as he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of
west Tennessee. With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends
abruptly; but from other sources we learn that he sailed from New
York on his return to England in January, 1798. His interesting
record, however, remained unpublished until after his death in
1844.

June 20, 2008: 3:00 pm: AutoblogGeneral

mystery to the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the
elephant was to the blind men of Hindustan
Inland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a
mystery to the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the
elephant was to the blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those
who had penetrated this wilderness–of those who had seen the
barren ranges of the Alleghanies, the fertile uplands of the
Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the rich bottom lands
of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the inland seas,
or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond the
Wabash–seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able
to patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of
the giant inland empire that had become a part of the United
States. It was a pathless desert; it was a maze of trails,
trodden out by deer, buffalo, and Indian. Its great riverways
were broad avenues for voyagers and explorers; they were
treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a million floods.
It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives were seldom
more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad
confines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible
as the interior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet
its gigantic distances and natural obstructions defied all known
means of transportation.

: 11:00 am: AutoblogGeneral

Ferrari F40 Prototype at MSR.

: 9:00 am: AutoblogGeneral

Captain Keever built a ’steamboat’ on the Ohio, and sent her down
to New Orleans where her engine was to be installed
As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the Clermont,
Captain Keever built a ’steamboat’ on the Ohio, and sent her down
to New Orleans where her engine was to be installed. But it was
not until 1811 that the Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the
Western streams, was built at Pittsburgh, from which point she
sailed for New Orleans in October of that year. The Comet and
Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three entered the New
Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never seen
again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood
tides of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that
in 1815 the Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and
Louisville, but this was in time of high water, when counter
currents and backwaters had assisted her feeble engine. In 1816,
however, Henry Shreve conceived the idea of raising the engine
out of the hold and constructing an additional deck. The
Washington, the first doubledecker, was the result. The next year
this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New Orleans
and back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced.