My AutoBlogs!

To increase the highways transport resources as one of the means of

Autoblog — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:17:01 +0000

strengthening the entire transportation system of the country, and for
the purpose of avoiding the waste incurred by running transport
vehicles empty, return-load bureaus are established
To increase the highways transport resources as one of the means of
strengthening the entire transportation system of the country, and for
the purpose of avoiding the waste incurred by running transport
vehicles empty, return-load bureaus are established. These bureaus are
a means of bringing together the shipper having goods to move and the
operator of an empty vehicle which is possibly running to the point
for which the goods to be shipped are destined.

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Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to

Autoblog — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:17:03 +0000

an American tavern
Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to
an American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find
that American taverns were ‘boarding-places,’ frequented by
crowds of ‘young, able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly
at leisure as the loungers of ancient Europe.’ In those days of
few newspapers, the tavern everywhere in America was the center
of information; in fact, it was a common practice for travelers
in the interior, after signing their names in the register, to
add on the same page any news of local interest which they
brought with them. The tavern habitues, Baily remarks, did not
sit and drink after meals but ‘wasted’ their time at billiards
and cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns
in the most out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most
ordinary conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard
tables. This custom seems to have been especially true in the
South; and it is significant that the first taxes in Tennessee
levied before the beginning of the nineteenth century were the
poll tax and taxes on billiard tables and studhorses!

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Ferrari Shell

Autoblog — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:17:02 +0000

60 years of Ferrari and Shell.
This by far one of the coolest videos I have ever seen. The transition to the modern formula 1 car is amazing!

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It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later

Autoblog — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:17:02 +0000

difficulties and failures, if the men who at Washington”s call
undertook to master the capricious rivers of the seaboard had
studied a stately Spanish decree which declared that, since God
had not made the rivers of Spain navigable, it were sacrilege for
mortals to attempt to do so
It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later
difficulties and failures, if the men who at Washington”s call
undertook to master the capricious rivers of the seaboard had
studied a stately Spanish decree which declared that, since God
had not made the rivers of Spain navigable, it were sacrilege for
mortals to attempt to do so. Even before the Revolution, Mayor
Rhodes of Philadelphia was in correspondence with Franklin in
London concerning the experiences of European engineers in
harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, writing to
Rhodes in 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: ‘rivers are
ungovernable things,’ he had said, and English engineers ’seldom
or never use a River where it can be avoided.’ But it was the
birthright of New World democracy to make its own mistakes and in
so doing to prove for itself the errors of the Old World.

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>From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound

Autoblog — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:17:02 +0000

followed in the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and
Forbes in their campaigns against Fort Duquesne
>From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound
followed in the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and
Forbes in their campaigns against Fort Duquesne. In 1755,
Braddock, marching from Alexandria by way of Fort Cumberland, had
opened a passage for his artillery and wagons to Laurel Hill,
near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His force included a corps of
seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise and lower his
wagons in the steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three years
later, Forbes, in his careful, dogged campaign, followed a more
northerly route. Advancing from Philadelphia and Carlisle, he
established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier as bases of supply and
broke a new road through the interminable forest which clothed
the rugged mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter
rivalry between these two routes, and the young Colonel
Washington was roundly criticized by both Forbes and Bouquet, his
second in command, for his partisan effort to ‘drive me down,’ as
Forbes phrased it, into the Virginia or Braddock”s Road. This
rivalry between the two routes continued when the destruction of
the French power over the roads in the interior threw open to
Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative
trade of the Ohio country.

The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met

Autoblog — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:17:02 +0000

with disappointment
The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met
with disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in
1812 plead that its construction would promote ‘a free and
general intercourse between different parts of the United States,
tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and
consolidate and strengthen the Union.’ The plan to have the
Government subsidize the canal by vesting in the State of New
York four million acres of Michigan land brought out a protest
from the West which is notable not so much because it records the
opposition of this section as because it illustrates the
shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New
York enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors
asserted, was to build up New York City to the detriment of
Montreal, and the navigation of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they
touchingly described, was to be abandoned for a ‘narrow, winding
obstructed canal…for an expense which arithmetic dares not
approach.’ It was, in their minds, unquestionably a selfish
object, and they believed that ‘both correct science, and the
dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead to the
adoption of more liberal principles.’ It was a shortsighted
object, ‘predicated on the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to
England.’ It would never give satisfaction since trade would
always ignore artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting
of such comparatively useless projects would discourage worthy
schemes, relax the bonds of Union, and depress the national
character. But though these Westerners thus misjudged the
possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our hats to them
for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding the
Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and
Panama!

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* ‘Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796

Autoblog — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:17:02 +0000

and 1797′ by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856)
* ‘Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796
and 1797′ by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856).

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Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners,

Autoblog — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:17:03 +0000

engineers, and contractors
Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners,
engineers, and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all
but stopped the work by cutting off the source of supplies.
Pioneer ailments, such as fever and ague, reaped great harvests,
incapacitated more than a thousand workmen at one time and for a
brief while stopped work completely.

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Magnum P.I. opening

Autoblog — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:17:01 +0000

Intro of magnum P.I.
From RetroJunk.com

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The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two

Autoblog — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:17:02 +0000

hours; the return trip was made in thirty
The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two
hours; the return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of
the spectators who stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat
made its maiden voyage in 1807, gives the following description:

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