19.2 x 53.7 x 22
Carved and inlaid wood
and brass
INDEX 1788 : D.IV.150
Parvus currus cum quatuor rotis ex orichalco, pro quibus substitui possunt aliae quatuor diametro minores, sed ponderis ejusdem. Planum instructum Quadrante, et fulcro ligneo sustentatum, super quod trahitur curriculus, quod varie inclinari potest.
Small cart with four brass wheels, which can be replaced by four other, smaller ones of the same weight. A plane surface with a quadrant, mounted on a wooden base, across which the small cart is pulled, and which can be tilted in various ways.
This model cart is intended for the experimental study of wheels running over obstacles. The cart was equipped with two sets of four wheels each, both sets of the same weight but with different diameters.
At the front of the cart is a shaft with a cord for pulling it, which passed through a pulley fixed to a flat wooden surface. Increasingly heavy weights would be suspended from the free end of the cord, so as to make the wheels of the cart go over an obstacle previously placed on the wooden surface on which the cart was moving. The present whereabouts of the wooden surface are unknown. The cart can be also used on the inclined plane described at number 45.
From Colégio dos Nobres, catalogue n.º 141.