Patten (shoe) walk in, and despite their practical intention, literary evidence suggests that they could appear, at least to males, as a further aspect of feminine frailty and dependency. Samuel Pepys recorded in his Diary for January 24, 1660: From the "Middle Period" Poems of John Clare (1820s): From Thomas Hardy's "The Woodlanders" of 1887, though set earlier in the century: The word could also be used as a term for a wooden soled shoe, that is a chopine or clog, as opposed to an overshoe, until at least the nineteenth century. The word was also used for the traditional wooden outdoor
Steam shovel Steam shovel A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th and early 20th century, being key to the construction of railroads and the Panama Canal. The development of simpler, cheaper diesel-powered shovels caused steam shovels to fall out of favor in the 1930s. Grimshaw of Boulton & Watt devised the first steam-powered excavator in 1796. In 1833 William Brunton patented another steam-powered excavator which he provided