Title: The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson - Comprising Also a History of the Invention and Introduction - of the Railway Locomotive
Author: Smiles, Samuel
Language: English
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  [Illustration: (George Stephenson.)

  _Engraved by W. Hall after the portrait by John Lucas._

  NEW YORK, HARRER & BROTHERS.]



  THE LIFE

  OF

  GEORGE STEPHENSON

  AND OF HIS SON

  ROBERT STEPHENSON;

  COMPRISING ALSO

  A HISTORY OF THE INVENTION AND INTRODUCTION
  OF THE RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE.

  BY SAMUEL SMILES,

  AUTHOR OF "SELF-HELP," "THE HUGUENOTS," ETC.

  With Portraits and Numerous Illustrations.

  NEW YORK:

  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

  FRANKLIN SQUARE.

  1868.



PREFACE.


The present is a revised edition of the Life of George Stephenson and
of his son Robert Stephenson, to which is prefixed a history of the
Railway and the Locomotive in its earlier stages, uniform with the
early history of the Steam-engine given in vol. iv. of "Lives of the
Engineers" containing the memoirs of Boulton and Watt. A memoir of
Richard Trevithick has also been included in this introductory portion
of the book, which will probably be found more complete than any notice
which has yet appeared of that distinguished mechanical engineer.

       *       *       *       *       *

Since the appearance of this Life in its original form ten years ago,
the construction of Railways has continued to make extraordinary
progress. The length of lines then open in Europe was estimated at
about 18,000 miles: it is now more than 50,000 miles. Although Great
Britain, first in the field, had then, after about twenty-five years'
work, expended nearly 300 millions sterling in the construction of 8300
miles of double railway, it has during the last ten years expended
about 200 millions more in constructing 5600 additional miles.

But the construction of railways has proceeded with equal rapidity on
the Continent. France has now 9624 miles at work; Germany (including
Austria), 13,392 miles; Spain, 3161 miles; Sweden, 1100 miles;
Belgium, 1073 miles; Switzerland, 795 miles; Holland, 617 miles;
besides railways in other states. These have, for the most part, been
constructed and opened during the last ten years, while a considerable
length is still under construction. Austria is actively engaged in
carrying new lines across the plains of Hungary to the frontier of
Turkey, which Turkey is preparing to meet by lines carried up the
valley of the Lower Danube; and Russia, with 2800 miles already at
work, is occupied with extensive schemes for connecting Petersburg and
Moscow with her ports in the Black Sea on the one hand, and with the
frontier towns of her Asiatic empire on the other.

Italy also is employing her new-born liberty in vigorously extending
railways throughout her dominions. The length of Italian lines in
operation in 1866 was 2752 miles, of which not less than 680 were
opened in that year. Already has a direct line of communication been
opened between Germany and Italy through the Brenner Pass, by which
it is now possible to make the entire journey by railway (excepting
only the short sea-passage across the English Channel) from London to
Brindisi on the southeastern extremity of the Italian peninsula; and,
in the course of a few more years, a still shorter route will be opened
through France, when that most formidable of all railway borings, the
seven-mile tunnel under Mont Cenis, has been completed.

During the last ten years, nearly the whole of the existing Indian
railways have been made. When Edmund Burke in 1783 arraigned the
British government for their neglect of India in his speech on Mr.
Fox's Bill, he said, "England has built no bridges, made no high
roads, cut no navigations, dug out no reservoirs.... Were we to be
driven out of India this day, nothing would remain to tell that it
had been possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion,
by any thing better than the orang-outang or the tiger." But that
reproach no longer applies. Some of the greatest bridges erected in
modern times--such as those over the Sone near Patna, and over the
Jamna at Allahabad--have been erected in connection with the Indian
railways, of which there are already 3637 miles at work, and above
2000 more under construction. When these lines have been completed,
at an expenditure of about £88,000,000 of British capital guaranteed
by the British government, India will be provided with a magnificent
system of internal communication, connecting the capitals of the
three Presidencies--uniting Bombay with Madras on the south, and with
Calcutta on the northeast--while a great main line, 2200 miles in
extent, passing through the northwestern provinces, and connecting
Calcutta with Lucknow, Delhi, Lahore, Moultan, and Kurrachee, will
unite the mouths of the Hooghly in the Bay of Bengal with those of the
Indus in the Arabian Sea.

When the first edition of this work appeared in the beginning of 1857,
the Canadian system of railways was but in its infancy. The Grand
Trunk was only begun, and the Victoria Bridge--the greatest of all
railway structures--was not half erected. Now, that fine colony has
more than 2200 miles in active operation along the great valley of the
St. Lawrence, connecting Rivière du Loup at the mouth of that river,
and the harbor of Portland in the State of Maine, _via_ Montreal and
Toronto, with Sarnia on Lake Huron, and with Windsor, opposite Detroit,
in the State of Michigan. The Australian Colonies also have during the
same time been actively engaged in providing themselves with railways,
many of which are at work, and others are in course of formation. Even
the Cape of Good Hope has several lines open, and others making. France
also has constructed about 400 miles in Algeria, while the Pasha of
Egypt is the proprietor of 360 miles in operation across the Egyptian
desert.

But in no country has railway construction been prosecuted with
greater vigor than in the United States. There the railway furnishes
not only the means of intercommunication between already established
settlements, as in the Old World, but it is regarded as the pioneer
of colonization, and as instrumental in opening up new and fertile
territories of vast extent in the west--the food-grounds of future
nations. Hence railway construction in that country was scarcely
interrupted even by the great Civil War; at the commencement of which
Mr. Seward publicly expressed the opinion that "physical bonds, such
as highways, railroads, rivers, and canals, are vastly more powerful
for holding civil communities together than any mere covenants, though
written on parchment or engraved on iron."

The people of the United States were the first to follow the example of
England, after the practicability of steam locomotion had been proved
on the Stockton and Darlington and Liverpool and Manchester Railways.
The first sod of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway was cut on the 4th
of July, 1828, and the line was completed and opened for traffic in
the following year, when it was worked partly by horse-power, and
partly by a locomotive built at Baltimore, which is still preserved
in the Company's workshops. In 1830 the Hudson and Mohawk Railway was
begun, while other lines were under construction in Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, and New Jersey; and in the course of ten years, 1843
miles were finished and in operation. In ten more years, 8827 miles
were at work; at the end of 1864, not less than 35,000 miles, mostly
single tracks; while about 15,000 miles more were under construction.
One of the most extensive trunk-lines still unfinished is the
Great Pacific Railroad, connecting the lines in the valleys of the
Mississippi and the Missouri with the city of San Francisco on the
shores of the Pacific, by which, when completed, it will be possible to
make the journey from England to Hong Kong, _via_ New York, in little
more than a month.

       *       *       *       *       *

The results of the working of railways have been in many respects
different from those anticipated by their projectors. One of the most
unexpected has been the growth of an immense passenger-traffic. The
Stockton and Darlington line was projected as a coal line only, and the
Liverpool and Manchester as a merchandise line. Passengers were not
taken into account as a source of revenue; for, at the time of their
projection, it was not believed that people would trust themselves to
be drawn upon a railway by an "explosive machine," as the locomotive
was described to be. Indeed, a writer of eminence declared that he
would as soon think of being fired off on a ricochet rocket as travel
on a railway at twice the speed of the old stage-coaches. So great was
the alarm which existed as to the locomotive, that the Liverpool and
Manchester Committee pledged themselves in their second prospectus,
issued in 1825, "not to require any clause empowering its use;" and
as late as 1829, the Newcastle and Carlisle Act was conceded on the
express condition that it should not be worked by locomotives, but by
horses only.

Nevertheless, the Liverpool and Manchester Company obtained powers to
make and work their railway without any such restriction; and when the
line was made and opened, a locomotive passenger-train was ordered to
be run upon it by way of experiment. Greatly to the surprise of the
directors, more passengers presented themselves as travelers by the
train than could conveniently be carried.

The first arrangements as to passenger-traffic were of a very primitive
character, being mainly copied from the old stage-coach system. The
passengers were "booked" at the railway office, and their names were
entered in a way-bill which was given to the guard when the train
started. Though the usual stage-coach bugleman could not conveniently
accompany the passengers, the trains were at first played out of the
terminal stations by a lively tune performed by a trumpeter at the
end of the platform, and this continued to be done at the Manchester
Station until a comparatively recent date.

But the number of passengers carried by the Liverpool and Manchester
line was so unexpectedly great, that it was very soon found necessary
to remodel the entire system. Tickets were introduced, by which a
great saving of time was effected. More roomy and commodious carriages
were provided, the original first-class compartments being seated for
four passengers only. Every thing was found to have been in the first
instance made too light and too slight. The prize "Rocket," which
weighed only 4-1/2 tons when loaded with its coke and water, was found
quite unsuited for drawing the increasingly heavy loads of passengers.
There was also this essential difference between the old stage-coach
and the new railway train, that, whereas the former was "full" with
six inside and ten outside, the latter must be able to accommodate
whatever number of passengers came to be carried. Hence heavier and
more powerful engines, and larger and more substantial carriages, were
from time to time added to the carrying stock of the railway.

The speed of the trains was also increased. The first locomotives
used in hauling coal-trains ran at from four to six miles an hour.
On the Stockton and Darlington line the speed was increased to about
ten miles an hour; and on the Liverpool and Manchester line the first
passenger-trains were run at the average speed of seventeen miles an
hour, which at that time was considered very fast. But this was not
enough. When the London and Birmingham line was opened, the mail-trains
were run at twenty-three miles an hour; and gradually the speed went
up, until now the fast trains are run at from fifty to sixty miles an
hour--the pistons in the cylinders, at sixty miles, traveling at the
inconceivable rapidity of 800 feet per minute!

To bear the load of heavy engines run at high speeds, a much stronger
and heavier road was found necessary; and shortly after the opening
of the Liverpool and Manchester line, it was entirely relaid with
stronger materials. Now that express passenger-engines are from thirty
to thirty-five tons each, the weight of the rails has been increased
from 35 lbs. to 75 lbs. or 86 lbs. to the yard. Stone blocks have given
place to wooden sleepers; rails with loose ends resting on the chairs,
to rails with their ends firmly "fished" together; and in many places,
where the traffic is unusually heavy, iron rails have been replaced by
those of steel.

And now see the enormous magnitude to which railway passenger-traffic
has grown. In the year 1866, 274,293,668 passengers were carried by
day tickets in Great Britain alone. But this was not all; for in that
year 110,227 periodical tickets were issued by the different railways;
and assuming half of them to be annual, one fourth half-yearly, and
the remainder quarterly tickets, and that their holders made only five
journeys each way weekly, this would give an additional number of
39,405,600 journeys, or a total of 313,699,268 passengers carried in
Great Britain in one year.

It is difficult to grasp the idea of the enormous number of persons
represented by these figures. The mind is merely bewildered by them,
and can form no adequate notion of their magnitude. To reckon them
singly would occupy twenty years, counting at the rate of one a second
for twelve hours every day. Or take another illustration. Supposing
every man, woman, and child in Great Britain to make ten journeys by
rail yearly, the number would fall short of the passengers carried in
1866.

Mr. Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," estimated that thirty
millions of passengers, or about eighty-two thousand a day, traveled
by coaches in Great Britain in 1834, an average distance of twelve
miles each, at an average cost of 5_s._ a passenger, or at the rate of
5_d._ a mile; whereas above 313 millions are now carried by railway
an average distance of 8-1/2 miles each, at an average cost of 1_s._
1-1/2_d._ per passenger, or about three half-pence per mile, in
considerably less than half the time.

But, besides the above number of passengers, one hundred and
twenty-four million tons of minerals and merchandise were carried
by railway in the United Kingdom in 1866, and fifteen millions of
cattle, besides mails, parcels, and other traffic. The distance run
by passenger and goods trains in the year was 142,807,853 miles, to
accomplish which it is estimated that four miles of railway on an
average must be covered by running trains during every second all the
year round.

To perform this service, there were, in 1866, 8125 locomotives at work
in the United Kingdom, consuming about three million tons of coal
and coke, and flashing into the air every minute some thirty tons
of water in the form of steam in a high state of elasticity. There
were also 19,228 passenger-carriages, 7276 vans and breaks attached
to passenger-trains, and 242,947 trucks, wagons, and other vehicles
appropriated to merchandise. Buckled together, buffer to buffer, the
locomotives and tenders would extend for a length of about 54 miles,
or more than the distance from London to Brighton; while the carrying
vehicles, joined together, would form two trains occupying a double
line of railway extending from London to beyond Inverness.

A notable feature in the growth of railway traffic of late years has
been the increase in the number of third-class passengers, compared
with first and second class. Sixteen years since, the third-class
passengers constituted only about one third; ten years later they were
about one half; whereas now they form nearly two thirds of the whole
number carried. Thus George Stephenson's prediction "that the time
would come when it would be cheaper for a working man to make a journey
by railway than to walk on foot" is already realized.

The degree of safety with which this great traffic has been conducted
is not the least remarkable of its features. Of course, so long as
railways are worked by men, they will be liable to the imperfections
belonging to all things human. Though their machinery may be perfect,
and their organization as complete as skill and forethought can make
it, workmen will at times be forgetful and listless, and a moment's
carelessness may lead to the most disastrous results. Yet, taking all
circumstances into account, the wonder is that traveling by railway at
high speeds should have been rendered comparatively so safe.

To be struck by lightning is one of the rarest of all causes of
death, yet more persons were killed by lightning in Great Britain,
in 1866, than were killed on railways from causes beyond their own
control; the number in the former case having been nineteen, and in
the latter fifteen, or one in every twenty millions of passengers
carried. Most persons would consider the probability of their dying
by hanging to be extremely remote; yet, according to the Registrar
General's returns for 1867, it is thirty times greater than that of
being killed by railway accident. Taking the number of persons who
traveled in Great Britain in 1866 at 313,699,268, of whom fifteen were
accidentally killed, it would appear that, even supposing a person to
have a permanent existence, and to make a journey by railway daily,
the probability of his being killed in an accident would occur on an
average once in above 50,000 years.

The remarkable safety with which railway traffic is on the whole
conducted, is due to constant watchfulness and highly-applied skill.
The men who work the railways are for the most part the picked men of
the country, and every railway station may be regarded as a practical
school of industry, attention, and punctuality. Where railways fail in
these respects, it will usually be found that it is because the men are
personally defective, or because better men are not to be had. It must
also be added that the onerous and responsible duties which railway
workmen are called upon to perform require a degree of consideration on
the part of the public which is not very often extended to them.

Few are aware of the complicated means and agencies that are in
constant operation on railways day and night to insure the safety of
the passengers to their journeys' end. The road is under a system of
continuous inspection, under gangs of men--about twelve to every five
miles, under a foreman or "ganger"--whose duty it is to see that the
rails and chairs are sound, all their fastenings complete, and the line
clear of obstructions.

Then, at all the junctions, sidings, and crossings, pointsmen are
stationed, with definite instructions as to the duties to be performed
by them. At these places signals are provided, worked from the station
platforms, or from special signal-boxes, for the purpose of protecting
the stopping or passing trains. When the first railways were opened
the signals were of a very simple kind. The station-men gave them
with their arms stretched out in different positions; then flags of
different colors were used; next fixed signals, with arms or discs,
or of rectangular or triangular shape. These were followed by a
complete system of semaphore signals, near and distant, protecting all
junctions, sidings, and crossings.

When government inspectors were first appointed by the Board of
Trade to examine and report upon the working of railways, they were
alarmed by the number of trains following each other at some stations
in what then seemed to be a very rapid succession. A passage from a
Report written in 1840 by Sir Frederick Smith, as to the traffic at
"Taylor's Junction," on the York and North Midland Railway, contrasts
curiously with the railway life and activity of the present day:
"Here," wrote the alarmed inspector, "the passenger trains from York,
as well as Leeds and Selby, meet four times a day. No less than 23
passenger-trains stop at or pass this station in the 24 hours--an
amount of traffic requiring not only the most perfect arrangements on
the part of the management, but the utmost vigilance and energy in the
servants of the Company employed at this place." Contrast this with the
state of things now. On the Metropolitan Line, 667 trains pass a given
point in one direction or the other during the eighteen hours of the
working day, or an average of 36 trains an hour. At the Cannon-street
Station of the Southeastern Railway, 527 trains pass in and out
daily, many of them crossing each others' tracks under the protection
of the station signals. Forty-five trains run in and out between 9
and 10 A.M., and an equal number between 4 and 5 P.M. Again, at the
Clapham Junction, near London, about 700 trains pass or stop daily;
and though to the casual observer the succession of trains coming and
going, running and stopping, coupling and shunting, appears a scene of
inextricable confusion and danger, the whole is clearly intelligible
to the signal-men in their boxes, who work the trains in and out with
extraordinary precision and regularity.

The inside of a signal-box reminds one of a piano-forte on a large
scale, the lever-handles corresponding with the keys of the
instrument; and, to an uninstructed person, to work the one would be
as difficult as to play a tune on the other. The signal-box outside
Cannon-street Station contains 67 lever-handles, by means of which
the signal-men are enabled at the same moment to communicate with the
drivers of all the engines on the line within an area of 800 yards.
They direct by signs, which are quite as intelligible as words, the
drivers of the trains starting from inside the station, as well as
those of the trains arriving from outside. By pulling a lever-handle,
a distant signal, perhaps out of sight, is set some hundred yards off,
which the approaching driver--reading it quickly as he comes along--at
once interprets, and stops or advances, as the signal may direct.

The precision and accuracy of the signal-machinery employed at
important stations and junctions have of late years been much improved
by an ingenious contrivance, by means of which the setting of the
signal prepares the road for the coming train. When the signal is set
at "Danger," the points are at the same time worked, and the road is
"locked" against it; and when at "Safety," the road is open--the signal
and the points exactly corresponding.

The Electric Telegraph has also been found a valuable auxiliary
in insuring the safe working of large railway traffics. Though
the locomotive may run at sixty miles an hour, electricity, when
at its fastest, travels at the rate of 288,000 miles a second,
and is therefore always able to herald the coming train. The
electric telegraph may, indeed, be regarded as the nervous system
of the railway. By its means the whole line is kept throbbing with
intelligence. The method of working electric signals varies on
different lines; but the usual practice is to divide a line into so
many lengths, each protected by its signal-stations, the fundamental
law of telegraph working being that two engines are not to be allowed
to run on the same line between two signal-stations at the same time.
When a train passes one of such stations, it is immediately signaled
on--usually by electric signal-bells--to the station in advance,
and that interval of railway is "blocked" until the signal has been
received from the station in advance that the train has passed it. Thus
_an interval of space_ is always secured between trains following each
other, which are thereby alike protected before and behind. And thus,
when a train starts on a journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is
signaled on from station to station, and "lives along the line," until
at length it reaches its destination, and the last signal of "train in"
is given. By this means an immense number of trains can be worked with
regularity and safety. On the Southeastern Railway, where the system
has been brought to a state of high efficiency, it is no unusual thing
during Easter week to send 570,000 passengers through the London Bridge
Station alone; and on some days as many as 1200 trains a day.

While such are the expedients adopted to insure safety, others equally
ingenious are adopted to insure speed. In the case of express and mail
trains, the frequent stopping of the engines to take in a fresh supply
of water occasions a considerable loss of time on a long journey, each
stoppage for this purpose occupying from ten to fifteen minutes. To
avoid such stoppages larger tenders have been provided, capable of
carrying as much as 2000 gallons of water each. But as a considerable
time is occupied in filling these, a plan has been contrived by Mr.
Ramsbottom, the locomotive engineer of the London and Northwestern
Railway, by which the engines are made to _feed themselves_ while
running at full speed! The plan is as follows: An open trough, about
440 feet long, is laid longitudinally between the rails. Into this
trough, which is filled with water, a dip-pipe, or scoop attached to
the bottom of the tender of the running train, is lowered, and, at a
speed of 50 miles an hour, as much as 1070 gallons of water are scooped
up in the course of a few minutes. The first of such troughs was laid
down between Chester and Holyhead, to enable the Express Mail to run
the distance of 84-3/4 miles in two hours and five minutes without
stopping; and similar troughs have since been laid down at Bushey,
near London; at Castlethorpe, near Wolverton; and at Parkside, near
Liverpool. At these four troughs about 130,000 gallons of water are
scooped up daily.

       *       *       *       *       *

Wherever railways have been made, new towns have sprung up, and old
towns and cities been quickened into new life. When the first English
lines were projected, great were the prophecies of disaster to the
inhabitants of the districts through which they were proposed to be
forced. Such fears have long since been dispelled in this country.
The same prejudices existed in France. When the railway from Paris
to Marseilles was projected to pass through Lyons, a local prophet
predicted that if the line were made the city would be ruined--"_Ville
traversée, ville perdue_;" while a local priest denounced the
locomotive and the electric telegraph as heralding the reign of
Antichrist. But such nonsense is no longer uttered. Now it is the city
without the railway that is regarded as the "city lost;" for it is in a
measure shut out from the rest of the world, and left outside the pale
of civilization.

Perhaps the most striking of all the illustrations that could be
offered of the extent to which railways facilitate the locomotion, the
industry, and the subsistence of the population of large towns and
cities, is afforded by the working of the railway system in connection
with the capital of Great Britain.

The extension of railways to London has been of comparatively recent
date, the whole of the lines connecting it with the provinces and
terminating at its outskirts having been opened during the last thirty
years, while the lines inside London have for the most part been opened
within the last ten years.

The first London line was the Greenwich Railway, part of which was
opened for traffic to Deptford in February, 1836. The working of this
railway was first exhibited as a show, and the usual attractions were
employed to make it "draw." A band of musicians in the garb of the
Beef-eaters was stationed at the London end, and another band at
Deptford. For cheapness' sake, the Deptford band was shortly superseded
by a large barrel-organ, which played in the passengers; but when the
traffic became established, the barrel-organ, as well as the Beef-eater
band at the London end, were both discontinued. The whole length of
the line was lit up at night by a row of lamps on either side like a
street, as if to enable the locomotives or the passengers to see their
way in the dark; but these lamps also were eventually discontinued as
unnecessary.

As a show, the Greenwich Railway proved tolerably successful. During
the first eleven months it carried 456,750 passengers, or an average
of about 1300 a day. But the railway having been found more convenient
to the public than either the river boats or the omnibuses, the number
of passengers rapidly increased. When the Croydon, Brighton, and
Southeastern Railways began to pour their streams of traffic over the
Greenwich Viaduct, its accommodation was found much too limited, and it
was widened from time to time, until now nine lines of railway are laid
side by side, over which more than twenty millions of passengers are
carried yearly, or an average of about 60,000 a day all the year round.

Since the partial opening of the Greenwich Railway in 1836, a large
extent of railways has been constructed in and about the metropolis,
and convenient stations have been established almost in the heart of
the city. Sixteen of these stations are within a circle of half a mile
radius from the Mansion House, and above three hundred stations are
in actual use or in course of construction within about five miles
of Charing Cross. The most important lines recently opened for the
accommodation of the London local traffic have been the London, Chatham
and Dover Metropolitan Extensions (1861), the Metropolitan (1863), the
North London Extension to Liverpool Street (1865), the Charing Cross
and Cannon-street Extensions of the Southeastern Railway (1864-6), and
the South London Extension of the Brighton Railway (1866). Of these
railways, the London, Chatham and Dover carried 5,228,418 passengers
in 1867; the Metropolitan, 23,405,282; the North London, 17,535,502;
the Southeastern, 17,473,934; and the Brighton, 12,686,417. The total
number carried into and out of London, as well as from station to
station in London, in the same year, was 104 millions of passengers.

To accommodate this vast traffic, not fewer than 3600 local trains are
run in and out daily, besides 340 trains which depart to and arrive
from distant places, north, south, east, and west. In the morning
hours, between 8 30 and 10 30, when business men are proceeding inward
to their offices and counting-houses, and in the afternoon between four
and six, when they are returning outward to their homes, as many as
two thousand stoppages are made in the hour, within the metropolitan
district, for the purpose of taking up and setting down passengers,
while about two miles of railway are covered by the running trains.

One of the remarkable effects of railways has been to extend the
residential area of all large towns and cities. This is especially
notable in the case of London. Before the introduction of railways, the
residential area of the metropolis was limited by the time occupied by
business men in making the journey outward and inward daily; and it was
for the most part bounded by Bow on the east, by Hampstead and Highgate
on the north, by Paddington and Kensington on the west, and by Clapham
and Brixton on the south. But now that stations have been established
near the centre of the city, and places so distant as Waltham, Barnet,
Watford, Hanwell, Richmond, Epsom, Croydon, Reigate, and Erith can be
more quickly reached by rail than the old suburban quarters were by
omnibus, the metropolis has become extended in all directions along
its railway lines, and the population of London, instead of living in
the city or its immediate vicinity as formerly, have come to occupy a
residential area of not less than six hundred square miles!

The number of new towns which have consequently sprung into existence
near London within the last twenty years has been very great; towns
numbering from ten to twenty thousand inhabitants, which before were
but villages, if, indeed, they existed. This has especially been the
case along the lines south of the Thames, principally in consequence of
the termini of those lines being more conveniently situated for city
men of business. Hence the rapid growth of the suburban towns up and
down the river, from Richmond and Staines on the west, to Erith and
Gravesend on the east, and the hives of population which have settled
on the high grounds south of the Thames, in the neighborhood of Norwood
and the Crystal Palace, rapidly spreading over the Surrey Downs,
from Wimbledon to Guildford, and from Bromley to Croydon, Epsom, and
Dorking. And now that the towns on the south and southeast coast can
be reached by city men in little more time than it takes to travel to
Clapham or Bayswater by omnibus, such places have become, as it were,
parts of the great metropolis, and Brighton and Hastings are but marine
suburbs of London.

The improved state of the communications of the city with the country
has had a marked effect upon its population. While the action of the
railways has been to add largely to the number of persons living in
London, it has also been accompanied by their dispersion over a much
larger area. Thus the population of the central parts of London is
constantly decreasing, whereas that of the suburban districts is
as constantly increasing. The population of the city fell off more
than 10,000 between 1851 and 1861; and during the same period, that
of Holborn, the Strand, St Martin's-in-the-Fields, St. James's,
Westminster, East and West London, showed a considerable decrease.
But, as regards the whole mass of the metropolitan population, the
increase has been enormous, especially since the introduction of
railways. Thus, starting from 1801, when the population of London was
958,863, we find it increasing in each decennial period at the rate
of between two and three hundred thousand, until the year 1841, when
it amounted to 1,948,369. Railways had by that time reached London,
after which its population increased at nearly double the former ratio.
In the ten years ending 1851, the increase was 413,867; and in the
ten years ending 1861, 441,753; until now, to quote the words of the
Registrar General in his last annual Report, "the population within the
registration limits is by estimate 2,993,513; but beyond this central
mass there is a ring of life growing rapidly, and extending along
railway lines over a circle of fifteen miles from Charing Cross. The
population within that circle, patrolled by the metropolitan police, is
about 3,463,771!"

The aggregation of so vast a number of persons within so comparatively
limited an area--the immense quantity of food required for their daily
sustenance, as well as of fuel, clothing, and other necessaries--would
be attended with no small inconvenience and danger but for the
facilities again provided by the railways. The provisioning of a
garrison of even four thousand men is considered a formidable affair;
how much more so the provisioning of nearly four millions of people!

The whole mystery is explained by the admirable organization of the
railway service, and the regularity and dispatch with which it is
conducted. We are enabled by the courtesy of the general managers of
the London railways to bring together the following brief summary of
facts relating to the food supply of London, which will probably be
regarded by most readers as of a very remarkable character.

Generally speaking, the railways to the south of the Thames contribute
comparatively little toward the feeding of London. They are, for the
most part, passenger and residential lines, traversing a limited and
not very fertile district bounded by the sea-coast, and, excepting in
fruit and vegetables, milk and hops, they probably carry more food from
London than they bring to it. The principal supplies of grain, flour,
potatoes, and fish are brought by railway from the eastern counties
of England and Scotland; and of cattle and sheep, beef and mutton,
from the grazing counties of the west and northwest of Britain, as far
as from the Highlands of Scotland, which, through the instrumentality
of railways, have become part of the great grazing-grounds of the
metropolis.

Take first "the staff of life"--bread and its constituents. Of wheat,
not less than 222,080 quarters were brought into London by railway in
1867, besides what was brought by sea; of oats, 151,757 quarters; of
barley, 70,282 quarters; of beans and peas, 51,448 quarters. Of the
wheat and barley, by far the largest proportion was brought by the
Great Eastern Railway, which delivered in London last year 155,000
quarters of wheat and 45,500 quarters of barley, besides 600,429
quarters more in the form of malt. The largest quantity of oats was
brought by the Great Northern Railway, principally from the north
of England and the east of Scotland--the quantity delivered by that
company in 1867 having been 97,500 quarters, besides 24,664 quarters of
wheat, 5560 quarters of barley, and 103,917 quarters of malt. Again, of
1,250,566 sacks of flour and meal delivered in London last year, the
Great Eastern brought 654,000 sacks, the Great Northern 232,022 sacks,
and the Great Western 136,312 sacks; the principal contribution of the
London and Northwestern Railway toward the London bread-stores being
100,760 boxes of American flour, besides 24,300 sacks of English. The
total quantity of malt delivered at the London railway stations in 1867
was thirteen hundred thousand sacks.

Next, as to flesh meat. Last year not fewer than 172,300 head of cattle
were brought into London by railway, though this was considerably less
than the number carried before the cattle plague, the Great Eastern
Railway alone having carried 44,672 less than in 1864. But this loss
has since been more than made up by the increased quantities of fresh
beef, mutton, and other kinds of meat imported in lieu of the live
animals. The principal supplies of cattle are brought, as we have said,
by the western, northern, and eastern lines: by the Great Western from
the western counties and Ireland; by the London and Northwestern, the
Midland, and the Great Northern, from the northern counties and from
Scotland; and by the Great Eastern from the eastern counties, and from
the ports of Harwich and Lowestoft.

Last year also, 1,147,609 sheep were brought to London by railway,
of which the Great Eastern delivered not less than 265,371 head. The
London and Northwestern and Great Northern between them brought 390,000
head from the northern English counties, with a large proportion from
the Scotch Highlands; while the Great Western brought up 130,000 head
from the Welsh mountains, and from the rich grazing districts of
Wilts, Gloucester, Somerset, and Devon. Another important freight of
the London and Northwestern Railway consists of pigs, of which they
delivered 54,700 in London last year, principally Irish; while the
Great Eastern brought up 27,500 of the same animal, partly foreign.

While the cattle plague has had the effect of greatly reducing the
number of live-stock brought into London yearly, it has given a
considerable impetus to the Fresh Meat traffic. Thus, in addition to
the above large numbers of cattle and sheep delivered in London last
year, the railways brought 76,175 tons of meat, which--taking the
meat of an average beast at 800 lbs., and of an average sheep at 64
lbs.--would be equivalent to about 112,000 more cattle, and 1,267,500
more sheep. The Great Northern brought the largest quantity; next, the
London and Northwestern--these two companies having brought up between
them, from distances as remote as Aberdeen and Inverness, about 42,000
tons of fresh meat in 1867, at an average freight of about 1/2_d._ a lb.

Again, as regards Fish, of which six tenths of the whole quantity
consumed in London is now brought by rail. The Great Eastern and the
Great Northern are by far the largest importers of this article, and
justify their claim to be regarded as the great food lines of London.
Of the 61,358 tons of fish brought by railway in 1867, not less than
24,500 tons were delivered by the former, and 22,000 tons, brought
from much longer distances, by the latter company. The London and
Northwestern brought about 6000 tons last year, the principal part of
which was salmon from Scotland and Ireland. The Great Western also
brought about 4000 tons, partly salmon, but the greater part mackerel
from the southwest coast. During the mackerel season, as much as a
hundred tons at a time are brought into the Paddington Station by
express fish-train from Cornwall.

The Great Eastern and Great Northern Companies are also the principal
carriers of turkeys, geese, fowls, and game, the quantity delivered
in London last year by the former company having been 5042 tons. In
Christmas week no fewer than 30,000 turkeys and geese were delivered
at the Bishopsgate Station, besides about 300 tons of poultry, 10,000
barrels of beer, and immense quantities of fish, oysters, and other
kinds of food. As much as 1600 tons of poultry and game were brought
last year by the Southwestern Railway; 600 tons by the Great Northern
Railway; and 130 tons of turkeys, geese, and fowls by the London,
Chatham and Dover line, principally from France.

Of miscellaneous articles, the Great Northern and Midland each brought
about 3000 tons of cheese, the Southwestern 2600 tons, and the London
and Northwestern 10,034 cheeses in number; while the Southwestern
and Brighton lines brought a splendid contribution to the London
breakfast-table in the shape of 11,259 _tons_ of French eggs; these
two companies delivering between them an average of more than three
millions of eggs a week all the year round! The same companies last
year delivered in London 14,819 tons of butter, for the most part the
produce of the farms of Normandy, the greater cleanness and neatness
with which the Normandy butter is prepared for market rendering it a
favorite both with dealers and consumers of late years compared with
Irish butter. The London, Chatham and Dover Company also brought from
Calais 96 tons of eggs.

Next, as to the potatoes, vegetables, and fruit brought by rail.
Forty years since, the inhabitants of London relied for their supply
of vegetables on the garden-grounds in the immediate neighborhood of
the metropolis, and the consequence was that they were both very dear
and limited in quantity. But railways, while they have extended the
grazing-grounds of London as far as the Highlands, have at the same
time extended the garden-grounds of London into all the adjoining
counties--into East Kent, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, the vale of
Gloucester, and even as far as Penzance in Cornwall. The London,
Chatham and Dover, one of the youngest of our main lines, brought
up from East Kent last year 5279 tons of potatoes, 1046 tons of
vegetables, and 5386 tons of fruit, besides 542 tons of vegetables
from France. The Southeastern brought 25,163 tons of the same produce.
The Great Eastern brought from the eastern counties 21,315 tons of
potatoes, and 3596 tons of vegetables and fruit; while the Great
Northern brought no less than 78,505 tons of potatoes--a large part of
them from the east of Scotland--and 3768 tons of vegetables and fruit.
About 6000 tons of early potatoes were last year brought from Cornwall,
with about 5000 tons of brocoli, and the quantities are steadily
increasing. "Truly London hath a large belly," said old Fuller two
hundred years since. But how much more capacious is it now!

One of the most striking illustrations of the utility of railways
in contributing to the supply of wholesome articles of food to the
population of large cities is to be found in the rapid growth of the
traffic in Milk. Readers of newspapers may remember the descriptions
published some years since of the horrid dens in which London cows
are penned, and of the odious compound sold by the name of milk, of
which the least deleterious ingredient in it was supplied by the "cow
with the iron tail." That state of affairs is now completely changed.
What with the greatly improved state of the London dairies and the
better quality of the milk supplied by them, together with the large
quantities brought by railway from a range of a hundred miles and
more all round London, even the poorest classes in the metropolis are
now enabled to obtain as wholesome a supply of the article as the
inhabitants of most country towns.

The milk traffic has in some cases been rapid, almost sudden, in its
growth. Though the Great Western is at present the greatest of the
milk lines, it brought very little into London prior to the year 1865.
In the month of August in that year it brought 23,474 gallons, and in
the month of October following the quantity had increased to 103,214
gallons. Last year the total quantity delivered in London by this
single railway was 1,514,836 gallons, or an average of 30,000 gallons
a week. The largest proportion of this milk was brought from beyond
Swindon in Wiltshire, about 100 miles from London; but considerable
quantities were also brought from the vale of Gloucester and from
Somerset. The London and Southwestern also is a great milk-carrying
line, having brought as much as 1,480,272 gallons to London last year,
or an average of 28,000 gallons a week. The Great Eastern brought
nearly the same quantity, 1,322,429 gallons, or an average of about
25,400 gallons a week. The London and Northwestern ranks next, having
brought 643,432 gallons in 1867; then the Great Northern, 455,916
gallons; the Southeastern, 435,668 gallons; and the Brighton, 419,254
gallons. The total quantity of milk delivered in London by railway last
year was 6,309,446 gallons, or above 120,000 gallons a week. Yet this
traffic, large though it may appear, is as yet but in its infancy,
and in the course of a few more years it will be found very largely
increased, according as facilities are provided for its accommodation
and transit.

These great streams of food, which we have thus so summarily
described, flow into London so continuously and uninterruptedly, that
comparatively few persons are aware of the magnitude and importance
of the process thus daily going forward. Though gathered from an
immense extent of country--embracing England, Scotland, Wales, and
Ireland--the influx is so unintermitted that it is relied upon with
as much certainty as if it only came from the counties immediately
adjoining London. The express meat-train from Aberdeen arrives in
town as punctually as the Clapham omnibus, and the express milk-train
from Aylesbury is as regular in its delivery as the penny post.
Indeed, London now depends so much upon railways for its subsistence,
that it may be said to be fed by them from day to day, having never
more than a few days' food in stock. And the supply is so regular
and continuous, that the possibility of its being interrupted never
for a moment occurs to any one. Yet, in these days of strikes among
workmen, such a contingency is quite within the limits of possibility.
Another contingency, arising in a state of war, is probably still
more remote. But, were it possible for a war to occur between England
and a combination of foreign powers possessed of stronger iron-clads
than ours, and that they were able to ram our ships back into port
and land an enemy of overpowering force on the Essex coast, it would
be sufficient for them to occupy or cut the railways leading from the
north, to starve London into submission in less than a fortnight.

Besides supplying London with food, railways have also been
instrumental in insuring the more regular and economical supply of
fuel--a matter of almost as vital importance to the population in a
climate such as that of England. So long as the market was supplied
with coal brought by sea in sailing ships, fuel in winter often rose
to a famine price, especially during long-continued easterly winds.
But, now that railways are in full work, the price is almost as steady
in winter as in summer, and the supply is more regular at all seasons.
The following statement of the coals brought into London by sea and
by railway, at decennial periods since 1827, as supplied by Mr. J. R.
Scott, Registrar of the Coal Exchange, shows the effect of railways in
increasing the supply of fuel, at the same time that they have lowered
the price to the consumer:

  +--------+-----------------+-------------------------+---------------+
  | Years. | Sea-borne Coal. |Coals brought by Railway.| Price per Ton.|
  +--------+-----------------+-------------------------+---------------+
  |        |      Tons.      |          Tons.          |   _s._  _d._  |
  |  1827  |    1,882,321    |           nil           |    28     6   |
  |  1847  |    3,280,420    |          19,336         |    20    10   |
  |  1857  |    3,133,459    |       1,206,775         |    18     8   |
  |  1867  |    3,016,416    |       3,295,652         |    20     8   |
  +--------+-----------------+-------------------------+---------------+

Thus the price of coal has been reduced 7_s._ 10_d._ a ton since 1827,
while the quantity delivered has been enormously increased, the total
saving on the quantity consumed in the metropolis in 1867, compared
with 1827, being equal to £2,388,000.

But the carriage of food and fuel to London forms but a small part
of the merchandise traffic carried by railway. Above 600,000 tons of
goods of various kinds yearly pass through one station only, that of
the London and Northwestern Company, at Camden Town; and sometimes
as many as 20,000 parcels daily. Every other metropolitan station is
similarly alive with traffic inward and outward, London having since
the introduction of railways become more than ever a great distributive
centre, to which merchandise of all kinds converges, and from which it
is distributed to all parts of the country. Mr. Bazley, M.P., stated at
a late public meeting at Manchester that it would probably require ten
millions of horses to convey by road the merchandise traffic which is
now annually carried by railway.

Railways have also proved of great value in connection with the Cheap
Postage system. By their means it has become possible to carry letters,
newspapers, books, and post parcels in any quantity, expeditiously
and cheaply. The Liverpool and Manchester line was no sooner opened
in 1830 than the Post-office authorities recognized its utility, and
used it for carrying the mails between the two towns. When the London
and Birmingham line was opened eight years later, mail trains were at
once put on, the directors undertaking to perform the distance of 113
miles within 5 hours by day and 5-1/2 hours by night. As additional
lines were opened, the old four-horse mail-coaches were gradually
discontinued, until, in 1858, the last of them, the "Derby Dilly,"
which ran between Manchester and Derby, was taken off on the opening of
the Midland line to Rowsley.

The increased accommodation provided by railways was found of essential
importance, more particularly after the adoption of the Cheap Postage
system; and that such accommodation was needed will be obvious from the
extraordinary increase which has taken place in the number of letters
and packets sent by post. Thus, in 1839, the number of chargeable
letters carried was only 76 millions, and of newspapers 44-1/2
millions; whereas, in 1865, the number of letters had increased to 720
millions, and in 1867 to 775 millions, or more than tenfold, while
the number of newspapers, books, samples, and patterns (a new branch
of postal business begun in 1864) had increased, in 1865, to 98-1/2
millions.

To accommodate this largely-increasing traffic, the bulk of which
is carried by railway, the mileage run by mail trains in the United
Kingdom has increased from 25,000 miles a day in 1854 (the first year
of which we have any return of the mileage run) to 60,000 miles a day
in 1867, or an increase of 240 per cent. The Post-office expenditure on
railway service has also increased, but not in like proportion, having
been £364,000 in the former year, and £559,575 in the latter, or an
increase of 154 per cent. The revenue, gross and net, has increased
still more rapidly. In 1841, the first complete year of the Cheap
Postage system, the gross revenue was £1,359,466, and the net revenue
£500,789; in 1854, the gross revenue was £2,574,407, and the net
revenue £1,173,723; and in 1867, the gross revenue was £4,548,129, and
the net revenue £2,127,125, being an increase of 420 per cent. compared
with 1841, and of 180 per cent. compared with 1854. How much of this
net increase might fairly be credited to the Railway Postal service we
shall not pretend to say, but assuredly the proportion must be very
considerable.

One of the great advantages of railways in connection with the postal
service is the greatly increased frequency of communication which
they provide between all the large towns. Thus Liverpool has now six
deliveries of Manchester letters daily, while every large town in the
kingdom has two or more deliveries of London letters daily. In 1863,
393 towns had two mails daily from London; 50 had three mails daily; 7
had four mails a day _from_ London, and 15 had four mails a day _to_
London; while 3 towns had five mails a day _from_ London, and 6 had
five mails a day _to_ London.

Another feature of the railway mail train, as of the passenger train,
is its capacity to carry any quantity of letters and post parcels
that may require to be carried. In 1838, the aggregate weight of all
the evening mails dispatched from London by twenty-eight mail-coaches
was 4 tons 6 cwt., or an average of about 3-1/4 cwt. each, though the
maximum contract weight was 15 cwt. The mails now are necessarily much
heavier, the number of letters and packets having, as we have seen,
increased more than tenfold since 1839. But it is not the ordinary so
much as the extraordinary mails that are of considerable weight, more
particularly the American, the Continental, and the Australian mails.
It is no unusual thing, we are informed, for the last-mentioned mail
to weigh as much as 40 tons. How many of the old mail-coaches it would
take to carry such a mail the 79 miles' journey to Southampton, with a
relay of four horses every five or seven miles, is a problem for the
arithmetician to solve. But even supposing each coach to be loaded
to the maximum weight of 15 cwt. per coach, it would require about
sixty vehicles and about 1700 horses to carry the 40 tons, besides the
coachmen and guards.

       *       *       *       *       *

A few words, in conclusion, as to the number of men employed in
working and maintaining railways. According to Mr. Mills,[1] 166,047
men and officers were employed in the working of 13,289 miles open
in the United Kingdom in 1865, besides 53,923 employed on lines then
under construction. The most numerous body of workmen is that of
the laborers (81,284) employed in the maintenance of the permanent
way. Being mostly picked men from the laboring class of the adjoining
districts, they are paid considerably higher wages, and hence one of
the direct effects of railways on the laboring population (besides
affording them greater facilities for locomotion) has been to raise
the standard of wages of ordinary labor at least 2_s_. a week in all
the districts into which they have penetrated. The workmen next in
number is that of the artificers (40,167) employed in constructing and
repairing the rolling-stock; the porters (25,381), the plate-layers
(12,901), guards and brakesmen (5799), firemen (5266), and
engine-drivers (5171). But, besides the employés directly engaged in
the working and maintenance of railways, large numbers of workmen are
also occupied in the manufacture of locomotives and rolling-stock, and
in providing the requisite materials for the permanent way. Thus the
consumption of rails alone averages nearly 400,000 tons a year in the
United Kingdom alone, while the replacing of decayed sleepers requires
about 10,000 acres of forest to be cut down annually and sawn into
sleepers. Taking the various railway workmen into account, with their
families, it will be found that they represent a total of about three
quarters of a million persons, or about one in fifty of our population,
who are dependent on railways for their subsistence.

       *       *       *       *       *

While the practical working of railways has, on the whole, been so
satisfactory, the case has been very different as regards their
direction and financial management. The men employed in the working of
railways make it their business to learn it, and, being responsible,
they are under the necessity of taking pains to do it well; whereas the
men who govern and direct them are practically irresponsible, and may
possess no qualification whatever for the office excepting only the
holding of so much stock. The consequence has been much blundering on
the part of these amateurs, and great loss on the part of the public.
Indeed, what between the confused, contradictory, and often unjust
legislation of Parliament on the one hand, and the carelessness or
incompetency of directors on the other, many once flourishing concerns
have been thrown into a state of utter confusion and muddle, until
railway government has become a by-word of reproach.

And this state of things will probably continue until the fatal defect
of government by Boards--an extremely limited responsibility, or no
responsibility at all--has been rectified by the appointment, as in
France, of executives consisting of a few men of special ability
and trained administrative skill, personally responsible to their
constituents for the due performance of their respective functions. But
the discussion of this subject would require a treatise, whereas we are
now but writing a preface.

Whatever may be said of the financial mismanagement of railways, there
can be no doubt as to the great benefits conferred by them on the
public wherever made. Even those railways which have exhibited the
most "frightful examples" of scheming and financing, so soon as placed
in the hands of practical men to work, have been found to prove of
unquestionable public convenience and utility. And notwithstanding all
the faults and imperfections that are alleged against railways have
been admitted, we think that they must, nevertheless, be recognized as
by far the most valuable means of communication between men and nations
that has yet been given to the world.

       *       *       *       *       *

The author's object in publishing this book in its original form,
some ten years since, was to describe, in connection with the "Life
of George Stephenson," the origin and progress of the railway system,
and to show by what moral and material agencies its founders were
enabled to carry their ideas into effect, and to work out results which
even then were of a remarkable character, though they have since, as
above described, become so much more extraordinary. The favor with
which successive editions of the book have been received has justified
the author in his anticipation that such a narrative would prove of
general, if not of permanent interest, and he has taken pains, in
preparing for the press the present, and probably final edition, to
render it, by careful amendment and revision, more worthy of the public
acceptance.

  _London, May, 1868._

FOOTNOTE:

[1] "The Railway Service, its Exigencies, Provisions, and
Requirements." By W. F. Mills. London, 1867.



PREFACE

TO THE EIGHTH EDITION, 1864.


The following is a revised and improved edition of "The Life of George
Stephenson," with which is incorporated a Memoir of his son Robert,
late President of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Since its original
appearance in 1857, much additional information has been communicated
to the author relative to the early history of Railways and the men
principally concerned in establishing them, of which he has availed
himself in the present edition.

In preparing the original work for publication, the author enjoyed
the advantage of the cordial co-operation and assistance of Robert
Stephenson, on whom he mainly relied for information as to the
various stages through which the Locomotive passed, and especially as
to his father's share in its improvement. Through Mr. Stephenson's
instrumentality also, the author was enabled to obtain much valuable
information from gentlemen who had been intimately connected with his
father and himself in their early undertakings--among others, from Mr.
Edward Pease, of Darlington; Mr. Dixon, C.E.; Mr. Sopwith, F.R.S.; Mr.
Charles Parker; and Sir Joshua Walmsley.

Most of the facts relating to the early period of George Stephenson's
career were collected from colliers, brakesmen, engine-men, and others,
who had known him intimately, or been fellow-workmen with him, and
were proud to communicate what they remembered of his early life. The
information obtained from these old men--most of them illiterate, and
some broken down by hard work--though valuable in many respects, was
confused, and sometimes contradictory; but, to insure as much accuracy
and consistency of narrative as possible, the author submitted the MS.
to Mr. Stephenson, and had the benefit of his revision of it previous
to publication.

Mr. Stephenson took a lively interest in the improvement of the "Life"
of his father, and continued to furnish corrections and additions for
insertion in the successive editions of the book which were called for
by the public. After the first two editions had appeared, he induced
several gentlemen, well qualified to supply additional authentic
information, to communicate their recollections of his father, among
whom may be mentioned Mr. T. L. Gooch, C.E.; Mr. Vaughan, of Snibston;
Mr. F. Swanwick, C.E.; and Mr. Binns, of Clayross, who had officiated
as private secretaries to George Stephenson at different periods of his
life, and afterward held responsible offices either under him or in
conjunction with him.

The author states these facts to show that the information contained
in this book is of an authentic character, and has been obtained
from the most trustworthy sources. Whether he has used it to the
best purpose or not, he leaves others to judge. This much, however,
he may himself say--that he has endeavored, to the best of his
ability, to set forth the facts communicated to him in a simple,
faithful, and straightforward manner; and, even if he has not wholly
succeeded in doing this, he has, at all events, been the means of
collecting information on a subject originally unattractive to
professional literary men, and thereby rendered its farther prosecution
comparatively easy to those who may feel called upon to undertake it.

The author does not pretend to have steered clear of errors in
treating a subject so extensive, and, before he undertook the labor,
comparatively uninvestigated; but, wherever errors have been pointed
out, he has taken the earliest opportunity of correcting them. With
respect to objections taken to the book because of the undue share of
merit alleged to be therein attributed to the Stephensons in respect
of the Railway and the Locomotive, there will necessarily be various
opinions. There is scarcely an invention or improvement in mechanics
but has been the subject of dispute, and it was to be expected that
those who had counter claims would put them forward in the present
case; nor has the author any reason to complain of the manner in which
this has been done.

While George Stephenson is the principal subject in the following book,
his son Robert also forms an essential part of it. Father and son were
so intimately associated in the early period of their career, that it
is difficult, if not impossible, to describe the one apart from the
other. The life and achievements of the son were in a great measure the
complement of the life and achievements of the father. The care, also,
with which the elder Stephenson, while occupying the position of an
obscure engine-wright, devoted himself to his son's education, and the
gratitude with which the latter repaid the affectionate self-denial of
his father, furnish some of the most interesting illustrations of the
personal character of both.

These views were early adopted by the author and carried out by him in
the preparation of the original work, with the concurrence of Robert
Stephenson, who supplied the necessary particulars relating to himself.
Such portions of these were accordingly embodied in the narrative
as could with propriety be published during his life-time, and the
remaining portions are now added with the object of rendering more
complete the record of the son's life, as well as the early history of
the Railway System.



  CONTENTS.


  PART I.

  CHAPTER I.

  SCHEMERS AND PROJECTORS.

  Man's Desire for rapid Transit.--Origin of the Railway.--Early Coal
  Wagon-ways in the North of England.--Early Attempts to apply the Power
  of Wind to drive Carriages.--Sailing-coaches.--Sir Isaac Newton's
  Proposal to employ Steam-power.--Dr. Darwin's Speculations on the
  Subject.--Mr. Edgeworth's Speculations.--Dr. Darwin's Prophecy.  Pg 47

  CHAPTER II.

  EARLY LOCOMOTIVE MODELS.

  Watt and Robison's proposed Steam-carriage.--Memoir of Joseph Cugnot
  and his Road-locomotive.--Francis Moore.--James Watt's Specification
  of a Locomotive-engine.--William Murdoch's Model.--William Symington's
  model Steam-carriage.--Oliver Evans's model Locomotive.             60

  CHAPTER III.

  THE CORNISH LOCOMOTIVE--MEMOIR OF TREVITHICK.

  Early Welsh Railway Acts.--Wandsworth, Croydon, and Merstham
  Railway.--Boyhood of Trevithick.--Becomes an Engineer.--His
  Career.--Constructs a Steam-carriage.--Its Exhibition in
  London.--Constructs a Tram-engine.--Its Trial on the Merthyr
  Railroad.--Trevithick's Improvements in the Steam-engine.--Attempts
  to construct a Tunnel under the Thames.--His numerous Inventions
  and Patents.--Engines ordered of him for Peru.--Trevithick a Mining
  Engineer in South America.--Is ruined by the Peruvian Revolution.--His
  return Home.--His last Patents.--Death and Characteristics.         73


  PART II.

  CHAPTER I.

  THE NEWCASTLE COAL-FIELD--GEORGE STEPHENSON'S EARLY YEARS.

  Newcastle in ancient Times.--The Coal-trade.--Modern Newcastle.--The
  Colliery Workmen.--The Pumping-engines.--The Pitmen.--The
  Keelmen.--Wylam Colliery and Village.--George Stephenson's
  Birthplace.--The Stephenson Family.--Old Robert Stephenson.--George's
  Boyhood.--Employed as a Herd-boy.--Makes Clay Engines.--Employed as
  Corf-bitter.--Drives the Gin-horse.--Appointed assistant Fireman.   97

  CHAPTER II.

  NEWBURN AND CALLERTON--GEORGE STEPHENSON LEARNS TO BE AN ENGINE-MAN.

  Stephenson's Life at Newburn.--Appointed Engine-man.--Duties
  of Plugman.--Study of the Steam-engine.--Experiments in
  Bird-hatching.--Learns to Read.--His Schoolmasters.--Progress in
  Arithmetic.--His Dog.--Learns to Brake.--Duties of Brakesman.--Begins
  Shoe-mending.--Fight with a Pitman.                                111

  CHAPTER III.

  ENGINE-MAN AT WILLINGTON QUAY AND KILLINGWORTH.

  Sobriety and Studiousness.--Removal to Willington Quay, and
  Marriage.--Attempts a Perpetual-motion Machine.--William Fairbairn,
  C.E., and George Stephenson.--Ballast-heaving.--Cottage Chimney
  takes fire--Birth of his son Robert.--Removal to West Moor,
  Killingworth.--Death of his Wife.--Appointed Engine-man at
  Montrose.--Return to Killingworth.--Appointed Brakesman at West
  Moor.--Is drawn for the Militia.--Thinks of Emigrating.--Takes
  a contract for Brakeing.--Improves the Winding-engine.--Cures a
  Pumping-engine.--Is appointed Engine-wright of the Colliery.       121

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE STEPHENSONS AT KILLINGWORTH--EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION.

  Efforts at Self-improvement.--John Wigham.--Studies in Natural
  Philosophy.--Education of Robert Stephenson.--Sent to Bruce's
  School, Newcastle.--His boyish Tricks.--Stephenson's Cottage,
  West Moor.--Mechanical Contrivances.--The Sun-dial at West
  Moor.--Stephenson's various Duties as Colliery Engineer.           137

  CHAPTER V.

  THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE--GEORGE STEPHENSON BEGINS ITS IMPROVEMENT.

  Slow Progress heretofore made in the Improvement of the
  Locomotive.--The Wylam Wagon-way.--Mr. Blackett orders a
  Locomotive.--Mr. Blenkinsop's Leeds Locomotive.--Mr. Blackett's second
  Engine a Failure.--The improved Wylam Engine.--George Stephenson's
  Study of the Subject.--His first Locomotive constructed.--His
  Improvement of the Engine, as described by his Son.--Invention of the
  Steam-blast.                                                       152

  CHAPTER VI.

  INVENTION OF THE "GEORDY" SAFETY-LAMP.

  Frequency of Colliery Explosions.--Accidents in the Killingworth
  Pit.--Stephenson's heroic Conduct.--Proposes to invent a
  Safety-lamp.--His first Lamp and its Trial.--Cottage Experiments
  with Coal-gas.--His second and third Lamps.--Scene at the Newcastle
  Institute.--The Stephenson and Davy Controversy.--The Davy and
  Stephenson Testimonials.--Merits of the "Geordy" Lamp.             175

  CHAPTER VII.

  GEORGE STEPHENSON'S FARTHER IMPROVEMENTS IN THE LOCOMOTIVE--ROBERT
  STEPHENSON AS VIEWER'S APPRENTICE AND STUDENT.

  Stephenson's Improvements in the Mine-machinery.--Farther Improvements
  in the Locomotive and in the Road.--Experiments on Friction.--Early
  Neglect of the Locomotive.--Stephenson again meditates emigrating
  to America.--Employed as Engineer of the Hetton Railway.--Robert
  Stephenson put Apprentice to a Coal-viewer.--His Father sends him
  to Edinburg University.--His Studies there.--Geological Tour in the
  Highlands.                                                         198

  CHAPTER VIII.

  GEORGE STEPHENSON ENGINEER OF THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY.

  Failure of the first public Railways near London.--Want of improved
  communications in the Bishop Auckland Coal-district.--Various Projects
  devised.--A Railway projected at Darlington.--Edward Pease.--George
  Stephenson employed as Engineer.--Mr. Pease's Visit to Killingworth.--A
  Locomotive Factory begun at Newcastle.--The Stockton and Darlington
  Line constructed.--The public Opening.--The Coal-traffic.--The first
  Passenger-traffic by Railway.--The Town of Middlesborough-on-Tees
  created by the Railway.                                            216

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY PROJECTED.

  Insufficiency of the Communication between Liverpool and Manchester.--A
  Tram-road projected by Mr. Sandars.--The Line surveyed by William
  James.--The Survey a failure.--George Stephenson appointed Engineer.--A
  Company formed and a Railroad projected.--The first Prospectus
  issued.--Opposition to the Survey.--Speculations as to Railway
  Speed.--George Stephenson's Views thought extravagant.--Article in the
  "Quarterly".                                                       247

  CHAPTER X.

  PARLIAMENTARY CONTEST ON THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER BILL.

  The Bill before Parliament.--The Evidence.--George Stephenson in the
  Witness-box.--Examined as to Speed.--His Cross-examination.--Examined
  as to the possibility of constructing a Line on Chat Moss.--Mr.
  Harrison's Speech.--Mr. Giles's Evidence as to Chat Moss.--Mr.
  Alderson's Speech.--The Bill lost.--Stephenson's Vexation.--The Bill
  revived, with the Messrs. Rennie as Engineers.--Sir Isaac Coffin's
  prophecies of Disaster.--The Act passed.                           265

  CHAPTER XI.

  CHAT MOSS--CONSTRUCTION OF THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY.

  George Stephenson again appointed Engineer of the Railway.--Chat Moss
  described.--The resident Engineers of the Line.--George Stephenson's
  Theory of a Floating Road on the Moss.--Operations begun.--The
  Tar-barrel Drains.--The Embankment sinks in the Moss.--Proposed
  Abandonment of the Works.--Stephenson's Perseverance.--The Obstacles
  conquered.--The Tunnel at Liverpool.--The Olive Mount Cutting.--The
  Sankey Viaduct.--Stephenson's great Labors.--His daily Life.--Evenings
  at Home.                                                           281

  CHAPTER XII.

  ROBERT STEPHENSON'S RESIDENCE IN COLOMBIA AND RETURN--THE "BATTLE OF
  THE LOCOMOTIVE."

  Robert Stephenson appointed Mining Engineer in Colombia.--Mule
  Journey to Bogotá.--Mariquita.--Silver Mining.--Difficulties
  with the Cornishmen.--His Cottage at Santa Anna.--Resigns his
  Appointment.--Meeting with Trevithick.--Voyage to New York, and
  Shipwreck.--Returns to Newcastle, and takes Charge of the Locomotive
  Factory.--Discussion as to the Working Power of the Liverpool and
  Manchester Railway.--Walker and Rastrick's Report.--A Prize offered
  for the best Locomotive.--Invention of the Multitubular Boiler.--Henry
  Booth.--Construction of the "Rocket."--The Locomotive Competition at
  Rainhill.--Triumph of the "Rocket".                                301

  CHAPTER XIII.

  OPENING OF THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY, AND EXTENSION OF THE
  RAILWAY SYSTEM.

  The Railway finished.--Organization of the Working.--The
  public Opening.--Fatal Accident to Mr. Huskisson.--The
  Traffic begun.--Improvements in the Road, Rolling Stock, and
  Locomotive.--Steam-carriages tried on common Roads.--New Railway
  Projects.--Opposition to Railways in the South of England.--Robert
  Stephenson appointed Engineer of Leicester and Swannington
  Railway.--George removes to Snibston and sinks for Coal.--His character
  as a Master.                                                       329

  CHAPTER XIV.

  ROBERT STEPHENSON CONSTRUCTS THE LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY.

  The London and Birmingham Railway projected.--George and Robert
  Stephenson appointed Engineers.--An Opposition organized.--Public
  Meetings against the Scheme.--Robert Stephenson's Interview with Sir
  A. Cooper.--The Survey obstructed.--The Line resurveyed.--The Bill
  in Parliament.--Thrown out in the Lords.--The Project revived.--The
  Act obtained.--The Works let in Contracts.--Difficulties of the
  Undertaking.--The Line described.--Blisworth Cutting.--Primrose Hill
  Tunnel.--Kilsby Tunnel.--Its Construction described.--Failures of
  Contractors.--Magnitude of the Works.--The Railway navvies.        349

  CHAPTER XV.

  MANCHESTER AND LEEDS, MIDLAND, AND OTHER RAILWAYS--GENERAL EXTENSION OF
  RAILWAYS AND THEIR RESULTS.

  Projection of new Lines.--Dutton Viaduct on the Grand Junction.--The
  Manchester and Leeds.--Incident in Committee.--Summit Tunnel,
  Littleborough.--The Midland Railway.--The Works compared with the
  Simplon Road.--Slip near Ambergate.--Bull Bridge.--The York and
  North Midland.--The Scarborough Branch.--George Stephenson on
  Estimates.--Stephenson on his Surveys.--His quick Observation.--His
  extensive Labors.--Traveling and Correspondence.--Life at Alton
  Grange.--Stephenson's London Office.--Journeys to Belgium.--Interviews
  with the King.--Public Openings of English Railways.--Stephenson's
  Assistants.--Results of Railroads.                                 365

  CHAPTER XVI.

  GEORGE STEPHENSON'S COAL-MINES--OPINIONS ON RAILWAY SPEEDS--RAILWAY
  MANIA.

  George Stephenson on Railways and Coal Traffic.--Leases the
  Claycross Estate.--His Residence at Tapton.--His Appearance at
  Mechanics' Institutes.--His Views on Railway Speed.--Undulating Lines
  favored.--Stephenson on Railway Speculation.--Atmospheric Railways
  projected.--Opposed by Stephenson.--The Railway Mania.--Action
  of Parliament.--Rage for direct Lines.--Stephenson's Letter to
  Peel.--George Hudson, the "Railway King."--His Fall.--Stephenson again
  visits Belgium.--Interview with King Leopold.--Journey into Spain. 392

  CHAPTER XVII.

  ROBERT STEPHENSON'S CAREER--EAST COAST ROUTE TO SCOTLAND--HIGH-LEVEL
  BRIDGE, NEWCASTLE.

  Robert Stephenson's Career.--His extensive Employment as Parliamentary
  Engineer.--His rival, Brunel.--The Great Western Railway.--Width
  of Gauge.--Robert Stephenson's caution as to Investments.--The
  Newcastle and Berwick Railway.--Contest in Parliament.--George
  Stephenson's Interview with Lord Howick.--The Royal Border Bridge,
  Berwick.--Progress of Iron Bridge-building.--Robert Stephenson
  constructs the High-Level Bridge, Newcastle.--Pile-driving by
  Steam.--Merits of the Structure.--The through Railway to Scotland
  completed.                                                         421

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD RAILWAY--MENAI AND CONWAY BRIDGES.

  George Stephenson Surveys a line from Chester to Holyhead.--Robert
  Stephenson afterward appointed Engineer.--The Railway Works under
  Penmaen Mawr.--The Crossing of the Menai Strait.--Various Plans
  proposed.--A Tubular Beam determined on.--Strength of wrought-iron
  Tubes.--Mr. William Fairbairn consulted.--His Experiments.--Professor
  Hodgkinson.--Chains proposed, and eventually discarded.--The Bridge
  Works.--The Conway Bridge.--Britannia Bridge described.--Floating
  of the Tubes.--Robert Stephenson's great Anxiety.--Raising of the
  Tubes.--The Hydraulic Press bursts.--The Works completed.--Merits of
  the Britannia Bridge.                                              438

  CHAPTER XIX.

  CLOSING YEARS OF GEORGE STEPHENSON'S LIFE--ILLNESS AND DEATH.

  George Stephenson's Life at Tapton.--Experiments in Horticulture.--His
  Farming Operations.--Affection for Animals.--Bee-keeping.--Reading
  and Conversation.--Rencounter with Lord Denman.--Hospitality at
  Tapton.--His Microscope.--A "Crowdie Night."--Visits to London.--Visits
  Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor.--His Conversation.--Encounter with
  Dr. Buckland.--Coal formed by the Sun's Light.--Opening of the Trent
  Valley Line and its Celebration.--Meeting with Emerson.--Illness,
  Death, and Funeral.--Statues of George Stephenson.--Personal
  Characteristics.                                                   460

  CHAPTER XX.

  ROBERT STEPHENSON'S VICTORIA BRIDGE, LOWER CANADA--ILLNESS AND
  DEATH--THE STEPHENSON CHARACTERISTICS.

  Robert Stephenson's gradual Retirement from the profession
  of Engineer.--His Tubular Bridge over the Nile.--Railways
  in Canada.--Proposed Bridge at Montreal.--A Tubular Bridge
  proposed.--Robert Stephenson appointed Engineer.--Design of the
  Victoria Bridge.--The Piers.--Getting in of the Foundations.--Progress
  of the Works.--Erection of the Tubes.--Scene at the breaking-up
  of the Ice in 1858.--The Night-work.--Erection of main
  central Tube.--Completion of the Works.--Robert Stephenson in
  Parliament.--His Opinion of the Suez Canal.--His Honors.--Launch
  of the Great Eastern.--Last Illness and Death.--The Stephenson
  Characteristics.--Conclusion.                                      474

  INDEX                                                              497



  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                          PAGE

  Portrait of George Stephenson
                         _to face Title Page._

  Portrait of Trevithick                    46

  Tyne Coal-staith                          49

  Flange-rail                               50

  Cugnot's Steam-carriage                   62

  Murdock's Model Locomotive                66

  Symington's Model Steam-carriage          69

  Oliver Evans's Model Locomotive           71

  Trevithick's Tram-engine                  81

  High-Level Bridge, Newcastle              96

  Map of Newcastle District                 98

  Wylam                                    103

  High-Street House, Wylam                 104

  Colliery Wagons                          110

  Newburn                                  111

  Colliery Gin                             120

  Stephenson's Cottage at Willington
  Quay                                     121

  Stephenson's Signature                   123

  West Moor Colliery                       127

  Killingworth High Pit                    136

  Glebe Farm-house, Benton                 137

  Rutter's School-house at Long Benton     140

  Bruce's School, Newcastle                142

  Stephenson's Cottage, West Moor          146

  Sun-dial, Killingworth                   149

  Colliers' Cottages, Long Benton          151

  Blenkinsop's Leeds Engine                155

  The Wylam Engine                         160

  Spur-gear                                164

  Killingworth Locomotive (Section)        168

  Colliery Whimsey                         174

  Pit-head, West Moor                      177

  Davy's and Stephenson's Safety-lamps     187

  Literary and Philosophical Institute,
  Newcastle                                189

  The Stephenson Tankard                   197

  Half-lap Joint                           200

  Old Killingworth Locomotive              201

  West Moor Pit, Killingworth              214

  Portrait of Edward Pease                 223

  Map of Stockton and Darlington
  Railway                                  224

  Opening of Stockton and Darlington
  Railway                                  238

  The First Railway Coach                  241

  No. 1 Engine at Darlington               244

  Middlesborough-on-Tees                   246

  Map of Liverpool and Manchester
  Railway                                250-1

  Surveying on Chat Moss                   264

  Olive Mount Cutting                      291

  Sankey Viaduct                           292

  Baiting-place at Sankey                  296

  Chat Moss--Works in progress             299

  Robert Stephenson's Cottage at Santa
  Anna                                     306

  The "Rocket"                             321

  Locomotive Competition at Rainhill       324

  Railway _versus_ Road                    328

  Map of Leicester and Swannington
  Railway                                  343

  Alton Grange                             346

  Portrait of Robert Stephenson            348

  Map of London and Birmingham
  Railway                                  354

  Blisworth Cutting                        355

  Shafts, Kilsby Tunnel                    357

  Kilsby Tunnel (North end)                363

  Dutton Viaduct                           366

  Littleborough Tunnel (West entrance)     368

  Littleborough Tunnel (Walsden end)       369

  Map of Midland Railway                   370

  Land-slip, Ambergate                     372

  Bull Bridge                              373

  Coalville and Snibston Colliery          391

  Tapton House                             392

  Lime-works, Ambergate                    394

  Forth-Street Works, Newcastle            396

  Claycross Works                          420

  Newcastle from High-Level Bridge         421

  Royal Border Bridge, Berwick             430

  Elevation and Plan of Arch, High-Level
  Bridge                                   436

  Railway at Penmaen Mawr                  440

  Map of Menai Strait                      442

  Construction of Britannia Tube on
  Staging                                  450

  Conway Bridge                            451

  Menai Bridge                             457

  Floating First Tube, Conway Bridge       459

  View in Tapton Gardens                   460

  Footpath to Tapton House                 465

  Trinity Church, Chesterfield             471

  Tablet in Trinity Church                 473

  Victoria Bridge, Montreal                474

  Elevation of Pier, Victoria Bridge       478

  Works in Progress, Victoria Bridge       480

  Erection of the Main Central Tube,
  Victoria Bridge                          483

  Stephenson Memorial Schools, Willington  496



EARLY INVENTORS IN LOCOMOTION.

[Illustration: RICHARD TREVITHICK, C.E.]



EARLY INVENTORS IN LOCOMOTION.



CHAPTER I.

SCHEMERS AND PROJECTORS.


It is easy to understand how rapid transit from place to place should,
from the earliest times, have been an object of desire. The marvelous
gift of speed conferred by Fortunatus's Wishing Cap was what all must
have envied: it conferred power. It also conferred pleasure. "Life has
not many things better than this," said Samuel Johnson as he rolled
along in the post-chaise. But it also conferred comfort and well-being;
and hence the easy and rapid transit of persons and commodities became
in all countries an object of desire in proportion to their growth in
civilization.

We have elsewhere[2] endeavored to describe the obstructions to the
progress of society occasioned by the defective internal communications
of Britain in early times, which were to a considerable extent removed
by the adoption of the canal system, and the improvement of our roads
and highways, toward the end of last century. But the progress of
industry was so rapid--the invention of new tools, machines, and
engines so greatly increased the productive wealth of the nation--that
some forty years since it was found that these roads and canals,
numerous and excellent though they might be, were altogether inadequate
for the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which was
increasing in almost a direct ratio with the increased application of
steam-power to the purposes of productive industry.

The inventive minds of the nation, always on the alert--the "schemers"
and the "projectors," to whom society has in all times been so greatly
indebted--proceeded to apply themselves to the solution of the problem
of how the communications of the country were best to be improved; and
the result was, that the power of steam itself was applied to remedy
the inconveniences which it had caused.

Like most inventions, that of the Steam Locomotive was very gradually
made. The idea of it, born in one age, was revived in the ages that
followed. It was embodied first in one model, then in another--the
labors of one inventor being taken up by his successors--until at
length, after many disappointments and many failures, the practicable
working locomotive was achieved.

The locomotive engine was not, however, sufficient for the purposes of
cheap and rapid transit. Another expedient was absolutely essential to
its success--that of the Railway: the smooth rail to bear the load, as
well as the steam-engine to draw it.

Expedients were early adopted for the purpose of diminishing friction
between the wheels of vehicles and the roads along which they were
dragged by horse-power. The Romans employed stone blocks with that
object; and the streets of the long-buried city of Pompeii still bear
the marks of the ancient Roman chariot-wheels, as the stone track for
heavy vehicles on our modern London Bridge shows the wheel-marks of
the wagons which cross it. These stone blocks were merely a simple
expedient to diminish friction, and were the first steps toward a
railroad.

The railway proper doubtless originated in the coal districts of the
North of England and Wales, where it was found useful in facilitating
the transport of coals from the pits to the shipping-places. At an
early period the coal was carried to the boats in panniers, or in sacks
upon horses' backs. Next carts were used, and tram-ways of flag-stone
were laid down, along which they were easily hauled. The carts were
then converted into wagons, and mounted on four wheels instead of two.

Still farther to facilitate the haulage of the wagons, pieces of
planking were laid parallel upon wooden sleepers, or imbedded in the
ordinary track. It is said that these wooden rails were first employed
by a Mr. Beaumont, a gentleman from the South, who, about the year
1630, adventured in the northern mines with about thirty thousand
pounds, and after introducing many improvements in the working of the
coal, as well as in the methods of transporting it to the staithes on
the river, was ruined by his enterprise, and "within a few Years," to
use the words of the ancient chronicler, "he consumed all his Money,
and rode Home upon his light Horse."[3]

[Illustration: COAL-STAITH ON THE TYNE. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

The use of wooden rails gradually extended, and they were laid down
between most of the collieries on the Tyne and the places at which the
coal was shipped. Roger North, in 1676, found the practice had become
extensively adopted, and he speaks of the large sums then paid for
way-leave--that is, the permission granted by the owners of lands lying
between the coal-pits and the river-side to lay down a tram-way for the
purpose of connecting the one with the other.

A century later, Arthur Young observed that not only had these roads
become greatly multiplied, but formidable works had been constructed
to carry them along upon the same level. "The coal wagon-roads from
the pits to the water," he says, "are great works, carried over all
sorts of inequalities of ground, so far as the distance of nine or ten
miles. The tracks of the wheels are marked with pieces of wood let
into the road for the wheels of the wagons to run on, by which one
horse is enabled to draw, and that with ease, fifty or sixty bushels of
coals."[4]

Saint Fond, the French traveler, who visited Newcastle in 1791,
described the colliery wagon-ways in that neighborhood as superior to
any thing of the kind he had seen. The wooden rails were formed with a
rounded upper surface, like a projecting moulding, and the wagon-wheels
being "made of cast iron, and hollowed in the manner of a metal
pulley," readily fitted the rounded surface of the rails. The economy
with which the coal was thus hauled to the shipping-places was urged
by Saint Fond as an inducement to his own countrymen to adopt a like
method of transit.[5]

Similar wagon-roads were early laid down in the coal districts of
Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland. At the time of the Scotch rebellion in
1745, a tram-road existed between the Tranent coal-pits and the small
harbor of Cockenzie, in East Lothian; and a portion of the line was
selected by General Cope as a position for his cannon at the battle of
Prestonpans.

In these rude wooden tracks we find the germ of the modern railroad.
Improvements were gradually made in them. Thus, at some collieries,
thin plates of iron were nailed upon their upper surface, for the
purpose of protecting the parts most exposed to friction. Cast-iron
rails were also tried, the wooden rails having been found liable to
rot. The first iron rails are supposed to have been laid down at
Whitehaven as early as 1738. This cast-iron road was denominated a
"plate-way," from the plate-like form in which the rails were cast.
In 1767, as appears from the books of the Coalbrookdale Iron Works,
in Shropshire, five or six tons of rails were cast, as an experiment,
on the suggestion of Mr. Reynolds, one of the partners; and they were
shortly after laid down to form a road.

[Illustration: (Flange-rail)]

In 1776, a cast-iron tram-way, nailed to wooden sleepers, was laid
down at the Duke of Norfolk's colliery near Sheffield. The person who
designed and constructed this coal line was Mr. John Curr, whose son
has erroneously claimed for him the invention of the cast-iron railway.
He certainly adopted it early, and thereby met the fate of men before
their age; for his plan was opposed by the laboring people of the
colliery, who got up a riot, in which they tore up the road and burned
the coal-staith, while Mr. Curr fled into a neighboring wood for
concealment, and lay there _perdu_ for three days and nights, to escape
the fury of the populace.[6] The plates of these early tram-ways had a
ledge cast on their outer edge to guide the wheel along the road, after
the manner shown in the preceding cut.

In 1789, Mr. William Jessop constructed a railway at Loughborough,
in Leicestershire, and there introduced the cast-iron edge-rail,
with flanches cast upon the tire of the wagon-wheels to keep them on
the track, instead of having the margin or flanch cast upon the rail
itself; and this plan was shortly after adopted in other places. In
1800, Mr. Benjamin Outram, of Little Eaton, Derbyshire (father of the
distinguished General Outram), used stone props instead of timber
for supporting the ends or joinings of the rails. Thus the use of
railroads, in various forms, gradually extended, until they became
generally adopted in the mining districts.

Such was the growth of the railroad, which, it will be observed,
originated in necessity, and was modified according to experience;
progress in this, as in all departments of mechanics, having been
effected by the exertions of many men; one generation entering upon
the labors of that which preceded it, and carrying them onward to
farther stages of improvement. The invention of the locomotive was in
like manner made by successive steps. It was not the invention of one
man, but of a succession of men, each working at the proper hour, and
according to the needs of that hour; one inventor interpreting only
the first word of the problem which his successors were to solve after
long and laborious efforts and experiments. "The locomotive is not the
invention of one man," said Robert Stephenson at Newcastle, "but of a
nation of mechanical engineers."

Down to the end of last century, and indeed down almost to our own
time, the only power used in haulage was that of the horse. Along the
common roads of the country the poor horses were "tearing their hearts
out" in dragging cumbersome vehicles behind them, and the transport
of merchandise continued to be slow, dear, and in all respects
unsatisfactory. Many expedients were suggested with the view of getting
rid of the horse. The power of wind was one of the first expedients
proposed. It was cheap, though by no means regular. It impelled ships
by sea; why should it not be used to impel carriages by land?

The first sailing-coach was invented by one Simon Stevinius, or
Stevins, a Fleming, toward the end of the sixteenth century. Pierre
Gassendi gives an account of its performances as follows:

  "Purposing to visit Grotius, Peireskius went to Scheveling that he
  might satisfy himself of the carriage and swiftness of a coach a
  few years before invented, and made with that artifice that with
  expanded sails it would fly upon the shore as a ship upon the
  sea. He had formerly heard that Count Maurice, a little after his
  victory at Nieuport [1600], had put himself thereinto, together
  with Francis Mendoza, his prisoner, on purpose to make trial
  thereof, and that, within two hours, they arrived at Putten, which
  is distant from Scheveling fourteen leagues, or two-and-forty
  miles. He had, therefore, a mind to make the experiment himself,
  and he would often tell us with what admiration he was seized when
  he was carried with a quick wind and yet perceived it not, the
  coach's motion being equally quick."[7]

The sailing-coach, however, was only a curiosity. As a practicable
machine, it proved worthless, for the wind could not be depended
upon for land locomotion. The coach could not tack as the ship did.
Sometimes the wind did not blow at all, while at other times it blew a
hurricane. After being used for some time as a toy, the sailing-coach
was given up as impracticable, and the project speedily dropped out of
sight.

But, strange to say, the expedient of driving coal-wagons by the
wind was revived in Wales about a century later. On this occasion,
Sir Humphry Mackworth, an ingenious coal-miner at Neath, was the
projector. Waller, in his "Essay on Mines," published in 1698, takes
the opportunity of eulogizing Sir Humphry's "new sailing-wagons, for
the cheap carriage of his coal to the water-side, whereby one horse
does the work of ten at all times; but when any wind is stirring (which
is seldom wanting near the sea), one man and a small sail do the work
of twenty."[8] It does not, however, appear that any other coal-owner
had the courage to follow Sir Humphry's example, and the sailing-wagon
was forgotten until, after the lapse of another century, it was revived
by Mr. Edgeworth.

The employment of steam-power as a means of land locomotion was the
subject of much curious speculation long before any practical attempt
was made to carry it into effect. The merit of promulgating the first
idea with reference to it probably belongs to no other than the great
Sir Isaac Newton. In his "Explanation of the Newtonian Philosophy,"
written in 1680, he figured a spherical generator, supported on wheels,
and provided with a seat for a passenger in front, and a long jet-pipe
behind, and stated that "the whole is to be mounted on little wheels,
so as to move easily on a horizontal plane, and if the hole, or
jet-pipe, be opened, the vapor will rush out violently one way, and the
wheels and the ball at the same time will be carried the contrary way."
This, it will be observed, was but a modification of the earliest known
steam-engine, or OEolopile, of Hero of Alexandria. It is not believed
that Sir Isaac Newton ever made any experiment of his proposed method
of locomotion, or did more than merely throw out the idea for other
minds to work upon.

The idea of employing steam in locomotion was revived from time to
time, and formed the subject of much curious speculation. About the
middle of last century we find Benjamin Franklin, then agent in London
for the United Provinces of America, Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham,
and Erasmus Darwin, of Lichfield, engaged in a correspondence relative
to steam as a motive power. Boulton had made a model of a fire-engine,
which he sent to London for Franklin's inspection; and though the
original purpose for which the engine had been contrived was the
pumping of water, it was believed to be practicable to employ it also
as a means of locomotion. Franklin was too much occupied at the time
by grave political questions to pursue the subject; but the sanguine
and speculative mind of Erasmus Darwin was inflamed by the idea of a
"fiery chariot," and he pressed his friend Boulton to prosecute the
contrivance of the necessary steam machine.[9]

Erasmus Darwin was in many respects a remarkable man. In his own
neighborhood he was highly esteemed as a physician, and by many
intelligent readers of his day he was greatly prized as a poet. Horace
Walpole said of his "Botanic Garden" that it was "the most delicious
poem upon earth," and he declared that he "could read it over and over
again forever." The doctor was accustomed to write his poems with a
pencil on little scraps of paper while riding about among his patients
in his "sulky." The vehicle, which was worn and bespattered outside,
had room within it for the doctor and his appurtenances only. On one
side of him was a pile of books reaching from the floor to nearly
the front window of the carriage, while on the other was a hamper
containing fruit and sweetmeats, with a store of cream and sugar, with
which the occupant regaled himself during his journey. Lashed on to the
place usually appropriated to the "boot" was a large pail for watering
the horses, together with a bag of oats and a bundle of hay. Such was
the equipage of a fashionable country physician of the last century.

Dr. Darwin was a man of large and massive person, bearing a rather
striking resemblance to his distinguished townsman, Dr. Johnson, in
manner, deportment, and force of character. He was full of anecdote,
and his conversation was most original and entertaining. He was a very
outspoken man, vehemently enunciating theories which some thought
original and others dangerous. As he drove through the country in
his "sulky," his mind teemed with speculation on all subjects, from
zoonomy, botany, and physiology, to physics, æsthetics, and mental
philosophy. Though his speculations were not always sound, they were
clever and ingenious, and, at all events, they had the effect of
setting other minds a-thinking and speculating on science and the
methods for its advancement. From his "Loves of the Plants"--afterward
so cleverly parodied by George Canning in his "Loves of the
Triangles"--it would appear that the doctor even entertained a theory
of managing the winds by a little philosophic artifice. His scheme of a
steam locomotive was of a more practical character. This idea, like so
many others, first occurred to him in his "sulky."

  "As I was riding home yesterday," he wrote to his friend Boulton in
  the year 1765, "I considered the scheme of the fiery chariot, and
  the longer I contemplated this favorite idea, the more practicable
  it appeared to me. I shall lay my thoughts before you, crude and
  undigested though they may appear to be, telling you as well what I
  thought would not do as what would do, as by those hints you may be
  led into various trains of thinking upon this subject, and by that
  means (if any hints can assist your genius, which, without hints,
  is above all others I am acquainted with) be more likely to improve
  or disapprove. And as I am quite mad of this scheme, I beg you will
  not mention it, or show this paper to Wyat or any body.

  "These things are required: 1st, a rotary motion; 2d, easily
  altering its direction to any other direction; 3d, to be
  accelerated, retarded, destroyed, revived instantly and easily;
  4th, the bulk, the weight, and expense of the machine to be as
  small as possible in proportion to its use."[10]

He then goes on to throw out various suggestions as to the form and
arrangement of the machine, the number of wheels on which it was to
run, and the mode of applying the power. The text of this letter is
illustrated by rough diagrams, showing a vehicle mounted on three
wheels, the foremost or guiding wheel being under the control of the
driver; but in a subsequent passage he says, "I think four wheels will
be better."

  "Let there be two cylinders," he proceeds. "Suppose one piston
  up, and the vacuum made under it by the _jet d'eau froid_. That
  piston can not yet descend because the cock is not yet opened
  which admits the steam into its antagonist cylinder. Hence the two
  pistons are in equilibrio, being either of them pressed by the
  atmosphere. Then I say, if the cock which admits the steam into the
  antagonist cylinder be opened gradually and not with a jerk, that
  the first-mentioned [piston in the] cylinder will descend gradually
  and not less forcibly. Hence, by the management of the steam
  cocks, the motion may be accelerated, retarded, destroyed, revived
  instantly and easily. And if this answers in practice as it does in
  theory, the machine can not fail of success! Eureka!

  "The cocks of the cold water may be moved by the great work, but
  the steam cocks must be managed by the hand of the charioteer, who
  also directs the rudder-wheel. [Then follow his rough diagrams.] The
  central wheel ought to have been under the rollers, so as it may be
  out of the way of the boiler."[11]

After farther explaining himself, he goes on to say:

  "If you could learn the expense of coals to a common fire-engine
  and the weight of water it draws, some certain estimate may be made
  if such a scheme as this would answer. Pray don't show Wyat this
  scheme, for if you think it feasible and will send me a critique
  upon it, I will certainly, if I can get somebody to bear half the
  expense with me, endeavor to build a fiery chariot, and, if it
  answers, get a patent. If you choose to be partner with me in the
  profit, and expense, and trouble, let me know, as I am determined
  to execute it if you approve of it.

  "Please to remember the pulses of the common fire-engines, and say
  in what manner the piston is so made as to keep out the air in
  its motion. By what way is the _jet d'eau froid_ let out of the
  cylinder? How full of water is the boiler? How is it supplied, and
  what is the quantity of its waste of water?"[12]

It will be observed from these remarks that the doctor's notions
were of the crudest sort, and, as he obviously contemplated but a
modification of the Newcomen engine, then chiefly employed in pumping
water from mines, the action of which was slow, clumsy, and expensive,
the steam being condensed by injection of cold water, it is clear that,
even though Boulton had taken up and prosecuted Darwin's idea, it could
not have issued in a practicable or economical working locomotive.

But, although Darwin himself--his time engrossed by his increasing
medical practice--proceeded no farther with his scheme of a
"fiery chariot," he succeeded in inflaming the mind of his young
friend, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who had settled for a time in
his neighborhood, and induced him to direct his attention to the
introduction of improved means of locomotion by steam. In a letter
written by Dr. Small to Watt in 1768, we find him describing Edgeworth
as "a gentleman of fortune, young, mechanical, and indefatigable, who
has taken a resolution to move land and water carriages by steam, and
has made considerable progress in the short space of time that he has
devoted to the study."

One of the first-fruits of Edgeworth's investigations was his paper
"On Railroads," which he read before the Society of Arts in 1768, and
for which he was awarded the society's gold medal. He there proposed
that four iron railroads be laid down on one of the great roads out
of London; two for carts and wagons, and two for light carriages and
stage-coaches. The post-chaises and gentlemen's carriages might, he
thought, be made to go at eight miles an hour, and the stage-coaches
at six miles an hour, drawn by a single horse. He urged that such a
method of transport would be attended with great economy of power and
consequent cheapness. Many years later, in 1802, he published his
views on the same subject in a more matured form. By that time Watt's
steam-engine had come into general use, and he suggested that small
stationary engines should be fixed along his proposed railroad, and
made, by means of circulating chains, to draw the carriages along with
a great diminution of horse labor and expense.

It is creditable to Mr. Edgeworth's forethought that both the models
proposed by him have since been adopted. Horse-traction of carriages on
railways is now in general use in the towns of the United States; and
omnibuses on the same principle regularly ply between the Place de la
Concorde at Paris and St. Cloud, both being found highly convenient for
the public, and profitable to the proprietors. The system of working
railways by fixed engines was also regularly employed on some lines
in the infancy of the railway system, though it has since fallen into
disuse, in consequence of the increased power given to the modern
locomotive, which enables it to surmount gradients formerly considered
impracticable.

Besides his speculations on railways worked by horse and steam power,
Mr. Edgeworth--unconscious of the early experiments of Stevins and
Mackworth--made many attempts to apply the power of the wind with the
same object. It is stated in his "Memoirs" that he devoted himself to
locomotive traction by various methods for a period of about forty
years, during which he made above a hundred working models, in a
great variety of forms; and though none of his schemes were attended
with practical success, he adds that he gained far more in amusement
than he lost by his unsuccessful labors. "The only mortification that
affected me," he says, "was my discovery, many years after I had taken
out my patent [for the sailing-carriage], that the rudiments of my
whole scheme were mentioned in an obscure memoir of the French Academy."

The sailing-wagon scheme, as revived by Mr. Edgeworth, was doubtless
of a highly ingenious character, though it was not practicable. One of
his expedients was a portable railway, of a kind somewhat similar to
that since revived by Mr. Boydell. Many experiments were tried with the
new wagons on Hare Hatch Common, but they were attended with so much
danger when the wind blew strong--the vehicles seeming to fly rather
than roll along the ground--that farther experiments were abandoned,
and Mr. Edgeworth himself at length came to the conclusion that a
power so uncertain as that of the wind could never be relied upon for
the safe conduct of ordinary traffic. His thoughts finally settled on
steam as the only practicable power for this purpose; but, though his
enthusiasm in the cause of improved transit of persons and of goods
remained unabated, he was now too far advanced in life to prosecute
his investigations in that direction. When an old man of seventy he
wrote to James Watt (7th August, 1813): "I have always thought that
steam would become the universal lord, and that we should in time scorn
post-horses. An iron railroad would be a cheaper thing than a road
on the common construction." Four years later he died, and left the
problem, which he had nearly all his life been trying ineffectually to
solve, to be worked out by younger men.

Dr. Darwin had long before preceded him into the silent land. Down to
his death in 1802, Edgeworth had kept up a continuous correspondence
with him on his favorite topic; but it does not appear that Darwin
ever revived his project of the "fiery chariot." He was satisfied to
prophesy its eventual success in the lines which are perhaps more
generally known than any he has written--for, though Horace Walpole
declared that he could "read the Botanic Garden over and over again
forever," the poetry of Darwin is now all but forgotten. The following
was his prophecy, published in 1791, before any practical locomotive or
steam-boat had been invented:

    "Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar
    Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
    Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
    The flying chariot through the fields of air.
    Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above,
    Shall wave their flutt'ring kerchiefs as they move;
    Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd,
    And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud."

The prophecy embodied in the first two lines of the passage has
certainly been fulfilled, but the triumph of the steam balloon has yet
to come.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] "Lives of the Engineers," vols. i. and ii.

[3] Harleian MSS., vol. iii., 269.

[4] "Six Months' Tour," vol. iii., 9.

[5] "Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides," vol. i., 142.

[6] "Railway Locomotion and Steam Navigation, their Principles and
Practice." By John Curr. London, 1847.

[7] A curious account of this early project is to be found in the
library of the British Museum, under the name "Stevin, 1652."

[8] The writer adds--"I believe he (Sir Humphry Mackworth) is the first
gentleman in this part of the world that hath set up sailing engines on
land, driven by the wind; not for any curiosity or vain applause, but
for real profit; whereby he could not fail of Bishop Malkin's blessing
on his undertakings, in case he were in a capacity to bestow it."

[9] See farther, "Lives of the Engineers," vol. iv., Boulton and Watt,
p. 182-4.

[10] Soho MSS.

[11] Soho MSS.

[12] Ibid.



CHAPTER II.

EARLY LOCOMOTIVE MODELS.


The application of steam-power to the driving of wheel-carriages on
common roads was in 1759 brought under the notice of James Watt by his
young friend John Robison, then a student at the University of Glasgow.
Robison prepared a rough sketch of his suggested steam-carriage, in
which he proposed to place the cylinder with its open end downward,
to avoid the necessity for using a working beam. Watt was then only
twenty-three years old, and was very much occupied in conducting
his business of a mathematical instrument maker, which he had only
recently established. Nevertheless, he proceeded to construct a model
locomotive provided with two cylinders of tin-plate, intending that
the pistons and their connecting-rods should act alternately on two
pinions attached to the axles of the carriage-wheels. But the model,
when made, did not answer Watt's expectations; and when, shortly after,
Robison left college to go to sea, he laid the project aside, and did
not resume it for many years.

In the mean time, an ingenious French mechanic had taken up the
subject, and proceeded to make a self-moving road engine worked by
steam-power. It has been incidentally stated that a M. Pouillet was the
first to make a locomotive machine,[13] but no particulars are given
of the invention, which is more usually attributed to Nicholas Joseph
Cugnot, a native of Void, in Lorraine, where he was born in 1729. Not
much is known of Cugnot's early history beyond that he was an officer
in the army, that he published several works on military science, and
that on leaving the army he devoted himself to the invention of a
steam-carriage to be run on common roads.

It appears from documents collected by M. Morin that Cugnot
constructed his first carriage at the Arsenal in 1769, at the cost of
the Comte de Saxe, by whom he was patronized and liberally helped. It
ran on three wheels, and was put in motion by an engine composed of two
single-acting cylinders, the pistons of which acted alternately on the
single front wheel. While this machine was in course of construction, a
Swiss officer, named Planta, brought forward a similar project; but, on
perceiving that Cugnot's carriage was superior to his own, he proceeded
no farther with it.

When Cugnot's carriage was ready, it was tried in the presence of the
Duc de Choiseul, the Comte de Saxe, and other military officers. On
being first set in motion, it ran against a stone wall which stood in
its way, and threw it down. There was thus no doubt about its power,
though there were many doubts about its manageableness. At length it
was got out of the Arsenal and put upon the road, when it was found
that, though only loaded with four persons, it could not travel faster
than about two and a quarter miles an hour; and that, the size of the
boiler not being sufficient, it would not continue at work for more
than twelve or fifteen minutes, when it was necessary to wait until
sufficient steam had been raised to enable it to proceed farther.

The experiment was looked upon with great interest, and admitted to
be of a very remarkable character; and, considering that it was a
first attempt, it was not by any means regarded as unsuccessful. As
it was believed that such a machine, if properly proportioned, might
be employed to drag cannon into the field independent of horse-power,
the Minister of War authorized Cugnot to proceed with the construction
of a new and improved machine, which was finished and ready for trial
in the course of the following year. The new locomotive was composed
of two parts, one being a carriage supported on two wheels, somewhat
resembling a small brewer's cart, furnished with a seat for the driver,
while the other contained the machinery, which was supported on a
single driving-wheel 4 ft. 2 in. in diameter. The engine consisted of
a round copper boiler with a furnace inside provided with two small
chimneys, two single-acting 13-in. brass cylinders communicating with
the boiler by a steam-pipe, and the arrangements for communicating
the motion of the pistons to the driving-wheel, together with the
steering-gear.

[Illustration: CUGNOT'S ENGINE.]

The two parts of the machine were united by a movable pin and a
toothed sector fixed on the framing of the front or machine part of
the carriage. When one of the pistons descended, the piston-rod drew
with it a crank, the catch of which caused the driving-wheel to make
a quarter of a revolution by means of the ratchet-wheel fixed on the
axle of the driving-wheel. At the same time, a chain fixed to the
crank on the same side also descended and moved a lever, the opposite
end of which was thereby raised, restoring the second piston to its
original position at the top of the cylinder by the interposition of
a second chain and crank. The piston-rod of the descending piston, by
means of a catch, set other levers in motion, the chain fixed to them
turning a half-way cock so as to open the second cylinder to the steam
and the first to the atmosphere. The second piston, then descending
in turn, caused the driving-wheel to make another quarter revolution,
restoring the first piston to its original position; and the process
being repeated, the machine was thereby kept in motion. To enable it
to run backward, the catch of the crank was arranged in such a manner
that it could be made to act either above or below, and thereby reverse
the action of the machinery on the driving-wheel. It will thus be
observed that Cugnot's locomotive presented a simple and ingenious form
of a high-pressure engine; and, though of rude construction, it was a
highly-creditable piece of work, considering the time of its appearance
and the circumstances under which it was constructed.

Several successful trials were made with the new locomotive in the
streets of Paris, which excited no small degree of interest. Unhappily,
however, an accident which occurred to it in one of the trials had the
effect of putting a stop to farther experiments. Turning the corner
of a street near the Madeleine one day, when the machine was running
at a speed of about three miles an hour, it became overbalanced, and
fell over with a crash; after which, the running of the vehicle being
considered dangerous, it was thenceforth locked up securely in the
Arsenal to prevent its doing farther mischief.

The merit of Cugnot was, however, duly recognized. He was granted a
pension of 300 livres, which continued to be paid to him until the
outbreak of the Revolution. The Girondist Roland was appointed to
examine the engine and report upon it to the Convention; but his
report, which was favorable, was not adopted; on which the inventor's
pension was stopped, and he was left for a time without the means of
living. Some years later, Bonaparte, on his return from Italy after the
peace of Campo Formio, interested himself in Cugnot's invention, and
expressed a favorable opinion of his locomotive before the Academy;
but his attention was shortly after diverted from the subject by the
Expedition to Egypt. Napoleon, however, succeeded in restoring Cugnot's
pension, and thus soothed his declining years. He died in Paris in
1804, at the age of seventy-five. Cugnot's locomotive is still to be
seen in the Museum of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers at Paris;
and it is, without exception, the most venerable and interesting of all
the machines extant connected with the early history of locomotion.

While Cugnot was constructing his first machine at Paris, one Francis
Moore, a linen-draper, was taking out a patent in London for moving
wheel-carriages by steam. On the 14th of March, 1769, he gave notice
of a patent for "a machine made of wood or metal, and worked by fire,
water, or air, for the purpose of moving bodies on land or water," and
on the 13th of July following he gave notice of another "for machines
made of wood and metal, moved by power, for the carriage of persons and
goods, and for accelerating boats, barges, and other vessels." But it
does not appear that Moore did any thing beyond lodging the titles of
his inventions, so that we are left in the dark as to what was their
precise character.

James Watt's friend and correspondent, Dr. Small, of Birmingham, when
he heard of Moore's intended project, wrote to the Glasgow inventor
with the object of stimulating him to perfect his steam-engine, then in
hand, and urging him to apply it, among other things, to purposes of
locomotion. "I hope soon," said Small, "to travel in a fiery chariot
of your invention." Watt replied to the effect that "if Linen-draper
Moore does not use my engines to drive his carriages, he can't drive
them by steam. If he does, I will stop them." But Watt was still a
long way from perfecting his invention. The steam-engine capable of
driving carriages was a problem that remained to be solved, and it was
a problem to the solution of which Watt never fairly applied himself.
It was enough for him to accomplish the great work of perfecting his
condensed engine, and with that he rested content.

But Watt continued to be so strongly urged by those about him to apply
steam-power to purposes of locomotion that, in his comprehensive patent
of the 24th of August, 1784, he included an arrangement with that
object. From his specification we learn that he proposed a cylindrical
or globular boiler, protected outside by wood strongly hooped together,
with a furnace inside entirely surrounded by the water to be heated
except at the ends. Two cylinders working alternately were to be
employed, and the pistons working within them were to be moved by the
elastic force of the steam; "and after it has performed its office,"
he says, "I discharge it into the atmosphere by a proper regulating
valve, or I discharge it into a condensing vessel made air-tight,
and formed of thin plates and pipes of metal, having their outsides
exposed to the wind;" the object of this latter arrangement being to
economize the water, which would otherwise be lost. The power was
to be communicated by a rotative motion (of the nature of the "sun
and planet" arrangement) to the axle of one or more of the wheels of
the carriage, or to another axis connected with the axle by means of
toothed wheels; and in other cases he proposed, instead of the rotative
machinery, to employ "toothed racks, or sectors of circles, worked with
reciprocating motion by the engines, and acting upon ratched wheels
fixed on the axles of the carriage." To drive a carriage containing
two persons would, he estimated, require an engine with a cylinder 7
in. in diameter, making sixty strokes per minute of 1 ft. each, and so
constructed as to act both on the ascent and descent of the piston;
and, finally, the elastic force of the steam in the boiler must be such
as to be occasionally equal to supporting a pillar of mercury 30 in.
high.

Though Watt repeatedly expressed his intention of constructing a
model locomotive after his specification, it does not appear that
he ever carried it out. He was too much engrossed with other work;
and, besides, he never entertained very sanguine views as to the
practicability of road locomotion by steam. He continued, however, to
discuss the subject with his partner Boulton, and from his letters we
gather that his mind continued undetermined as to the best plan to
be pursued. Only four days after the date of the above specification
(_i.e._, on the 28th of August, 1784) we find him communicating his
views on the subject to Boulton at great length, and explaining his
ideas as to how the proposed object might best be accomplished.
He first addressed himself to the point of whether 80 lbs. was a
sufficient power to move a post-chaise on a tolerably good and level
road at four miles an hour; secondly, whether 8 ft. of boiler surface
exposed to the fire would be sufficient to evaporate a cube foot of
water per hour without much waste of fuel; thirdly, whether it would
require steam of more than eleven and a half times atmospheric density
to cause the engine to exert a power equal to 6 lbs. on the inch. "I
think," he observed, "the cylinder must either be made larger or make
more than sixty strokes per minute. As to working gear, stopping and
backing, with steering the carriage, I think these things perfectly
manageable."

  "My original ideas on the subject," he continued, "were prior to
  my invention of these improved engines, or before the crank, or
  any other of the rotative motions were thought of. My plan then
  was to have two inverted cylinders, with toothed racks instead of
  piston-rods, which were to be applied to two ratchet-wheels on the
  axle-tree, and to act alternately; and I am partly of opinion that
  this method might be applied with advantage yet, because it needs
  no fly and has some other conveniences. From what I have said, and
  from much more which a little reflection will suggest to you, you
  will see that without several circumstances turn out more favorable
  than has been stated, the machine will be clumsy and defective, and
  that it will cost much time to bring it to any tolerable degree of
  perfection, and that for me to interrupt the career of our business
  would be imprudent; I even grudge the time I have taken to make
  these comments on it. There is, however, another way in which much
  mechanism might be saved if it be in itself practicable, which
  is to apply to it one of the self-moving rotatives, which has no
  regulators, but turns like a mill-wheel by the constant influx and
  efflux of steam; but this would not abridge the size of the boiler,
  and I am not sure that such engines are practicable."

It will be observed from these explanations that Watt's views as to
road locomotion were still crude and undefined; and, indeed, he never
carried them farther. While he was thus discussing the subject with
Boulton, William Murdock, one of the most skilled and ingenious workmen
of the Soho firm--then living at Redruth, in Cornwall--was occupying
himself during his leisure hours, which were but few, in constructing
a model locomotive after a design of his own. He had doubtless heard
of the proposal to apply steam to locomotion, and, being a clever
inventor, he forthwith set himself to work out the problem. The
plan he pursued was very simple and yet efficient. His model was of
small dimensions, standing little more than a foot high, but it was
sufficiently large to demonstrate the soundness of the principle
on which it was constructed. It was supported on three wheels, and
carried a small copper boiler, heated by a spirit-lamp, with a flue
passing obliquely through it. The cylinder, of 3/4 in. diameter and 2
in. stroke, was fixed in the top of the boiler, the piston-rod being
connected with the vibrating beam attached to the connecting-rod which
worked the crank of the driving-wheel. This little engine worked by
the expansive force of the steam only, which was discharged into the
atmosphere after it had done its work of alternately raising and
depressing the piston in the cylinder.

[Illustration: SECTION OF MURDOCK'S MODEL.]

Mr. Murdock's son informed the author that this model was invented
and constructed in 1781, but, from the correspondence of Boulton and
Watt, we infer that it was not ready for trial until 1784. The first
experiment with it was made in Murdock's own house at Redruth, when
it successfully hauled a model wagon round the room--the single wheel
placed in front of the engine, and working in a swivel frame, enabling
it to run round in a circle.

Another experiment was made out of doors, on which occasion, small
though the engine was, it fairly outran the speed of its inventor. It
seems that one night, after returning from his duties at the Redruth
mine, Murdock determined to try the working of his model locomotive.
For this purpose he had recourse to the walk leading to the church,
about a mile from the town. It was rather narrow, and was bounded on
each side by high hedges. The night was dark, and Murdock set out alone
to try his experiment. Having lit his lamp, the water soon boiled, when
off started the engine, with the inventor after it. Shortly after he
heard distant shouts of terror. It was too dark to perceive objects;
but he found, on following up the machine, that the cries proceeded
from the worthy pastor of the parish, who, going toward the town, was
met on this lonely road by the hissing and fiery little monster, which
he subsequently declared he had taken to be the Evil One in _propria
persona_!

Watt was by no means pleased when he learned that Murdock was giving
his mind to these experiments. He feared that it might have the effect
of withdrawing him from the employment of the firm, to which his
services had become almost indispensable; for there was no more active,
skillful, or ingenious workman in all their concern. Watt accordingly
wrote to Boulton, recommending him to advise Murdock to give up his
locomotive-engine scheme; but, if he could not succeed in that, then,
rather than lose Murdock's services, Watt proposed that he should be
allowed an advance of £100 to enable him to prosecute his experiments,
and if he succeeded within a year in making an engine capable of
drawing a post-chaise carrying two passengers and the driver at four
miles an hour, it was suggested that he should be taken as partner into
the locomotive business, for which Boulton and Watt were to provide the
necessary capital.

Two years later (in September, 1786) we find Watt again expressing
his regret to Boulton that Murdock was "busying himself with the
steam-carriage." "I have still," said he, "the same opinion concerning
it that I had, but to prevent as much as possible more fruitless
argument about it, I have one of some size under hand, and am resolved
to try if God will work a miracle in favor of these carriages. I
shall in some future letter send you the words of my specification on
that subject. In the mean time I wish William could be brought to do
as we do, to mind the business in hand, and let such as Symington
and Sadler throw away their time and money in hunting shadows." In
a subsequent letter Watt expressed his gratification at finding
"that William applies to his business." From that time Murdock as
well as Watt dropped all farther speculation on the subject, and
left it to others to work out the problem of the locomotive engine.
Murdock's model remained but a curious toy, which he himself took
pleasure in exhibiting to his intimate friends; and though he long
continued to speculate about road locomotion, and was persuaded of its
practicability, he refrained from embodying his ideas of it in any more
complete working form.

Symington and Sadler, "the hunters of shadows" referred to by Watt, did
little to advance the question. Of Sadler we know nothing beyond that
in 1786 he was making experiments as to the application of steam-power
to the driving of wheel-carriages. This came to the knowledge of
Boulton and Watt, who gave him notice, on the 4th of July of the same
year, that "the sole privilege of making steam-engines by the elastic
force of steam acting on a piston, with or without condensation,
had been granted to Mr. Watt by Act of Parliament, and also that
among other improvements and applications of his principle he hath
particularly specified the application of steam-engines for driving
wheel carriages in a patent which he took out in the year 1784." They
accordingly cautioned him against proceeding farther in the matter; and
as we hear no more of Sadler's steam-carriage, it is probable that the
notice had its effect.

The name of William Symington is better known in connection with
the history of steam locomotion by sea. He was born at Leadhills,
in Scotland, in 1763. His father was a practical mechanic, who
superintended the engines and machinery of the Mining Company at
Wanlockhead, where one of Boulton and Watt's pumping-engines was
at work. Young Symington was of an ingenious turn of mind from his
boyhood, and at an early period he seems to have conceived the idea
of employing the steam-engine to drive wheel-carriages. His father
and he worked together, and by the year 1786, when the son was only
twenty-three years of age, they succeeded in completing a working model
of a road locomotive. Mr. Meason, the manager of the mine, was so
much pleased with the model, the merit of which principally belonged
to young Symington, that he sent him to Edinburg for the purpose of
exhibiting it before the scientific gentlemen of that city, in the hope
that it might lead, in some way, to his future advancement in life. Mr.
Meason also allowed the model to be exhibited at his own house there,
and he invited many gentlemen of distinction to inspect it.

[Illustration: SYMINGTON'S MODEL STEAM-CARRIAGE, 1786.]

The machine consisted of a carriage and locomotive behind, supported on
four wheels. The boiler was cylindrical, communicating by a steam-pipe
with the two horizontal cylinders, one on each side of the engine.
When the piston was raised by the action of the steam, a vacuum was
produced by the condensation of the steam in a cold-water tank placed
underneath the engine, on which the piston was again forced back by the
pressure of the atmosphere. The motion was communicated to the wheels
by rack-rods connected with the piston-rod, which worked on each side
of a drum fixed on the hind axle, the alternate action of which rods
upon the tooth and ratchet wheels with which the drum was provided
producing the rotary motion. It will thus be observed that Symington's
engine was partly atmospheric and partly condensing, the condensation
being effected by a separate vessel and air-pump, as patented by Watt;
and though the arrangement was ingenious, it is clear that, had it ever
been brought into use, the traction by means of such an engine would
have been of the very slowest kind.

But Symington's engine was not destined to be applied to road
locomotion. He was completely diverted from employing it for that
purpose by his connection with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, then engaged
in experimenting on the application of mechanical power to the driving
of his double paddle-boat. The power of men was first tried, but the
labor was found too severe; and when Mr. Miller went to see Symington's
model, and informed the inventor of his difficulty in obtaining a
regular and effective power for driving his boat, Symington--his mind
naturally full of his own invention--at once suggested his steam-engine
for the purpose. The suggestion was adopted, and Mr. Miller authorized
him to proceed with the construction of a steam-engine to be fitted
into his double pleasure boat on Dalswinton Lock, where it was tried
in October, 1788. This was followed by farther experiments, which
eventually led to the construction of the _Charlotte Dundas_ in 1801,
which may be regarded as the first practical steam-boat ever built.

Symington took out letters patent in the same year, securing the
invention, or rather the novel combination of inventions, embodied in
his steam-boat, but he never succeeded in getting it introduced into
practical use. From the date of completing his invention, fortune
seemed to run steadily against him. The Duke of Bridgewater, who had
ordered a number of Symington's steam-boats for his canal, died, and
his executors countermanded the order. Symington failed in inducing
any other canal company to make trial of his invention. Lord Dundas
also took the _Charlotte Dundas_ off the Forth and Clyde Canal, where
she had been at work, and from that time the vessel was never more
tried. Symington had no capital of his own to work upon, and he seems
to have been unable to make friends among capitalists. The rest of his
life was for the most part thrown away. Toward the close of it his
principal haunt was London, amid whose vast population he was one of
the many waifs and strays. He succeeded in obtaining a grant of £100
from the Privy Purse in 1824, and afterward an annuity of £50, but he
did not live long to enjoy it, for he died in March, 1831, and was
buried in the church-yard of St. Botolph, Aldgate, where there is not
even a stone to mark the grave of the inventor of the first practicable
steam-boat.

[Illustration: OLIVER EVANS'S MODEL LOCOMOTIVE.]

While the inventive minds of England were thus occupied, those of
America were not idle. The idea of applying steam-power to the
propulsion of carriages on land is said to have occurred to John
Fitch in 1785; but he did not pursue the idea "for more than a week,"
being diverted from it by his scheme of applying the same power to the
propulsion of vessels on the water.[14] About the same time, Oliver
Evans, a native of Newport, Delaware, was occupied with a project for
driving steam-carriages on common roads; and in 1786 the Legislature
of Maryland granted him the exclusive right for that state. Several
years, however, passed before he could raise the means for erecting
a model carriage, most of his friends regarding the project as
altogether chimerical and impracticable. In 1800 or 1801, Evans began
a steam-carriage at his own expense; but he had not proceeded far with
it when he altered his intention, and applied the engine intended for
the driving of a carriage to the driving of a small grinding-mill, in
which it was found efficient. In 1804 he constructed at Philadelphia
a second engine of five-horse power, working on the high-pressure
principle, which was placed on a large flat or scow, mounted upon
wheels. "This," says his biographer, "was considered a fine opportunity
to show the public that his engine could propel both land and water
conveyances. When the machine was finished, Evans fixed under it, in
a rough and temporary manner, wheels with wooden axle-trees. Although
the whole weight was equal to two hundred barrels of flour, yet his
small engine propelled it up Market Street, and round the circle to the
water-works, where it was launched into the Schuylkill. A paddle-wheel
was then applied to its stern, and it thus sailed down that river to
the Delaware, a distance of sixteen miles, in the presence of thousands
of spectators."[15] It does not, however, appear that any farther trial
was made of this engine as a locomotive; and, having been dismounted
and applied to the driving of a small grinding-mill, its employment as
a traveling engine was shortly forgotten. FOOTNOTES:

[13] "Portfeuille du Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers," Livraison 1,
p. 3.

[14] This statement is made in "The Life of John Fitch," by Thompson
Westcott, Philadelphia, 1857. Mr. Thompson there states that the idea
of employing a steam-engine to propel carriages on land occurred to
John Fitch at a time when, he avers, "he was altogether ignorant that
a steam-engine had ever been invented!" (p. 120). Such a statement is
calculated to damage the credibility of the entire book, in which the
invention of the steam-boat, as well as of the screw propeller, is
unhesitatingly claimed for John Fitch.

[15] Horne's "Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics," New
York, 1858, p. 76.



CHAPTER III.

THE CORNISH LOCOMOTIVE--MEMOIR OF RICHARD TREVITHICK.


While the discussion of steam-power as a means of locomotion
was proceeding in England, other projectors were advocating the
extension of wagon-ways and railroads. Mr. Thomas, of Denton, near
Newcastle-on-Tyne, read a paper before the Philosophical Society of
that town in 1800, in which he urged the laying down of railways
throughout the country, on the principle of the coal wagon-ways,
for the general carriage of goods and merchandise; and Dr. James
Anderson, of Edinburg, about the same time published his "Recreations
of Agriculture," wherein he recommended that railways should be laid
along the principal turnpike-roads, and worked by horse-power, which,
he alleged, would have the effect of greatly reducing the cost of
transport, and thereby stimulating all branches of industry.

Railways were indeed already becoming adopted in places where the
haulage of heavy loads was for short distances; and in some cases lines
were laid down of considerable length. One of the first of such lines
constructed under the powers of an Act of Parliament was the Cardiff
and Merthyr railway or tram-road, about twenty-seven miles in length,
for the accommodation of the iron-works of Plymouth, Pen-y-darran, and
Dowlais, all in South Wales, the necessary Act for which was obtained
in 1794. Another, the Sirhoway railroad, about twenty-eight miles in
length, was constructed under the powers of an act obtained in 1801;
it accommodated the Tredegar and Sirhoway Iron-works and the Trevill
Lime-works, as well as the collieries along its route.

In the immediate neighborhood of London there was another very early
railroad, the Wandsworth and Croydon tram-way, about ten miles long,
which was afterward extended southward to Merstham, in Surrey, for
about eight miles more, making a total length of nearly eighteen
miles. The first act for the purpose of authorizing the construction of
this road was obtained in 1800.

All these lines were, however, worked by horses, and in the case of the
Croydon and Merstham line, donkeys shared in the work, which consisted
chiefly in the haulage of stone, coal, and lime. No proposal had yet
been made to apply the power of steam as a substitute for horses on
railways, nor were the rails then laid down of a strength sufficient to
bear more than a loaded wagon of the weight of three tons, or, at the
very outside, of three and a quarter tons.

It was, however, observed from the first that there was an immense
saving in the cost of haulage; and on the day of opening the southern
portion of the Merstham Railroad in 1805, a train of twelve wagons
laden with stone, weighing in all thirty-eight tons, was drawn six
miles in an hour by one horse, with apparent ease, down an incline of
1 in 120; and this was bruited about as an extraordinary feat, highly
illustrative of the important uses of the new iron-ways.

About the same time, the subject of road locomotion was again brought
into prominent notice by an important practical experiment conducted
in a remote corner of the kingdom. The experimenter was a young man,
then obscure, but afterward famous, who may be fairly regarded as
the inventor of the railway locomotive, if any single individual be
entitled to that appellation. This was Richard Trevithick, a person
of extraordinary mechanical skill but of marvelous ill fortune, who,
though the inventor of many ingenious contrivances, and the founder of
the fortunes of many, himself died in cold obstruction and in extreme
poverty, leaving behind him nothing but his great inventions and the
recollection of his genius.

Richard Trevithick was born on the 13th of April, 1771, in the parish
of Illogan, a few miles west of Redruth, in Cornwall. In the immediate
neighborhood rises Castle-Carn-brea, a rocky eminence, supposed by
Borlase to have been the principal seat of Druidic worship in the
West of England. The hill commands an extraordinary view over one of
the richest mining fields of Cornwall, from Chacewater and Redruth to
Camborne.

Trevithick's father acted as purser at several of the mines. Though a
man in good position and circumstances, he does not seem to have taken
much pains with his son's education. Being an only child, he was very
much indulged--among other things, in his dislike for the restraints
and discipline of school; and he was left to wander about among the
mines, spending his time in the engine-rooms, picking up information
about pumping-engines and mining machinery.

His father, observing the boy's strong bent toward mechanics, placed
him for a time as pupil with William Murdock, while the latter lived
at Redruth superintending the working and repairs of Boulton and
Watt's pumping-engines in that neighborhood. During his pupilage,
young Trevithick doubtless learned much from that able mechanic. It
is probable that he got his first idea of the high-pressure road
locomotive which he afterward constructed from Murdock's ingenious
little model above described, the construction and action of which must
have been quite familiar to him, for no secret was ever made of it, and
its performances were often exhibited.

Many new pumping-engines being in course of erection in the
neighborhood about that time, there was an unusual demand for
engineers, which it was found difficult to supply; and young
Trevithick, whose skill was acknowledged, had no difficulty in getting
an appointment. The father was astonished at his boy's presumption (as
he supposed it to be) in undertaking such a responsibility, and he
begged the mine agents to reconsider their decision. But the result
showed that they were justified in making the appointment; for young
Trevithick, though he had not yet attained his majority, proved fully
competent to perform the duties devolving upon him as engineer.

So long as Boulton and Watt's patent continued to run, constant
attempts were made in Cornwall and elsewhere to upset it. Their engines
had cleared the mines of water, and thereby rescued the mine lords
from ruin, but it was felt to be a great hardship that they should
have to pay for the right to use them. They accordingly stimulated the
ingenuity of the local engineers to contrive an engine that should
answer the same purpose, and enable them to evade making any farther
payments to Boulton and Watt. The first to produce an engine that
seemed likely to answer the purpose was Jonathan Hornblower, who had
been employed in erecting Watt's engines in Cornwall. After him one
Edward Bull, who had been first a stoker and then an assistant-tender
of Watt's engines, turned out another pumping-engine, which promised to
prove an equally safe evasion of the existing patent. But Boulton and
Watt having taken the necessary steps to defend their right, several
actions were tried, in which they proved successful, and then the mine
lords were compelled to disgorge. When they found that Hornblower could
be of no farther use to them, they abandoned him--threw him away like a
sucked orange; and shortly after we find him a prisoner for debt in the
King's Bench, almost in a state of starvation. Nor do we hear any thing
more of Edward Bull after the issue of the Boulton and Watt trial.

Like the other Cornish engineers, young Trevithick took an active part
from the first in opposing the Birmingham patent, and he is said to
have constructed several engines, with the assistance of William Bull
(formerly an erector of Watt's machines), with the object of evading
it. These engines are said to have been highly creditable to their
makers, working to the entire satisfaction of the mine-owners. The
issue of the Watt trial, however, which declared all such engines to be
piracies, brought to an end for a time a business which would otherwise
have proved a very profitable one, and Trevithick's partnership with
Bull then came to an end.

While carrying on his business, Trevithick had frequent occasion to
visit Mr. Harvey's iron foundery at Hayle, then a small work, but now
one of the largest in the West of England, the Cornish pumping-engines
turned out by Harvey and Co. being the very best of their kind. During
these visits Trevithick became acquainted with the various members of
Mr. Harvey's family, and in course of time he contracted an engagement
with one of his daughters, Miss Jane Harvey, to whom he was married in
November, 1797.

A few years later we find Trevithick engaged in partnership with his
cousin, Andrew Vivian, also an engineer. They carried on their business
of engine-making at Camborne, a mining town situated in the midst of
the mining district, a few miles south of Redruth. Watt's patent-right
expired in 1800, and from that time the Cornish engineers were free to
make engines after their own methods. Trevithick was not content to
follow in the beaten paths, but, being of a highly speculative turn,
he occupied himself in contriving various new methods of employing
steam with the object of economizing fuel and increasing the effective
power of the engine.

From an early period he entertained the idea of making the expansive
force of steam act directly on both sides of the piston on the
high-pressure principle, and thus getting rid of the process of
condensation as in Watt's engines. Although Cugnot had employed
high-pressure steam in his road locomotive, and Murdock in his model,
and although Watt had distinctly specified the action of steam at
high-pressure as well as low in his patents of 1769, 1782, and 1784,
the idea was not embodied in any practicable working engine until the
subject was taken in hand by Trevithick. The results of his long and
careful study were embodied in the patent which he took out in 1802,
in his own and Vivian's name, for an improved steam-engine, and "the
application thereof for driving carriages and for other purposes."

The arrangement of Trevithick's engine was exceedingly ingenious.
It exhibited a beautiful simplicity of parts; the machinery was
arranged in a highly effective form, uniting strength with solidity
and portability, and enabling the power of steam to be employed with
very great rapidity, economy, and force. Watt's principal objection
to using high-pressure steam consisted in the danger to which the
boiler was exposed of being burst by internal pressure. In Trevithick's
engine, this was avoided by using a cylindrical wrought-iron boiler,
being the form capable of presenting the greatest resistance to the
expansive force of steam. Boilers of this kind were not, however, new.
Oliver Evans, of Delaware, had made use of them in his high-pressure
engines prior to the date of Trevithick's patent; and, as Evans did
not claim the cylindrical boiler, it is probable that the invention
was in use before his time. Nevertheless, Trevithick had the merit of
introducing the round boilers into Cornwall, where they are still known
as "Trevithick boilers." The saving in fuel effected by their use was
such that in 1812 the Messrs. Williams, of Scorrier, made Trevithick
a present of £300, in acknowledgment of the benefits arising to their
mines from that source alone.

Trevithick's steam-carriage was the most compact and handsome vehicle
of the kind that had yet been invented, and, indeed, as regards
arrangement, it has scarcely to this day been surpassed. It consisted
of a carriage capable of accommodating some half-dozen passengers,
underneath which was the engine and machinery inclosed, about the size
of an orchestra drum, the whole being supported on four wheels--two in
front, by which it was guided, and two behind, by which it was driven.
The engine had but one cylinder. The piston-rod outside the cylinder
was double, and drove a cross-piece, working in guides, on the opposite
side of the cranked axle to the cylinder, the crank of the axle
revolving between the double parts of the piston-rod. Toothed wheels
were attached to this axle, which worked into other toothed wheels
fixed on the axle of the driving-wheels. The steam-cocks were opened
and shut by a connection with the crank-axle; and the force-pump, with
which the boiler was supplied with water, was also worked from it, as
were the bellows to blow the fire and thereby keep up the combustion in
the furnace.

The specification clearly alludes to the use of the engine on railroads
as follows: "It is also to be noticed that we do occasionally, or in
certain cases, make the external periphery of the wheels uneven by
projecting heads of nails or bolts, or cross grooves or fittings to
railroads where required, and that in cases of hard pull we cause a
lever, belt, or claw to project through the rim of one or both of the
said wheels, so as to take hold of the ground, but that, in general,
the ordinary structure or figure of the external surface of those
wheels will be found to answer the intended purpose."

The specification also shows the application of the high-pressure
engine on the same principle to the driving of a sugar-mill, or for
other purposes where a fixed power is required, dispensing with
condenser, cistern, air-pump, and cold-water pump. In the year 1803,
a small engine of this kind was erected after Trevithick's plan at
Marazion, which worked by steam of at least 30 lbs. on the inch above
atmospheric pressure, and gave much satisfaction.

The first experimental steam-carriage was constructed by Trevithick
and Vivian in their workshops at Camborne in 1803, and was tried by
them on the public road adjoining the town, as well as in the street
of the town itself. John Petherick, a native of Camborne, who was
alive in 1858, stated in a letter to Mr. Edward Williams that he well
remembered seeing the engine, worked by Mr. Trevithick himself, come
through the place, to the great wonder of the inhabitants. He says,
"The experiment was satisfactory only as long as the steam pressure
could be kept up. During that continuance Trevithick called upon the
people to 'jump up,' so as to create a load on the engine; and it soon
became covered with men, which did not seem to make any difference to
the power or speed so long as the steam was kept up. This was sought to
be done by the application of a cylindrical horizontal bellows worked
by the engine itself; but the attempt to keep up the power of the steam
for any considerable time proved a failure."

Trevithick, however, made several alterations in the engine which had
the effect of improving it, and its success was such that he determined
to take it to London and exhibit it there as the most recent novelty
in steam mechanism. It was successfully run by road from Camborne to
Plymouth, a distance of about ninety miles. At Plymouth it was shipped
for London, where it shortly after arrived in safety, and excited
considerable curiosity. It was run on the waste ground in the vicinity
of the present Bethlehem Hospital, as well as on Lord's cricket-ground.
There Sir Humphry Davy, Mr. Davies Gilbert, and other scientific
gentlemen inspected the machine and rode upon it. Several of them
took the steering of the carriage by turns, and they expressed their
satisfaction with the mechanism by which it was directed. Sir Humphry,
writing to a friend in Cornwall, said, "I shall soon hope to hear that
the roads of England are the haunts of Captain Trevithick's dragons--a
characteristic name." After the experiment at Lord's, the carriage was
run along the New-road, and down Gray's-Inn Lane, to the premises of a
carriage-builder in Long Acre. To show the adaptability of the engine
for fixed uses, Trevithick had it taken from the carriage on the day
after this trial and removed to the shop of a cutler, where he applied
it with success to the driving of the machinery.

The steam-carriage shortly became the talk of the town, and the public
curiosity being on the increase, Trevithick resolved on inclosing a
piece of ground on the site of the present Euston station of the London
and Northwestern Railway, and admitting persons to see the exhibition
of his engine at so much a head. He had a tram-road laid down in an
elliptical form within the inclosure, and the carriage was run round
it on the rails in the sight of a great number of spectators. On the
second day another crowd collected to see the exhibition, but, for
what reason is not known, although it is said to have been through one
of Trevithick's freaks of temper, the place was closed and the engine
removed. It is, however, not improbable that the inventor had come to
the conclusion that the state of the roads at that time was such as to
preclude its coming into general use for purposes of ordinary traffic.

While the steam-carriage was being exhibited, a gentleman was laying
heavy wagers as to the weight which could be hauled by a single
horse on the Wandsworth and Croydon iron tram-way; and the number
and weight of wagons drawn by the horse were something surprising.
Trevithick very probably put the two things together--the steam-horse
and the iron-way--and kept the performance in mind when he proceeded
to construct his second or railway locomotive. In the mean time,
having dismantled his steam-carriage, sent back the phaeton to the
coach-builder to whom it belonged, and sold the little engine which had
worked the machine, he returned to Camborne to carry on his business.
In the course of the year 1803 he went to Pen-y-darran, in South Wales,
to erect a forge engine for the iron-works there; and, when it was
finished, he began the erection of a railway locomotive--the first ever
constructed. There were already, as above stated, several lines of rail
laid down in the district for the accommodation of the coal and iron
works. That between Merthyr Tydvil and Cardiff was the longest and most
important, and it had been at work for some years. It had probably
occurred to Trevithick that here was a fine opportunity for putting
to practical test the powers of the locomotive, and he proceeded to
construct one accordingly in the workshops at Pen-y-darran.

This first railway locomotive was finished and tried upon the Merthyr
tram-road on the 21st of February, 1804. It had a cylindrical
wrought-iron boiler with flat ends. The furnace and flue were inside
the boiler, the flue returning, having its exit at the same end at
which it entered, so as to increase the heating surface. The cylinder,
4-3/4 in. in diameter, was placed horizontally in the end of the
boiler, and the waste steam was thrown into the stack. The wheels were
worked in the same manner as in the carriage engine already described;
and a fly-wheel was added on one side, to secure a continuous rotary
motion at the end of each stroke of the piston. The pressure of the
steam was about 40 lbs. on the inch. The engine ran upon four wheels,
coupled by cog-wheels, and those who remember the engine say that the
four wheels were smooth.

[Illustration: TREVITHICK'S HIGH-PRESSURE TRAM-ENGINE.]

On the first trial, this engine drew for a distance of nine miles ten
tons of bar iron, together with the necessary carriages, water, and
fuel, at the rate of five and a half miles an hour. Rees Jones, an old
engine-fitter, who helped to erect the engine, and was alive in 1858,
gave Mr. Menelaus the following account of its performances: "When the
engine was finished, she was used for bringing down metal from the old
forge. She worked very well; but frequently, from her weight, broke the
tram-plates, and also the hooks between the trams. After working for
some time in this way, she took a journey of iron from Pen-y-darran
down the Basin Road, upon which road she was intended to work. On the
journey she broke a great many of the tram-plates; and, before reaching
the Basin, she ran off the road, and was brought back to Pen-y-darran
by horses. The engine was never used as a locomotive after this; but
she was used as a stationary engine, and worked in this way for several
years."

So far as the locomotive was concerned it was a remarkable success. The
defect lay not in the engine so much as in the road. This was formed of
plate-rails of cast iron, with a guiding flange upon the rail instead
of on the engine wheels, as in the modern locomotive. The rails were
also of a very weak form, considering the quantity of iron in them;
and, though they were sufficient to bear the loaded wagons mounted upon
small wheels, as ordinarily drawn along them by horses, they were found
quite insufficient to bear the weight of Trevithick's engine. To relay
the road of sufficient strength would have involved a heavy outlay,
which the owners were unwilling to incur, not yet perceiving the
advantage, in an economical point of view, of employing engine in lieu
of horse power. The locomotive was accordingly taken off the road, and
the experiment, successful though it had been, was brought to an end.

Trevithick had, however, by means of his Pen-y-darran engine, in a
great measure solved the problem of steam locomotion on railways. He
had produced a compact engine, working on the high-pressure principle,
capable of carrying fuel and water sufficient for a journey of
considerable length, and of drawing loaded wagons at five and a half
miles an hour. He had shown by his smooth-wheeled locomotive that the
weight of the engine had given sufficient adhesion for the haulage of
the load. He had discharged the steam into the chimney, though not for
the purpose of increasing the draught, as he employed bellows for that
purpose. It appears, however, that Trevithick's friend, Mr. Davies
Gilbert, afterward President of the Royal Society, especially noticed
the effect of discharging the waste steam into the chimney of the
Pen-y-darran engine. He observed that when the engine moved, at each
puff the fire brightened, while scarcely any visible steam or smoke
came from the chimney.

Mr. Gilbert published the result of his observations in "Nicholson's
Journal" for September, 1805, and the attention of Mr. Nicholson, the
editor, having thereby been called to the subject, he proceeded to make
a series of experiments, the result of which was that in 1806 he took
out a patent for a steam-blasting apparatus, by which he proposed to
apply high-pressure steam to force along currents of air for various
useful purposes, including the urging of furnace and other fires. It
is thus obvious that the principle of the blast-pipe was known to
both Gilbert and Nicholson at this early period; but it is somewhat
remarkable that Trevithick himself should have remained skeptical as to
its use, for as late as 1815 we find him taking out a patent, in which,
among other improvements, he included a method of urging his fire by
fanners, similar to a winnowing machine.

In the mean time Trevithick occupied himself in carrying on the
various business of a general engineer, and was ready to embark in
any enterprise likely to give scope for his inventive skill. In
whatever work he was employed, he was sure to introduce new methods
and arrangements, if not new inventions. He was full of speculative
enthusiasm, a great theorist, and yet an indefatigable experimenter.
At the beginning of 1806--the year after the locomotive had been taken
off the Merthyr Tydvil tram-road--he made arrangements for entering
into a contract for ballasting all the shipping in the Thames. At the
end of a letter written by him on the 18th of February in that year to
Davies Gilbert, respecting a _puffer_ engine, he said, "I am about to
enter into a contract with the Trinity Board for lifting up ballast out
of the bottom of the Thames for all the shipping. The first quantity
stated was 300,000 tons a year, but now they state 500,000 tons. I am
to do nothing but wind up the chain for 6_d._ per ton, which is now
done by men. They never lift it above twenty-five feet high--a man
will now get up ten tons for 7_s._ My engine at Dalcoath has lifted
about 100 tons that height with one bushel of coals. I have two engines
already finished for the purpose, and shall be in town in about fifteen
days for to set them to work. They propose to engage with me for
twenty-one years."[16] The contract was not, however, entered into.
Trevithick quarreled with the capitalists who had found the money for
the trials, and the "Blazer" and "Plymouth," the vessels in which his
engines and machinery had been fitted, fell into other hands.

Trevithick, nevertheless, seems to have been on the highway to fortune,
for, at the beginning of 1806, he had received orders for nine engines
in one month, all for Cornwall; and he expected orders for four others.
He had also in view the construction of a railway; but nothing came of
this project. More hopeful still, as regarded immediate returns, was
the Cornish engine business, which presented a very wide field. Now
that the trade had been thrown open by the expiry of Boulton and Watt's
patent, competition had sprung up, and many new makers and inventors of
engines were ready to supply the demand.

Among the most prominent of these were Trevithick and Woolf. Trevithick
was the most original and speculative, Woolf the most plodding and
practical, and the most successful. Trevithick's ingenuity exhibited
itself in his schemes for working Boulton and Watt's pumping-engine by
high-pressure steam, by means of his cylindrical wrought-iron boiler.
He proposed to expand the steam down to low pressure previous to
condensation, thereby anticipating by many years the Cornish engine now
in use. The suggestion was not, however, then acted on, and he fell
back on his original design of a simple non-condensing high-pressure
engine. One of these was erected at Dalcoath mine to draw the ores
there. It was called "the puffer" by the mining people, from its
puffing the steam direct into the air; but its performances did not
compare favorably with those of the ordinary condensing engines of
Boulton and Watt, and the engine did not come into general use.

Trevithick was not satisfied to carry on a prosperous engine business
in Cornwall. Camborne was too small for him, and the Cornish mining
districts presented too limited a field for his ambitious spirit. So
he came to London, the Patent-office drawing him as the loadstone does
the needle. In 1808 he took out two patents, one for "certain machinery
for towing, driving, or forcing and discharging ships and other vessels
of their cargoes," and the other for "a new method of stowing cargoes
of ships." In 1809 he took out another patent for constructing docks,
ships, etc., and propelling vessels.

In these patents, Trevithick was associated with one Robert Dickinson,
of Great Queen Street, but his name stands first in the specification,
wherein he describes himself as "of Rotherhithe, in the county of
Surrey, engineer." By the first of these patents he proposed to tow
vessels by means of a rowing wheel shaped like an undershot water-wheel
furnished with floats placed vertically in a box, and worked by a
steam-engine, which he also proposed to employ in the loading and
unloading of the vessel, but it is not known that the plan was ever
introduced into practical use. The patent of 1809 included a floating
dock or caisson made of wrought-iron plates, in which a ship might be
docked while afloat, and, after the water had been pumped out of the
caisson, repaired without moving her stores, masts, or furniture. This
invention has since been carried out in practice by the Messrs. Rennie
in the floating iron dock which they have recently constructed for the
Spanish government. Another invention included in the specification
was the construction of merchant and war ships of wrought-iron plates
strongly riveted together, with their decks supported by wrought-iron
beams, and the masts, bowsprits, and booms also of tubular wrought
iron, thereby anticipating by many years the form and structure of
vessels now in common use.

While Trevithick lived at Rotherhithe, he entered upon a remarkable
enterprise--no less than the construction of a tunnel under the
Thames--a work which was carried out with so much difficulty by Sir
Isambard Brunel some twenty years later. Several schemes had been
proposed at different times for connecting the two banks of the river
by an underground communication. As early as 1798, Ralph Dodd suggested
a tunnel under the Thames between Gravesend and Tilbury, and in 1802
Mr. Vazie projected a tunnel from Rotherhithe to Limehouse. A company
was formed to carry out the latter scheme, and a shaft was sunk, at
considerable expense, to a depth of 76 feet below high water. The works
were from time to time suspended, and it was not until the year 1807,
when Trevithick was appointed engineer of the work, that arrangements
were made for proceeding with the driftway under the bed of the Thames.
After about five months' working, the drift was driven for a length of
953 feet, when the roof gave way and the water burst in. The opening
was, however, plugged by clay in bags thrown into the river, and the
work proceeded until 1028 feet had been accomplished. Then the water
burst in again, and the process of plugging and pumping the water out
of the drift was repeated. After seventy more feet had been added to
the excavation, there was another irruption, which completely flooded
the driftway, and the water rose nearly to the top of the shaft. This
difficulty was, however, again overcome, and with great danger twenty
more feet were accomplished; but the bursts of water became so frequent
and unmanageable that at length the face of the drift was timbered up
and the work abandoned. Trevithick, who had been promised a reward of
£1000 if the tunnel succeeded, thus lost both his labor and his reward.
The only remuneration he received from the Company was a hundred
guineas, which were paid to him according to agreement, provided he
carried the excavation to the extent of 1000 yards, which he did.

Trevithick returned to Camborne in 1809, where we find him busily
occupied with new projects, and introducing his new engine worked by
water-power, the first of which was put up at the Druid mine, as well
as in perfecting his high-pressure engine and its working by expansion.
One of the first of such engines was erected at the Huel Prosper mine,
of which he was engineer; and this, as well as others subsequently
constructed on the same principle, proved quite successful.

In 1815 Trevithick took out a farther patent, embodying several
important applications of steam-power. One of these consisted in
"causing steam of a high pressure to spout out against the atmosphere,
and by its recoiling force to produce motion in a direction contrary to
the issuing steam, similar to the motion produced in a rocket, or to
the recoil of a gun." This was, however, but a revival of the ancient
OEolipile described by Hero, and known as "Hero's engine."

In another part of his specification Trevithick described the
screw-propeller as "a screw or a number of leaves placed obliquely
round an axis similar to the vanes of a smoke-jack, which shall be made
to revolve with great speed in a line with the required motion of the
ship, or parallel to the same line of motion." In a second part of the
specification, he described a plunger or pole-engine in which the steam
worked at high-pressure. The first engine of this kind was erected by
Trevithick at Herland in 1815, but the result was not equal to his
expectations, though the principle was afterward successfully applied
by Mr. William Sims, who purchased the patent-right.

In this specification Trevithick also described a tubular boiler
of a new construction for the purpose of more rapidly producing
high-pressure steam, the heating surface being extended by constructing
the boiler of a number of small perpendicular tubes, closed at the
bottom, but all opening at the top into a common reservoir, from
whence they received their water, and into which the steam of all the
tubes was united.

While Trevithick was engaged in these ingenious projects, an event
occurred which, though it promised to issue in the most splendid
results, proved the greatest misfortune of his life. We refer to his
adventures in connection with the gold mines of Peru. Many of the
richest of them had been drowned out, the pumping machinery of the
country being incapable of clearing them of water. The districts in
which they were situated were almost inaccessible to ordinary traffic,
all transport being conducted on the backs of men or of mules. The
parts of an ordinary condensing engine were too ponderous to be carried
up these mountain heights, and it was evident that, unless some lighter
sort of engine could be employed, the mines in question must be
abandoned.

Mr. Uvillé, a Swiss gentleman interested in South American mining,
came over from Peru to England in 1811 for the purpose of making
inquiries about such an engine, but he received no encouragement. He
was about to return to Lima, in despair of accomplishing his object,
when, one day, accidentally passing a shop-window in Fitzroy Square, he
caught sight of an engine exposed for sale which immediately attracted
his attention. It was the engine constructed by Trevithick for his
first locomotive, which he had sold some years before, on the sudden
abandonment of the exhibition of its performances in London. Mr. Uvillé
was so much pleased with its construction and mode of action that he at
once purchased it and took it out with him to South America. Arrived
there, he had the engine transported across the mountains to the rich
mining district of Pasco, about a hundred miles north of Lima, to try
its effects on the highest mountain ridges.

The experiment was so satisfactory that an association of influential
gentlemen was immediately formed to introduce the engine on a large
scale, and enter into contracts with the mine-owners for clearing their
shafts of the water which drowned them. The Viceroy of Peru approved
the plan, and the association dispatched Mr. Uvillé to England to
purchase the requisite engines. He took ship for Falmouth about the
end of 1812 for the purpose of finding out Trevithick. He only knew
of Trevithick by name, and that he lived in Cornwall, but nothing
farther. Being full of his subject, however, he could not refrain from
conversing on the subject with the passengers on board the ship by
which he sailed, and it so happened that one of them--a Mr. Teague--was
a relative of Trevithick, who promised, shortly after their landing, to
introduce him to the inventor.

Mr. Teague was as good as his word, and in the course of a few days
Uvillé was enabled to discuss the scheme with Trevithick at his own
house at Camborne, where he still resided. The result was an order for
a number of high-pressure pumping-engines, which were put in hand at
once; and on the 1st of September, 1814, nine of them were shipped at
Portsmouth for Lima, accompanied by Uvillé and three Cornish engineers,
one of whom was William Bull, of Chasewater, Trevithick's first partner.

The engines reached Lima in safety, and were welcomed by a royal
salute and with public rejoicings. Such, however, was the difficulty
of transporting the materials across the mountains, that it was not
until the middle of the year 1816 that the first engine was erected
and set to work to pump out the Santa Rosa mine, in the royal mineral
territory of Yaüricocha. The association of gentlemen to whom the
engines belonged had entered into a contract to drain this among
other mines, on condition of sharing in the gross produce of the ores
to the extent of about 25 per cent. of the whole amount raised. The
result of the first working of the engine was so satisfactory that the
projectors were filled with no less astonishment than delight, and
they characterized the undertaking as one from which they "anticipated
a torrent of silver that would fill surrounding nations with
astonishment."

In the mean time Trevithick was proceeding at home with the manufacture
of the remaining engines, as well as new coining apparatus for the
Peruvian mint, and furnaces for purifying silver ore by fusion; and
with these engines and apparatus he set sail for America in October,
1816, reaching Lima in safety in the following February. He was
received with almost royal honors. The government "Gazette" officially
announced "the arrival of Don Ricardo Trevithick, an eminent professor
of mechanics, machinery, and mineralogy, inventor and constructor
of the engines of the last patent, and who directed in England the
execution of the machinery now at work in Pasco." The lord warden was
ordered by the viceroy to escort Trevithick to the mines accompanied
by a guard of honor. The news of his expected arrival there occasioned
great rejoicings, and the chief men of the district came down the
mountains to meet and welcome him. Uvillé wrote to his associates that
Trevithick had been sent out "by heaven for the prosperity of the
mines, and that the lord warden proposed to erect his statue in solid
silver." Trevithick himself wrote home to his friends in Cornwall that
he had before him the prospect of almost boundless wealth, having, in
addition to his emoluments as patentee, obtained a fifth share in the
Lima Company, which, he expected, on a moderate computation, would
yield him about £100,000 a year!

But these brilliant prospects were suddenly blasted by the Peruvian
revolution which broke out in the following year. While Mr. Boaze was
reading his paper[17] before the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall,
in which these anticipations of Trevithick's fame and fortune were so
glowingly described, Lord Cochrane was on his way to South America to
take the command of the Chilian fleet in its attack of the ports of
Peru, still in the possession of the Spaniards.

Toward the end of 1818, Lord Cochrane hoisted his flag, and shortly
after proceeded to assail the Spanish fleet in Callao Harbor. This
proved the signal for a general insurrection, during the continuance
of which the commercial and industrial affairs of the province were
completely paralyzed. The pumping-engines of Trevithick were now
of comparatively little use in pumping water out of mines in which
the miners would no longer work. Although Lima was abandoned by the
Spaniards toward the end of 1821, the civil war continued to rage
for several years longer, until at length the independence of Peru
was achieved; but it was long before the population were content to
settle down as before, and follow the ordinary pursuits of industry and
commerce.

The result to Trevithick was, that he and his partners in the Mining
Company were consigned to ruin. It has been said that the engineer
joined the patriotic party, and invented for Lord Cochrane an
ingenious gun-carriage centred and equally balanced on pivots, and
easily worked by machinery; but of this no mention is made by Lord
Cochrane in his "Memoirs." The Patriots kept Trevithick on the
mountains as a sort of patron and protector of their interests; but for
this very reason he became proportionately obnoxious to the Royalists,
who, looking upon him as the agent through whom the patriotic party
obtained the sinews of war, destroyed his engines, and broke up his
machinery wherever they could. At length he determined to escape from
Peru, and fled northward across the mountains, accompanied by a single
friend, making for the Isthmus of Panamá. In the course of this long,
toilsome, and dangerous journey, he encountered great privations; he
slept in the forest at night, traveled on foot by day, and crossed the
streams by swimming. At length, his clothes torn, worn, and hanging
almost in shreds, and his baggage all lost, he succeeded in reaching
the port of Cartagena, on the Gulf of Darien, almost destitute.

Here he encountered Robert Stephenson, who was waiting at the one inn
of the place until a ship was ready to set sail for England. Stephenson
had finished his engagement with the Colombian Mining Company for which
he had been working, and was eager to return home. When Trevithick
entered the room in which he was sitting, Stephenson at once saw that
he was an Englishman. He stood some six feet in height, and, though
well proportioned when in ordinary health, he was now gaunt and hollow,
the picture of privation and misery.

Stephenson made up to the stranger, and was not a little surprised to
find that he was no other than the famous engineer, Trevithick, the
builder of the first patent locomotive, and who, when he last heard
of him, was accumulating so gigantic a fortune in Peru. Though now
penniless, Trevithick was as full of speculation as ever, and related
to Stephenson that he was on his way home for the purpose of organizing
another gold-mining company, which should make the fortunes of all
who took part in it. He was, however, in the mean time, unable to pay
for his passage, and Stephenson lent him the requisite money for the
purpose of reaching his home in Cornwall.

As there was no vessel likely to sail for England for some time,
Stephenson and Trevithick took the first ship bound for New York.
After a stormy passage, full of adventure and peril, the vessel was
driven on a lee-shore, and the passengers and crew barely escaped with
their lives. On reaching New York, Trevithick immediately set sail for
England, and he landed safe at Falmouth in October, 1827, bringing
back with him a pair of silver spurs, the only remnant which he had
preserved of those "torrents of silver" which his engines were to raise
from the mines of Peru.

Immediately on his return home, Trevithick memorialized the government
for some remuneration adequate to the great benefit which the country
had derived from his invention of the high-pressure steam-engine, and
his introduction of the cylindrical boiler. The petition was prepared
in December, 1827, and was cheerfully signed by the leading mine-owners
and engineers in Cornwall; but there their efforts on his behalf ended.

He took out two more patents--one in 1831, for a new method of heating
apartments, and another in 1832, for improvements in the steam-engine,
and the application of steam-power to navigation and locomotion; but
neither of them seems to have proved of any service to him. His new
improvement in the steam-engine was neither more nor less than the
invention of an apparatus similar to that which has quite recently come
into use for employing superheated steam as a means of working the
engine more effectively and economically. The patent also included a
method of propelling ships by ejecting water through a tube with great
force and speed in a direction opposite to the course of the vessel,
a method since reinvented in many forms, though not yet successfully
introduced in practice.

Strange to say, though Trevithick had been so intimately connected with
the practical introduction of the Locomotive, he seems to have taken
but little interest in its introduction upon railways, but confined
himself to advocating its employment on common roads as its most useful
application.[18] Though in many things he was before his age, here he
was unquestionably behind it. But Trevithick was now an old man; his
constitution was broken, and his energy worked out. Younger men were
in the field, less ingenious and speculative, but more practical and
energetic; and in the blaze of their fame the Cornish engineer was
forgotten.

During the last year of his life Trevithick resided at Dartford,
in Kent. He had induced the Messrs. Hall, the engineers of that
place, to give him an opportunity of testing the value of his last
invention--that of a vessel driven by the ejection of water through
a tube--and he went there to superintend the construction of the
necessary engine and apparatus. The vessel was duly fitted up, and
several experiments were made with it in the adjoining creek, but it
did not realize a speed of more than four miles an hour. Trevithick,
being of opinion that the engine-power was insufficient, proceeded
to have a new engine constructed, to the boiler of which, within the
furnace, numerous tubes were attached, round which the fire played. So
much steam was raised by this arrangement that the piston "blew;" but
still the result of the experiments was unsatisfactory. While laboring
at these inventions, and planning new arrangements never to be carried
out, the engineer was seized by the illness of which he died, on the
22d of April, 1833, in the 62d year of his age.

As Trevithick was entirely without means at his death, besides being
some sixty pounds in debt to the landlord of the Bull Inn, where
he had been lodging for nearly a year, he would probably have been
buried at the expense of the parish but for the Messrs. Hall and their
workmen, who raised a sum sufficient to give the "great inventor" a
decent burial; and they followed his remains to the grave in Deptford
Church-yard, where he lies without a stone to mark his resting-place.

       *       *       *       *       *

There can be no doubt as to the great mechanical ability of Trevithick.
He was a man of original and intuitive genius in invention. Every
mechanical arrangement which he undertook to study issued from his
hands transformed and improved. But there he rested. He struck out many
inventions, and left them to take care of themselves. His great failing
was the want of perseverance. His mind was always full of projects;
but his very genius led him astray in search of new things, while his
imagination often outran his judgment. Hence his life was but a series
of beginnings.

Look at the extraordinary things that Trevithick began. He made the
first railway locomotive, and cast the invention aside, leaving it
to others to take it up and prosecute it to a successful issue. He
introduced, if he did not invent, the cylindrical boiler and the
high-pressure engine, which increased so enormously the steam-power
of the world; but he reaped the profits of neither. He invented
an oscillating engine and a screw propeller; he took out a patent
for using superheated steam, as well as for wrought-iron ships and
wrought-iron floating docks; but he left it to others to introduce
these several inventions.

Never was there such a series of splendid mechanical beginnings. He
began a Thames Tunnel and abandoned it. He went to South America
with the prospect of making a gigantic fortune, but he had scarcely
begun to gather in his gold than he was forced to fly, and returned
home destitute. This last event, however, was a misfortune which no
efforts on his part could have prevented. But even when he had the
best chances, Trevithick threw them away. When he had brought his
road locomotive to London to exhibit, and was beginning to excite
the curiosity of the public respecting it, he suddenly closed the
exhibition in a fit of caprice, removed the engine, and returned to
Cornwall in a tiff. The failure, also, of the railroad on which his
locomotive traveled so provoked him that he at once abandoned the
enterprise in disgust.

There may have been some moral twist in the engineer's character, into
which we do not seek to pry; but it seems clear that he was wanting in
that resolute perseverance, that power of fighting an up-hill battle,
without which no great enterprise can be conducted to a successful
issue. In this respect the character of Richard Trevithick presents
a remarkable contrast to that of George Stephenson, who took up only
one of the many projects which the other had cast aside, and by dint
of application, industry, and perseverance, carried into effect one
of the most remarkable but peaceful revolutions which has ever been
accomplished in any age or country.

We now proceed to describe the history of this revolution in connection
with the Life of George Stephenson, and to trace the locomotive through
its several stages of development until we find it recognized as one of
the most vigorous and untiring workers in the entire world of industry.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Weale's "Papers on Engineering," vol. i., "On the Dredging
Machine," p. 7.

[17] Paper read by Henry Boaze, Esq., "On Captain Trevithick's
Adventures," at the Anniversary Meeting of September,
1817.--"Transactions of Royal Geological Society of Cornwall," vol. i.,
p. 212.

[18] On the 12th of August, 1831, by which time the Liverpool and
Manchester line was in full work, Trevithick appeared as a witness
before the select committee of the House of Commons on the employment
of steam-carriages on common roads. He said "he had been abroad a
good many years, and had had nothing to do with steam-carriages until
very lately. He had it now, however, in contemplation to do a great
deal on common roads, and, with that view, had taken out a patent for
an entirely new engine, the arrangements in which were calculated to
obviate all the difficulties which had hitherto stood in the way of
traveling on common roads."



LIVES

OF

GEORGE AND ROBERT STEPHENSON.


[Illustration: NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE AND THE HIGH-LEVEL BRIDGE.

[By R. P. Leitch, after his Original Drawing.]]



LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON, ETC.



CHAPTER I.

THE NEWCASTLE COAL-FIELD--GEORGE STEPHENSON'S EARLY YEARS.


In no quarter of England have greater changes been wrought by the
successive advances made in the practical science of engineering
than in the extensive colliery districts of the North, of which
Newcastle-upon-Tyne is the centre and the capital.

In ancient times the Romans planted a colony at Newcastle, throwing a
bridge across the Tyne near the site of the low-level bridge shown in
the prefixed engraving, and erecting a strong fortification above it
on the high ground now occupied by the Central Railway Station. North
and northwest lay a wild country, abounding in moors, mountains, and
morasses, but occupied to a certain extent by fierce and barbarous
tribes. To defend the young colony against their ravages, a strong
wall was built by the Romans, extending from Wallsend on the north
bank of the Tyne, a few miles below Newcastle, across the country to
Burgh-upon-Sands on the Solway Firth. The remains of the wall are still
to be traced in the less populous hill-districts of Northumberland. In
the neighborhood of Newcastle they have been gradually effaced by the
works of succeeding generations, though the "Wallsend" coal consumed in
our household fires still serves to remind us of the great Roman work.

After the withdrawal of the Romans, Northumbria became planted by
immigrant Saxons from North Germany and Norsemen from Scandinavia,
whose eorls or earls made Newcastle their principal seat. Then came
the Normans, from whose _New_ Castle, built some eight hundred years
since, the town derives its present name. The keep of this venerable
structure, black with age and smoke, still stands entire at the
northern end of the noble high-level bridge--the utilitarian work
of modern times thus confronting the warlike relic of the older
civilization.

[Illustration: MAP OF NEWCASTLE DISTRICT.]

The nearness of Newcastle to the Scotch Border was a great hinderance
to its security and progress in the middle ages of English history.
Indeed, the district between it and Berwick continued to be ravaged
by moss-troopers long after the union of the crowns. The gentry
lived in their strong Peel castles; even the larger farm-houses were
fortified; and blood-hounds were trained for the purpose of tracking
the cattle-reavers to their retreats in the hills. The judges of Assize
rode from Carlisle to Newcastle guarded by an escort armed to the
teeth. A tribute called "dagger and protection money" was annually paid
by the sheriff of Newcastle for the purpose of providing daggers and
other weapons for the escort; and, though the need of such protection
has long since ceased, the tribute continues to be paid in broad gold
pieces of the time of Charles the First.

Until about the middle of last century the roads across Northumberland
were little better than horse-tracks, and not many years since the
primitive agricultural cart with solid wooden wheels was almost as
common in the western parts of the county as it is in Spain now. The
track of the old Roman road long continued to be the most practicable
route between Newcastle and Carlisle, the traffic between the two towns
having been carried on pack-horses until within a comparatively recent
period.

Since that time great changes have taken place on the Tyne. When wood
for firing became scarce and dear, and the forests of the South of
England were found inadequate to supply the increasing demand for fuel,
attention was turned to the rich stores of coal lying underground in
the neighborhood of Newcastle and Durham. It then became an article of
increasing export, and "sea-coal" fires gradually superseded those of
wood. Hence an old writer describes Newcastle as "the Eye of the North,
and the Hearth that warmeth the South parts of this kingdom with Fire."
Fuel became the staple product of the district, the quantity exported
increasing from year to year, until the coal raised from these northern
mines amounts to upward of sixteen millions of tons a year, of which
not less than nine millions are annually conveyed away by sea.

Newcastle has in the mean time spread in all directions far beyond
its ancient boundaries. From a walled mediæval town of monks and
merchants, it has been converted into a busy centre of commerce and
manufactures inhabited by nearly 100,000 people. It is no longer a
Border fortress--a "shield and defense against the invasions and
frequent insults of the Scots," as described in ancient charters--but
a busy centre of peaceful industry, and the outlet for a vast amount
of steam-power, which is exported in the form of coal to all parts
of the world. Newcastle is in many respects a town of singular and
curious interest, especially in its older parts, which are full of
crooked lanes and narrow streets, wynds, and chares, formed by tall,
antique houses, rising tier above tier along the steep northern bank of
the Tyne, as the similarly precipitous streets of Gateshead crowd the
opposite shore.

All over the coal region, which extends from the Coquet to the Tees,
about fifty miles from north to south, the surface of the soil exhibits
the signs of extensive underground workings. As you pass through the
country at night, the earth looks as if it were bursting with fire at
many points, the blaze of coke-ovens, iron-furnaces, and coal-heaps
reddening the sky to such a distance that the horizon seems like a
glowing belt of fire.

Among the upper-ground workmen employed at the coal-pits, the principal
are the firemen, engine-men, and brakesmen, who fire and work the
engines, and superintend the machinery by means of which the collieries
are worked. Previous to the introduction of the steam-engine, the
usual machine employed for the purpose was what is called a "gin."
The gin consists of a large drum placed horizontally, round which
ropes attached to buckets and corves are wound, which are thus drawn
up or sent down the shafts by a horse traveling in a circular track
or "gin race." This method was employed for drawing up both coals and
water, and it is still used for the same purpose in small collieries;
but where the quantity of water to be raised is great, pumps worked by
steam-power are called into requisition.

Newcomen's atmospheric engine was first made use of to work the pumps,
and it continued to be so employed long after the more powerful and
economical condensing engine of Watt had been invented. In the Newcomen
or "fire-engine," as it was called, the power is produced by the
pressure of the atmosphere forcing down the piston in the cylinder,
on a vacuum being produced within it by condensation of the contained
steam by means of cold-water injection. The piston-rod is attached to
one end of a lever, while the pump-rod works in connection with the
other, the hydraulic action employed to raise the water being exactly
similar to that of a common sucking-pump.

The working of a Newcomen engine was a clumsy and apparently a very
painful process, accompanied by an extraordinary amount of wheezing,
sighing, creaking, and bumping. When the pump descended, there was
heard a plunge, a heavy sigh, and a loud bump; then, as it rose, and
the sucker began to act, there was heard a creak, a wheeze, another
bump, and then a rush of water as it was lifted and poured out. Where
engines of a more powerful and improved description were used, as is
now the case, the quantity of water raised is enormous--as much as a
million and a half gallons in the twenty-four hours.

The pitmen, or "the lads belaw," who work out the coal below ground,
are a peculiar class, quite distinct from the workmen on the surface.
They are a people with peculiar habits, manners, and character, as
much so as fishermen and sailors, to whom, indeed, they bear, in some
respects, a considerable resemblance. Some fifty years since, they
were a much rougher and worse educated class than they are now; hard
workers, but very wild and uncouth; much given to "steeks," or strikes;
and distinguished, in their hours of leisure and on pay-nights, for
their love of cock-fighting, dog-fighting, hard drinking, and cuddy
races. The pay-night was a fortnightly saturnalia, in which the
pitman's character was fully brought out, especially when the "yel"
was good. Though earning much higher wages than the ordinary laboring
population of the upper soil, the latter did not mix nor intermarry
with them, so that they were left to form their own communities,
and hence their marked peculiarities as a class. Indeed, a sort of
traditional disrepute seems long to have clung to the pitmen, arising
perhaps from the nature of their employment, and from the circumstance
that the colliers were among the last classes enfranchised in England,
as they were certainly the last in Scotland, where they continued
bondmen down to the end of last century. The last thirty years,
however, have worked a great improvement in the moral condition of the
Northumbrian pitmen; the abolition of the twelve months' bond to the
mine, and the substitution of a month's notice previous to leaving,
having given them greater freedom and opportunity for obtaining
employment; and day-schools and Sunday-schools, together with the
important influences of railways, have brought them fully up to a level
with the other classes of the laboring population.

The coals, when raised from the pits, are emptied into the wagons
placed alongside, from whence they are sent along the rails to the
staiths erected by the river-side, the wagons sometimes descending by
their own gravity along inclined planes, the wagoner standing behind to
check the speed by means of a convoy or wooden brake bearing upon the
rims of the wheels. Arrived at the staiths, the wagons are emptied at
once into the ships waiting alongside for cargo. Any one who has sailed
down the Tyne from Newcastle Bridge can not but have been struck with
the appearance of the immense staiths, constructed of timber, which are
erected at short distances from each other on both sides of the river.

But a great deal of the coal shipped from the Tyne comes from
above-bridge, where sea-going craft can not reach, and is floated
down the river in "keels," in which the coals are sometimes piled up
according to convenience when large, or, when the coal is small or
tender, it is conveyed in tubs to prevent breakage. These keels are
of a very ancient model--perhaps the oldest extant in England: they
are even said to be of the same build as those in which the Norsemen
navigated the Tyne centuries ago. The keel is a tubby, grimy-looking
craft, rounded fore and aft, with a single large square sail, which
the keel-bullies, as the Tyne watermen are called, manage with great
dexterity; the vessel being guided by the aid of the "swape," or great
oar, which is used as a kind of rudder at the stern of the vessel.
These keelmen are an exceedingly hardy class of workmen, not by any
means so quarrelsome as their designation of "bully" would imply--the
word being merely derived from the obsolete term "boolie," or beloved,
an appellation still in familiar use among brother workers in the coal
districts. One of the most curious sights on the Tyne is the fleet of
hundreds of these black-sailed, black-hulled keels, bringing down at
each tide their black cargoes for the ships at anchor in the deep water
at Shields and other parts of the river below Newcastle.

These preliminary observations will perhaps be sufficient to explain
the meaning of many of the occupations alluded to, and the phrases
employed, in the course of the following narrative, some of which might
otherwise have been comparatively unintelligible to the reader.

       *       *       *       *       *

The colliery village of Wylam is situated on the north bank of the
Tyne, about eight miles west of Newcastle. The Newcastle and Carlisle
Railway runs along the opposite bank; and the traveler by that line
sees the usual signs of a colliery in the unsightly pumping-engines
surrounded by heaps of ashes, coal-dust, and slag, while a neighboring
iron-furnace in full blast throws out dense smoke and loud jets of
steam by day and lurid flames at night. These works form the nucleus
of the village, which is almost entirely occupied by coal-miners and
iron-furnace-men. The place is remarkable for its large population, but
not for its cleanness or neatness as a village; the houses, as in most
colliery villages, being the property of the owners or lessees, who
employ them in temporarily accommodating the work-people, against whose
earnings there is a weekly set-off for house and coals. About the end
of last century, the estate of which Wylam forms part belonged to Mr.
Blackett, a gentleman of considerable celebrity in coal-mining, then
more generally known as the proprietor of the "Globe" newspaper.

There is nothing to interest one in the village itself. But a few
hundred yards from its eastern extremity stands a humble detached
dwelling, which will be interesting to many as the birthplace of
one of the most remarkable men of our times--George Stephenson, the
Railway Engineer. It is a common, two-storied, red-tiled, rubble house,
portioned off into four laborers' apartments. It is known by the name
of High-street House, and was originally so called because it stands by
the side of what used to be the old riding post-road or street between
Newcastle and Hexham, along which the post was carried on horseback
within the memory of persons living.

[Illustration: WYLAM COLLIERY AND VILLAGE. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

The lower room in the west end of this house was the home of the
Stephenson family, and there George Stephenson was born, the second of
a family of six children, on the 9th of June, 1781. The apartment is
now, what it was then, an ordinary laborer's dwelling; its walls are
unplastered, its floor is of clay, and the bare rafters are exposed
overhead.

Robert Stephenson, or "Old Bob," as the neighbors familiarly called
him, and his wife Mabel, were a respectable couple, careful and
hard-working. Robert Stephenson's father was a Scotchman, who came
into England in the capacity of a gentleman's servant.[19] Mabel, his
wife, was the second daughter of Robert Carr, a dyer at Ovingham.
The Carrs were for several generations the owners of a house in that
village adjoining the church-yard; and the family tomb-stone may still
be seen standing against the east end of the chancel of the parish
church, underneath the centre lancet window, as the tomb-stone of
Thomas Bewick, the wood-engraver, occupies the western gable. Mabel
Stephenson was a woman of somewhat delicate constitution, and troubled
occasionally, as her neighbors said, with "the vapors." But those who
remembered her concurred in describing her as "a real canny body;"
and a woman of whom this is said by general consent in the Newcastle
district may be pronounced a worthy person indeed, for it is about the
highest praise of a woman which Northumbrians can express.

[Illustration: HIGH-STREET HOUSE, WYLAM. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

For some time after their marriage, Robert resided with his wife at
Walbottle, a village situated between Wylam and Newcastle, where he
was employed as a laborer at the colliery; after which the family
removed to Wylam, where he found employment as fireman of the old
pumping-engine at that colliery.

George Stephenson was the second of a family of six children.[20]

It does not appear that the birth of any of the children was registered
in the parish books, the author having made an unsuccessful search in
the registers of Ovingham and Heddon-on-the-Wall to ascertain the fact.

An old Wylam collier, who remembered George Stephenson's father, thus
described him: "Geordie's fayther war like a peer o' deals nailed
thegither, an' a bit o' flesh i' th' inside; he war as queer as Dick's
hatband--went thrice aboot, an' wudn't tie. His wife Mabel war a
delicat' boddie, an' varry flighty. They war an honest family, but
sair hadden doon i' th' world." Indeed, the earnings of old Robert did
not amount to more than twelve shillings a week; and, as there were
six children to maintain, the family, during their stay at Wylam, were
necessarily in very straitened circumstances. The father's wages being
barely sufficient, even with the most rigid economy, for the sustenance
of the household, there was little to spare for clothing, and nothing
for education, so that none of the children were sent to school.

Old Robert was a general favorite in the village, especially among the
children, whom he was accustomed to draw about him while tending the
engine-fire, and feast their young imaginations with tales of Sinbad
the Sailor and Robinson Crusoe, besides others of his own invention;
so that "Bob's engine-fire" came to be the most popular resort in
the village. Another feature in his character, by which he was long
remembered, was his affection for birds and animals; and he had many
tame favorites of both sorts, which were as fond of resorting to his
engine-fire as the boys and girls themselves. In the winter time he had
usually a flock of tame robins about him; and they would come hopping
familiarly to his feet to pick up the crumbs which he had saved for
them out of his humble dinner. At his cottage he was rarely without one
or more tame blackbirds, which flew about the house, or in and out at
the door. In summer time he would go bird-nesting with his children;
and one day he took his little boy George to see a blackbird's nest for
the first time. Holding him up in his arms, he let the wondering boy
peep down, through the branches held aside for the purpose, into a nest
full of young birds--a sight which the boy never forgot, but used to
speak of with delight to his intimate friends when he himself had grown
an old man.

The boy George led the ordinary life of working people's children.
He played about the doors; went bird-nesting when he could; and ran
errands to the village. He was also an eager listener, with the other
children, to his father's curious tales, and he early imbibed from him
his affection for birds and animals. In course of time he was promoted
to the office of carrying his father's dinner to him while at work, and
at home he helped to nurse his younger brothers and sisters. One of his
earliest duties was to see that the other children were kept out of the
way of the chaldron wagons, which were then dragged by horses along the
wooden tram-road immediately in front of the cottage door.

This wagon-way was the first in the northern district on which the
experiment of a locomotive engine was tried. But, at the time of which
we speak, the locomotive had scarcely been dreamt of in England as a
practicable working power; horses only were used to haul the coal;
and one of the first sights with which the boy was familiar was the
coal-wagons dragged by them along the wooden railway at Wylam.

Thus eight years passed; after which, the coal having been worked out
on the north side, the old engine, which had grown "dismal to look
at," as an old workman described it, was pulled down; and then old
Robert, having obtained employment as a fireman at the Dewley Burn
Colliery, removed with his family to that place.

Dewley Burn, at this day, consists of a few old-fashioned, low-roofed
cottages standing on either side of a babbling little stream. They are
connected by a rustic wooden bridge, which spans the rift in front of
the doors. In the central one-roomed cottage of this group, on the
right bank, Robert Stephenson lived for a time with his family, the pit
at which he worked standing in the rear of the cottages.

Young though he was, George was now of an age to be able to contribute
something toward the family maintenance; for, in a poor man's house,
every child is a burden until his little hands can be turned to
profitable account. That the boy was shrewd and active, and possessed
of a ready mother-wit, will be evident enough from the following
incident. One day his sister Nell went into Newcastle to buy a bonnet,
and Geordie went with her "for company." At a draper's shop in the
Bigg Market Nell found a "chip" quite to her mind, but on pricing it,
alas! it was found to be fifteen pence beyond her means. Girl-like, she
had set her mind upon that bonnet, and no other would please her. She
accordingly left the shop very much dejected. But Geordie said, "Never
heed, Nell; come wi' me, and I'll see if I canna win siller enough to
buy the bonnet; stand ye there till I come back." Away ran the boy,
and disappeared amid the throng of the market, leaving the girl to
wait his return. Long and long she waited, until it grew dusk, and the
market-people had nearly all left. She had begun to despair, and fears
crossed her mind that Geordie must have been run over and killed, when
at last up he came running, almost breathless. "I've gotten the siller
for the bonnet, Nell!" cried he. "Eh, Geordie!" she said, "but hoo
hae ye gotten it?" "Hauddin the gentlemen's horses!" was the exultant
reply. The bonnet was forthwith bought, and the two returned to Dewley
in triumph.

George's first regular employment was of a very humble sort. A widow,
named Grace Ainslie, then occupied the neighboring farm-house of
Dewley. She kept a number of cows, and had the privilege of grazing
them along the wagon-ways. She needed a boy to herd the cows, to
keep them out of the way of the wagons, and prevent their straying or
trespassing on the neighbors' "liberties;" the boy's duty was also
to bar the gates at night after all the wagons had passed. George
petitioned for this post, and, to his great joy, he was appointed, at
the wage of twopence a day.

It was light employment, and he had plenty of spare time on his
hands, which he spent in bird-nesting, making whistles out of reeds
and scrannel straws, and erecting Liliputian mills in the little
water-streams that ran into the Dewley bog. But his favorite amusement
at this early age was erecting clay engines in conjunction with his
playmate, Bill Thirlwall. The place is still pointed out where the
future engineers made their first essays in modeling. The boys found
the clay for their engines in the adjoining bog, and the hemlocks
which grew about supplied them with imaginary steam-pipes. They even
proceeded to make a miniature winding-machine in connection with their
engine, and the apparatus was erected upon a bench in front of the
Thirlwalls' cottage. Their corves were made out of hollowed corks;
their ropes were supplied by twine; and a few bits of wood gleaned from
the refuse of the carpenters' shop completed their materials. With
this apparatus the boys made a show of sending the corves down the pit
and drawing them up again, much to the marvel of the pitmen. But some
mischievous person about the place seized the opportunity early one
morning of smashing the fragile machinery, greatly to the grief of the
young engineers. We may mention, in passing, that George's companion
afterward became a workman of repute, and creditably held the office
of engineer at Shilbottle, near Alnwick, for a period of nearly thirty
years.

As Stephenson grew older and abler to work, he was set to lead the
horses when plowing, though scarce big enough to stride across the
furrows; and he used afterward to say that he rode to his work in the
mornings at an hour when most other children of his age were asleep
in their beds. He was also employed to hoe turnips, and do similar
farm-work, for which he was paid the advanced wage of fourpence a day.
But his highest ambition was to be taken on at the colliery where his
father worked; and he shortly joined his elder brother James there as
a "corf-bitter," or "picker," to clear the coal of stones, bats, and
dross. His wages were then advanced to sixpence a day, and afterward
to eightpence when he was sent to drive the gin-horse.

Shortly after, George went to Black Callerton Colliery to drive the gin
there; and, as that colliery lies about two miles across the fields
from Dewley Burn, the boy walked that distance early in the morning to
his work, returning home late in the evening. One of the old residents
at Black Callerton, who remembered him at that time, described him to
the author as "a grit growing lad, with bare legs an' feet;" adding
that he was "very quick-witted, and full of fun and tricks: indeed,
there was nothing under the sun but he tried to imitate." He was
usually foremost also in the sports and pastimes of youth.

Among his first strongly developed tastes was the love of birds and
animals, which he inherited from his father. Blackbirds were his
special favorites. The hedges between Dewley and Black Callerton were
capital bird-nesting places, and there was not a nest there that he
did not know of. When the young birds were old enough, he would bring
them home with him, feed them, and teach them to fly about the cottage
unconfined by cages. One of his blackbirds became so tame that, after
flying about the doors all day, and in and out of the cottage, it would
take up its roost upon the bed-head at night. And, most singular of
all, the bird would disappear in the spring and summer months, when it
was supposed to go into the woods to pair and rear its young, after
which it would reappear at the cottage, and resume its social habits
during the winter. This went on for several years. George had also a
stock of tame rabbits, for which he built a little house behind the
cottage, and for many years he continued to pride himself upon the
superiority of his breed.

After he had driven the gin for some time at Dewley and Black
Callerton, he was taken on as assistant to his father in firing the
engine at Dewley. This was a step of promotion which he had anxiously
desired, his only fear being lest he should be found too young for
the work. Indeed, he afterward used to relate how he was wont to hide
himself when the owner of the colliery went round, in case he should
be thought too little a boy to earn the wages paid him. Since he had
modeled his clay engines in the bog, his young ambition was to be an
engine-man; and to be an assistant fireman was the first step toward
this position. Great, therefore, was his joy when, at about fourteen
years of age, he was appointed assistant fireman, at the wage of a
shilling a day.

But the coal at Dewley Burn being at length worked out, the pit was
ordered to be "laid in," and old Robert and his family were again under
the necessity of shifting their home; for, to use the common phrase,
they must "follow the wark."

[Illustration: (Colliery Wagons)]

FOOTNOTES:

[19] A tradition exists in the family that Robert Stephenson's father
came across the Border on the loss of considerable property. Miss
Stephenson, the daughter of Robert's third son, John, has stated that
a suit was commenced for recovery of the property, but was dropped for
want of the requisite means to prosecute it.

[20] The family Bible of Robert and Mabel Stephenson, which seems
to have come into their possession in November, 1790, contains the
following record of the births of these children, evidently written by
one hand and at one time:

  "A Rechester of the children belonging Robert and Mabel Stepheson--
  "James Stepheson Was Born March the 4 day 1779
  "George Stepheson Was Born June 9 day 1781
  "Elender Stepheson Was Born April the 16 day 1784
  "Robert Stepheson Was Born March the 10 day 1788
  "John Stepheson Was Born November the 4 day 1789
  "Ann Stepheson Was Born July the 19 day 1792."

Of the two daughters, Eleanor married Stephen Liddell, afterward
employed in the Locomotive Factory in Newcastle. Ann married John
Nixon, with whom she emigrated to the United States; she died at
Pittsburg in 1860. John Stephenson was accidentally killed at the
Locomotive Factory in January, 1831.



[Illustration: NEWBURN ON THE TYNE. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

CHAPTER II.

NEWBURN AND CALLERTON--GEORGE STEPHENSON LEARNS TO BE AN ENGINE-MAN.


On quitting their humble home at Dewley Burn, the Stephenson family
removed to a place called Jolly's Close, a few miles to the south,
close behind the village of Newburn, where another coal-mine belonging
to the Duke of Northumberland, called "the Duke's Winnin," had recently
been opened out.

One of the old persons in the neighborhood, who knew the family well,
describes the dwelling in which they lived as a poor cottage of only
one room, in which the father, mother, four sons, and two daughters
lived and slept. It was crowded with three low-poled beds. The one
apartment served for parlor, kitchen, sleeping-room, and all.

The children of the Stephenson family were now growing apace, and
several of them were old enough to be able to earn money at various
kinds of colliery work. James and George, the two eldest sons, worked
as assistant firemen; and the younger boys worked as wheelers or
pickers on the bank-tops; while the two girls helped their mother with
the household work.

Other workings of the coal were opened out in the neighborhood, and
to one of these George was removed as fireman on his own account.
This was called the "Mid Mill Winnin," where he had for his mate a
young man named Coe. They worked together there for about two years,
by twelve-hour shifts, George firing the engine at the wage of a
shilling a day. He was now fifteen years old. His ambition was as
yet limited to attaining the standing of a full workman, at a man's
wages, and with that view he endeavored to attain such a knowledge of
his engine as would eventually lead to his employment as engine-man,
with its accompanying advantage of higher pay. He was a steady, sober,
hard-working young man, but nothing more in the estimation of his
fellow-workmen.

One of his favorite pastimes in by-hours was trying feats of strength
with his companions. Although in frame he was not particularly robust,
yet he was big and bony, and considered very strong for his age. At
throwing the hammer George had no compeer. At lifting heavy weights
off the ground from between his feet, by means of a bar of iron passed
through them--placing the bar against his knees as a fulcrum, and
then straightening his spine and lifting them sheer up--he was also
very successful. On one occasion he lifted as much as sixty stones'
weight--a striking indication of his strength of bone and muscle.

When the pit at Mid Mill was closed, George and his companion Coe were
sent to work another pumping-engine erected near Throckley Bridge,
where they continued for some months. It was while working at this
place that his wages were raised to 12s. a week--an event to him of
great importance. On coming out of the foreman's office that Saturday
evening on which he received the advance, he announced the fact to his
fellow-workmen, adding triumphantly, "I am now a made man for life!"

The pit opened at Newburn, at which old Robert Stephenson worked,
proving a failure, it was closed, and a new pit was sunk at Water-row,
on a strip of land lying between the Wylam wagon-way and the River
Tyne, about half a mile west of Newburn Church. A pumping-engine
was erected there by Robert Hawthorn, the duke's engineer, and old
Stephenson went to work it as fireman, his son George acting as the
engine-man or plugman. At that time he was about seventeen years old--a
very youthful age at which to fill so responsible a post. He had thus
already got ahead of his father in his station as a workman; for the
plugman holds a higher grade than the fireman, requiring more practical
knowledge and skill, and usually receiving higher wages.

George's duties as plugman were to watch the engine, to see that it
kept well in work, and that the pumps were efficient in drawing the
water. When the water-level in the pit was lowered, and the suction
became incomplete through the exposure of the suction-holes, it was
then his duty to proceed to the bottom of the shaft and plug the tube
so that the pump should draw: hence the designation of "plugman." If
a stoppage in the engine took place through any defect which he was
incapable of remedying, it was his duty to call in the aid of the chief
engineer to set it to rights.

But from the time that George Stephenson was appointed fireman,
and more particularly afterward as engine-man, he applied himself
so assiduously and successfully to the study of the engine and its
gearing--taking the machine to pieces in his leisure hours for the
purpose of cleaning it and understanding its various parts--that he
soon acquired a thorough practical knowledge of its construction and
mode of working, and very rarely needed to call the engineer of the
colliery to his aid. His engine became a sort of pet with him, and he
was never wearied of watching and inspecting it with admiration.

There is, indeed, a peculiar fascination about an engine to the person
whose duty it is to watch and work it. It is almost sublime in its
untiring industry and quiet power; capable of performing the most
gigantic work, yet so docile that a child's hand may guide it. No
wonder, therefore, that the workman who is the daily companion of this
life-like machine, and is constantly watching it with anxious care,
at length comes to regard it with a degree of personal interest and
regard. This daily contemplation of the steam-engine, and the sight
of its steady action, is an education of itself to an ingenious and
thoughtful man. And it is a remarkable fact, that nearly all that has
been done for the improvement of this machine has been accomplished,
not by philosophers and scientific men, but by laborers, mechanics,
and engine-men. Indeed, it would appear as if this were one of the
departments of practical science in which the higher powers of the
human mind must bend to mechanical instinct.

Stephenson was now in his eighteenth year, but, like many of his
fellow-workmen, he had not yet learned to read. All that he could do
was to get some one to read for him by his engine-fire, out of any
book or stray newspaper which found its way into the neighborhood.
Bonaparte was then overrunning Italy, and astounding Europe by his
brilliant succession of victories; and there was no more eager auditor
of his exploits, as read from the newspaper accounts, than the young
engine-man at the Water-row Pit.

There were also numerous stray bits of information and intelligence
contained in these papers which excited Stephenson's interest. One of
them related to the Egyptian method of hatching birds' eggs by means
of artificial heat. Curious about every thing relating to birds,
he determined to test it by experiment. It was spring time, and he
forthwith went bird-nesting in the adjoining woods and hedges. He
gathered a collection of eggs of various sorts, set them in flour in a
warm place in the engine-house, covered the whole with wool, and waited
the issue. The heat was kept as steady as possible, and the eggs were
carefully turned every twelve hours; but, though they chipped, and some
of them exhibited well-grown chicks, they never hatched. The experiment
failed, but the incident shows that the inquiring mind of the youth was
fairly at work.

Modeling of engines in clay continued to be another of his favorite
occupations. He made models of engines which he had seen, and of others
which were described to him. These attempts were an improvement upon
his first trials at Dewley Burn bog, when occupied there as a herd-boy.
He was, however, anxious to know something of the wonderful engines
of Boulton and Watt, and was told that they were to be found fully
described in books, which he must search for information as to their
construction, action, and uses. But, alas! Stephenson could not read;
he had not yet learned even his letters.

Thus he shortly found, when gazing wistfully in the direction of
knowledge, that to advance farther as a skilled workman, he must master
this wonderful art of reading--the key to so many other arts. Only
thus could he gain an access to books, the depositories of the wisdom
and experience of the past. Although a grown man, and doing the work of
a man, he was not ashamed to confess his ignorance, and go to school,
big as he was, to learn his letters. Perhaps, too, he foresaw that,
in laying out a little of his spare earnings for this purpose, he
was investing money judiciously, and that, in every hour he spent at
school, he was really working for better wages.

His first schoolmaster was Robin Cowens, a poor teacher in the village
of Walbottle. He kept a night-school, which was attended by a few of
the colliers' and laborers' sons in the neighborhood. George took
lessons in spelling and reading three nights in the week. Robin
Cowens's teaching cost threepence a week; and though it was not very
good, yet George, being hungry for knowledge and eager to acquire it,
soon learned to read. He also practiced "pot-hooks," and at the age of
nineteen he was proud to be able to write his own name.

A Scotch dominie, named Andrew Robertson, set up a night-school in
the village of Newburn in the winter of 1799. It was more convenient
for George to attend this school, as it was nearer his work, being
only a few minutes' walk from Jolly's Close. Besides, Andrew had
the reputation of being a good arithmetician, and this was a branch
of knowledge that Stephenson was very desirous of acquiring. He
accordingly began taking lessons from him, paying fourpence a week.
Robert Gray, junior fireman at the Water-row Pit, began arithmetic
at the same time; and Gray afterward told the author that George
learned "figuring" so much faster than he did, that he could not make
out how it was--"he took to figures so wonderful." Although the two
started together from the same point, at the end of the winter George
had mastered "reduction," while Robert Gray was still struggling
with the difficulties of simple division. But George's secret was
his perseverance. He worked out the sums in his by-hours, improving
every minute of his spare time by the engine-fire, there studying the
arithmetical problems set for him upon his slate by the master. In
the evenings he took to Robertson the sums which he had "worked," and
new ones were "set" for him to study out the following day. Thus his
progress was rapid, and, with a willing heart and mind, he soon became
well advanced in arithmetic. Indeed, Andrew Robertson became very
proud of his scholar; and shortly after, when the Water-row Pit was
closed, and George removed to Black Callerton to work there, the poor
schoolmaster, not having a very extensive connection in Newburn, went
with his pupils, and set up his night-school at Black Callerton, where
he continued his lessons.

George still found time to attend to his favorite animals while
working at the Water-row Pit. Like his father, he used to tempt the
robin-redbreasts to hop and fly about him at the engine-fire by the
bait of bread-crumbs saved from his dinner. But his chief favorite was
his dog--so sagacious that he almost daily carried George's dinner to
him at the pit. The tin containing the meal was suspended from the
dog's neck, and, thus laden, he proceeded faithfully from Jolly's Close
to Water-row Pit, quite through the village of Newburn. He turned
neither to left nor right, nor heeded the barking of curs at his
heels. But his course was not unattended with perils. One day the big,
strange dog of a passing butcher, espying the engine-man's messenger
with the tin can about his neck, ran after and fell upon him. There
was a terrible tussle and worrying, which lasted for a brief while,
and, shortly after, the dog's master, anxious for his dinner, saw his
faithful servant approaching, bleeding but triumphant. The tin can was
still round his neck, but the dinner had been spilled in the struggle.
Though George went without his dinner that day, he was prouder of his
dog than ever when the circumstances of the combat were related to him
by the villagers who had seen it.

It was while working at the Water-row Pit that Stephenson learned the
art of brakeing an engine. This being one of the higher departments
of colliery labor, and among the best paid, George was very anxious
to learn it. A small winding-engine having been put up for the
purpose of drawing the coals from the pit, Bill Coe, his friend and
fellow-workman, was appointed the brakesman. He frequently allowed
George to try his hand at the machine, and instructed him how to
proceed. Coe was, however, opposed in this by several of the other
workmen, one of whom, a banksman named William Locke,[21] went so far
as to stop the working of the pit because Stephenson had been called
in to the brake. But one day, as Mr. Charles Nixon, the manager of the
pit, was observed approaching, Coe adopted an expedient which put a
stop to the opposition. He called upon Stephenson to "come into the
brake-house and take hold of the machine." Locke, as usual, sat down,
and the working of the pit was stopped. When requested by the manager
to give an explanation, he said that "young Stephenson couldn't brake,
and, what was more, never would learn, he was so clumsy." Mr. Nixon,
however, ordered Locke to go on with the work, which he did; and
Stephenson, after some farther practice, acquired the art of brakeing.

After working at the Water-row Pit and at other engines near Newburn
for about three years, George and Coe went to Black Callerton early in
1810. Though only twenty years of age, his employers thought so well
of him that they appointed him to the responsible office of brakesman
at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings at a small
farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and paying so much
a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality this was called
"picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not unfrequently happens that the
young workman about the collieries, when selecting a lodging, contrives
to pitch his tent where the daughter of the house ultimately becomes
his wife. This is often the real attraction that draws the youth from
home, though a very different one may be pretended.

George Stephenson's duties as brakesman may be briefly described. The
work was somewhat monotonous, and consisted in superintending the
working of the engine and machinery by means of which the coals were
drawn out of the pit. Brakesmen are almost invariably selected from
those who have had considerable experience as engine-firemen, and
borne a good character for steadiness, punctuality, watchfulness, and
"mother wit." In George Stephenson's day the coals were drawn out of
the pit in corves, or large baskets made of hazel rods. The corves
were placed together in a cage, between which and the pit-ropes there
was usually from fifteen to twenty feet of chain. The approach of the
corves toward the pit mouth was signaled by a bell, brought into action
by a piece of mechanism worked from the shaft of the engine. When the
bell sounded, the brakesman checked the speed by taking hold of the
hand-gear connected with the steam-valves, which were so arranged that
by their means he could regulate the speed of the engine, and stop or
set it in motion when required. Connected with the fly-wheel was a
powerful wooden brake, acting by pressure against its rim, something
like the brake of a railway carriage against its wheels. On catching
sight of the chain attached to the ascending corve-cage, the brakesman,
by pressing his foot upon a foot-step near him, was enabled, with great
precision, to stop the revolutions of the wheel, and arrest the ascent
of the corves at the pit mouth, when they were forthwith landed on the
"settle-board." On the full corves being replaced by empty ones, it
was then the duty of the brakesman to reverse the engine, and send the
corves down the pit to be filled again.

The monotony of George Stephenson's occupation as a brakesman was
somewhat varied by the change which he made, in his turn, from the
day to the night shift. His duty, on the latter occasions, consisted
chiefly in sending men and materials into the mine, and in drawing
other men and materials out. Most of the workmen enter the pit during
the night shift, and leave it in the latter part of the day, while
coal-drawing is proceeding. The requirements of the work at night are
such that the brakesman has a good deal of spare time on his hands,
which he is at liberty to employ in his own way. From an early period,
George was accustomed to employ those vacant night hours in working
the sums set for him by Andrew Robertson upon his slate, practicing
writing in his copy-book, and mending the shoes of his fellow-workmen.
His wages while working at the Dolly Pit amounted to from £1 15_s_. to
£2 in the fortnight; but he gradually added to them as he became more
expert at shoe-mending, and afterward at shoe-making.

Probably he was stimulated to take in hand this extra work by the
attachment he had by this time formed for a young woman named Fanny
Henderson, who officiated as servant in the small farmer's house in
which he lodged. We have been informed that the personal attractions of
Fanny, though these were considerable, were the least of her charms.
Mr. William Fairbairn, who afterward saw her in her home at Willington
Quay, describes her as a very comely woman. But her temper was one of
the sweetest; and those who knew her were accustomed to speak of the
charming modesty of her demeanor, her kindness of disposition, and,
withal, her sound good sense.

Among his various mendings of old shoes at Callerton, George was on
one occasion favored with the shoes of his sweetheart to sole. One can
imagine the pleasure with which he would linger over such a piece of
work, and the pride with which he would execute it. A friend of his,
still living, relates that, after he had finished the shoes, he carried
them about with him in his pocket on the Sunday afternoon, and that
from time to time he would pull them out and hold them up, exclaiming
"what a capital job he had made of them!"

Not long after he began to work at Black Callerton as brakesman he
had a quarrel with a pitman named Ned Nelson, a roystering bully, who
was the terror of the village. Nelson was a great fighter, and it was
therefore considered dangerous to quarrel with him. Stephenson was so
unfortunate as not to be able to please this pitman by the way in which
he drew him out of the pit, and Nelson swore at him grossly because of
the alleged clumsiness of his brakeing. George defended himself, and
appealed to the testimony of the other workmen. Nelson had not been
accustomed to George's style of self-assertion, and, after a great deal
of abuse, he threatened to kick the brakesman, who defied him to do so.
Nelson ended by challenging Stephenson to a pitched battle, and the
latter accepted the challenge, when a day was fixed on which the fight
was to come off.

Great was the excitement at Black Callerton when it was known that
George Stephenson had accepted Nelson's challenge. Every body said
he would be killed. The villagers, the young men, and especially the
boys of the place, with whom George was a great favorite, all wished
that he might beat Nelson, but they scarcely dared to say so. They
came about him while he was at work in the engine-house to inquire if
it was really true that he was "goin' to fight Nelson." "Ay; never
fear for me; I'll fight him." And fight him he did. For some days
previous to the appointed day of battle, Nelson went entirely off
work for the purpose of keeping himself fresh and strong, whereas
Stephenson went on doing his daily work as usual, and appeared not
in the least disconcerted by the prospect of the affair. So, on the
evening appointed, after George had done his day's labor, he went
into the Dolly Pit Field, where his already exulting rival was ready
to meet him. George stripped, and "went in" like a practiced pugilist,
though it was his first and last fight. After a few rounds, George's
wiry muscles and practiced strength enabled him severely to punish his
adversary and to secure an easy victory.

This circumstance is related in illustration of Stephenson's personal
pluck and courage, and it was thoroughly characteristic of the man. He
was no pugilist, and the reverse of quarrelsome. But he would not be
put down by the bully of the colliery, and he fought him. There his
pugilism ended; they afterward shook hands, and continued good friends.
In after life Stephenson's mettle was often as hardly tried, though in
a different way, and he did not fail to exhibit the same courage in
contending with the bullies of the railway world as he showed in his
encounter with Ned Nelson, the fighting pitman of Callerton.

[Illustration: (Colliery Gin)]

FOOTNOTE:

[21] Father of Mr. Locke, M.P., the engineer. He afterward removed to
Barnsley, in Yorkshire.



[Illustration: STEPHENSON'S COTTAGE AT WILLINGTON QUAY. [By R. P.
Leitch.]]

CHAPTER III.

ENGINE-MAN AT WILLINGTON QUAY AND KILLINGWORTH.


George Stephenson had now acquired the character of an expert workman.
He was diligent and observant while at work, and sober and studious
when the day's work was done. His friend Coe described him to the
author as "a standing example of manly character." On pay-Saturday
afternoons, when the pitmen held their fortnightly holiday, occupying
themselves chiefly in cock-fighting and dog-fighting in the adjoining
fields, followed by adjournments to the "yel-house," George was
accustomed to take his engine to pieces, for the purpose of obtaining
"insight," and he cleaned all the parts and put the machine in thorough
working order before leaving her. His amusements continued to be
principally of the athletic kind, and he found few that could beat him
at lifting heavy weights, leaping, and throwing the hammer.

In the evenings he improved himself in the arts of reading and writing,
and occasionally he took a turn at modeling. It was at Callerton, his
son Robert informed us, that he began to try his hand at original
invention, and for some time he applied his attention to a machine of
the nature of an engine-brake, which reversed itself by its own action.
But nothing came of the contrivance, and it was eventually thrown aside
as useless. Yet not altogether so; for even the highest skill must
undergo the inevitable discipline of experiment, and submit to the
wholesome correction of occasional failure.

After working at Callerton for about two years, Stephenson received
an offer to take charge of the engine on Willington Ballast Hill at
an advanced wage. He determined to accept it, and at the same time
to marry Fanny Henderson, and begin housekeeping on his own account.
Though he was only twenty-one years old, he had contrived, by thrift,
steadiness, and industry, to save as much money as enabled him,
with the help of Fanny's small hoard, to take a cottage dwelling at
Willington Quay, and furnish it in a humble but comfortable style for
the reception of his bride.

Willington Quay lies on the north bank of the Tyne, about six miles
below Newcastle. It consists of a line of houses straggling along the
river side, and high behind it towers up the huge mound of ballast
emptied out of the ships which resort to the quay for their cargoes of
coal for the London market. The ballast is thrown out of the ships'
holds into wagons laid alongside. When filled, a train of these is
dragged to the summit of the Ballast Hill, where they are run out,
and their contents emptied on to the monstrous accumulation of earth,
chalk, and Thames mud already laid there, probably to form a puzzle
for future antiquaries and geologists when the origin of these immense
hills along the Tyne has been forgotten. At the foot of this great
mound of shot rubbish was a fixed engine, which drew the trains of
laden wagons up the incline by means of ropes working over pulleys, and
of this engine George Stephenson acted as brakesman.

The cottage in which he took up his abode was a small two-storied
dwelling, standing a little back from the quay, with a bit of garden
ground in front;[22] but he only occupied the upper room in the west
end of the cottage. Close behind rose the Ballast Hill.

When the cottage dwelling had been made snug and was ready for his
wife's reception, the marriage took place. It was celebrated in Newburn
Church on the 28th of November, 1802. George Stephenson's signature,
as it stands in the register, is that of a person who seems to have
just learned to write. With all the writer's care, however, he had not
been able to avoid a blotch. The name of Frances Henderson has the
appearance of being written by the same hand.

[Illustration: (Signatures of George Stephenson and Frances Henderson)]

After the ceremony, George and his newly-wedded partner proceeded to
the house of old Robert Stephenson and his wife Mabel at Jolly Close.
The old man was now becoming infirm, though he still worked as an
engine-fireman, and contrived with difficulty "to keep his head above
water." When the visit had been paid, the bridal party prepared to set
out for their new home at Willington Quay. They went in a style which
was quite common before traveling by railway had been invented. Two
farm-horses, borrowed from a neighboring farmer, were each provided
with a saddle and a pillion, and George having mounted one, his wife
seated herself behind him, holding on by her arms round his waist. The
brideman and bridemaid in like manner mounted the other horse, and in
this wise the wedding party rode across the country, passing through
the old streets of Newcastle, and then by Wallsend to Willington
Quay--a long ride of about fifteen miles.

George Stephenson's daily life at Willington was that of a steady
workman. By the manner, however, in which he continued to improve his
spare hours in the evening, he was silently and surely paving the way
for being something more than a manual laborer. He diligently set
himself to study the principles of mechanics, and to master the laws
by which his engine worked. For a workman, he was even at that time
more than ordinarily speculative, often taking up strange theories, and
trying to sift out the truth that was in them. While sitting by the
side of his young wife in his cottage dwelling in the winter evenings,
he was usually occupied in studying mechanical subjects or in modeling
experimental machines.

Among his various speculations while at Willington, he tried to
discover a means of Perpetual Motion. Although he failed, as so many
others had done before him, the very efforts he made tended to whet his
inventive faculties and to call forth his dormant powers. He actually
went so far as to construct the model of a machine for the purpose.
It consisted of a wooden wheel, the periphery of which was furnished
with glass tubes filled with quicksilver; as the wheel rotated, the
quicksilver poured itself down into the lower tubes, and thus a sort of
self-acting motion was kept up in the apparatus, which, however, did
not prove to be perpetual. Where he had first obtained the idea of this
machine--whether from conversation, or reading, or his own thoughts, is
not known; but his son Robert was of opinion that he had heard of an
apparatus of this kind as described in the "History of Inventions." As
he had then no access to books, and, indeed, could scarcely yet read,
it is probable that he had been told of the invention, and set about
testing its value according to his own methods.

Much of his spare time continued to be occupied by labor more
immediately profitable, regarded in a pecuniary point of view. In the
evenings, after his day's labor at his engine, he would occasionally
employ himself for a few hours in casting ballast out of the collier
ships, by which means he was enabled to earn a few shillings weekly.
Mr. William Fairbairn, of Manchester, has informed the author that,
while Stephenson was employed at the Willington Ballast Hill, he
himself was working in the neighborhood as an engine apprentice at the
Percy Main Colliery. He was very fond of George, who was a fine, hearty
fellow, besides being a capital workman. In the summer evenings young
Fairbairn was accustomed to go down to Willington to see his friend,
and on such occasions he would frequently take charge of George's
engine for a few hours, to enable him to take a two or three hours'
turn at heaving ballast out of the ships' holds. It is pleasant to
think of the future President of the British Association thus helping
the future Railway Engineer to earn a few extra shillings by overwork
in the evenings, at a time when both occupied the rank but of humble
working men in an obscure northern village.

Mr. Fairbairn was also a frequent visitor at George's cottage on the
Quay, where, though there was no luxury, there was comfort, cleanness,
and a pervading spirit of industry. Even at home George was never for
a moment idle. When there was no ballast to heave, he took in shoes
to mend; and from mending he proceeded to making them, as well as
shoe-lasts, in which he was admitted to be very expert. William Coe,
who continued to live at Willington in 1851, informed the author that
he bought a pair of shoes from George Stephenson for 7_s._ 6_d._, and
he remembered that they were a capital fit, and wore very well.

But an accident occurred in Stephenson's household about this time
which had the effect of directing his industry into a new and still
more profitable channel. The cottage chimney took fire one day in his
absence, when the alarmed neighbors, rushing in, threw quantities of
water upon the flames; and some, in their zeal, even mounted the ridge
of the house, and poured buckets of water down the chimney. The fire
was soon put out, but the house was thoroughly soaked. When George
came home, he found the water running out of the door, every thing in
disorder, and his new furniture covered with soot. The eight-day clock,
which hung against the wall--one of the most highly-prized articles in
the house--was seriously damaged by the steam with which the room had
been filled. Its wheels were so clogged by the dust and soot that it
was brought to a complete stand-still.

George was advised to send the article to the clock-maker, but that
would cost money; and he declared that he would repair it himself--at
least he would try. The clock was accordingly taken to pieces and
cleaned; the tools which he had been accumulating for the purpose of
constructing his Perpetual Motion machine readily enabled him to do
this, and he succeeded so well that, shortly after, the neighbors sent
him their clocks to clean, and he soon became one of the most expert
clock-cleaners in the neighborhood.

It was while living at Willington Quay that George Stephenson's only
son was born on the 16th of October, 1803.[23] The child was from the
first, as may well be imagined, a great favorite with his father, and
added much to the happiness of his evening hours. George Stephenson's
strong "philoprogenitiveness," as phrenologists call it, had in his
boyhood expended itself on birds, and dogs, and rabbits, and even on
the poor old gin-horses which he had driven at the Callerton Pit, and
now he found in his child a more genial object for the exercise of his
affection.

The christening of the boy took place in the school-house at Wallsend,
the old parish church being at the time in so dilapidated a condition
from the "creeping" or subsidence of the ground, consequent upon the
excavation of the coal, that it was considered dangerous to enter
it.[24] On this occasion, Robert Gray and Anne Henderson, who had
officiated as brideman and bridemaid at the wedding, came over again to
Willington, and stood godfather and godmother to little Robert, as the
child was named, after his grandfather.

After working for about three years as a brakesman at the Willington
machine, George Stephenson was induced to leave his situation there
for a similar one at the West Moor Colliery, Killingworth. It was
not without considerable persuasion that he was induced to leave the
Quay, as he knew that he should thereby give up the chance of earning
extra money by casting ballast from the keels. At last, however, he
consented, in the hope of making up the loss in some other way.

The village of Killingworth lies about seven miles north of Newcastle,
and is one of the best-known collieries in that neighborhood. The
workings of the coal are of vast extent, and give employment to a
large number of work-people. To this place Stephenson first came as
a brakesman about the end of 1804. He had not been long in his new
home ere his wife died of consumption, leaving him with his only child
Robert. George deeply felt the loss, for his wife and he had been
very happy together. Their lot had been sweetened by daily successful
toil. George had been hard-working, and his wife had made his hearth
so bright and his home so snug, that no attraction could draw him from
her side in the evening hours. But this domestic happiness was all to
pass away, and the bereaved husband felt for a time as one that had
thenceforth to tread the journey of life alone.

[Illustration: WEST MOOR COLLIERY. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

Shortly after this event, while his grief was still fresh, he received
an invitation from some gentlemen concerned in large spinning-works
near Montrose, in Scotland, to proceed thither and superintend the
working of one of Boulton and Watt's engines. He accepted the offer,
and made arrangements to leave Killingworth for a time.

Having left his boy in charge of a respectable woman who acted as his
housekeeper, he set out on the journey to Scotland on foot, with his
kit upon his back. While working at Montrose, he gave a striking proof
of that practical ability in contrivance for which he was afterward
so distinguished. It appears that the water required for the purposes
of his engine, as well as for the use of the works, was pumped from a
considerable depth, being supplied from the adjacent extensive sand
strata. The pumps frequently got choked by the sand drawn in at the
bottom of the well through the snore-holes, or apertures through which
the water to be raised is admitted. The barrels soon became worn, and
the bucket and clack leathers destroyed, so that it became necessary
to devise a remedy; and with this object, the engine-man proceeded to
adopt the following simple but original expedient. He had a wooden box
or boot made, twelve feet high, which he placed in the sump or well,
and into this he inserted the lower end of the pump. The result was,
that the water flowed clear from the outer part of the well over into
the boot, and was drawn up without any admixture of sand, and the
difficulty was thus conquered.[25]

During his stay in Scotland, Stephenson, being paid good wages,
contrived to save a sum of £28, which he took back with him to
Killingworth, after an absence of about a year. Longing to get back
to his kindred, and his heart yearning for the boy whom he had left
behind, our engine-man bade adieu to his Montrose employers, and
trudged back to Killingworth on foot as he had gone. He related to his
friend Coe, on his return, that when on the borders of Northumberland,
late one evening, footsore and wearied with his long day's journey,
he knocked at a small farmer's cottage door, and requested shelter
for the night. It was refused; and then he entreated that, being sore
tired and unable to proceed any farther, they would permit him to
lie down in the out-house, for that a little clean straw would serve
him. The farmer's wife appeared at the door, looked at the traveler,
then retiring with her husband, the two confabulated a little apart,
and finally they invited Stephenson into the cottage. Always full of
conversation and anecdote, he soon made himself at home in the farmer's
family, and spent with them some pleasant hours. He was hospitably
entertained for the night, and when he left the cottage in the morning,
he pressed them to make some charge for his lodging, but they refused
to accept any recompense. They only asked him to remember them kindly,
and if he ever came that way, to be sure and call again. Many years
after, when Stephenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the
humble pair who had thus succored and entertained him on his way; he
sought their cottage again when age had silvered their hair; and when
he left the aged couple on that occasion, they may have been reminded
of the old saying that we may sometimes "entertain angels unawares."

Reaching home, Stephenson found that his father had met with a serious
accident at the Blucher Pit, which had reduced him to great distress
and poverty. While engaged in the inside of an engine, making some
repairs, a fellow-workman inadvertently let in the steam upon him.
The blast struck him full in the face; he was terribly scorched, and
his eyesight was irretrievably lost. The helpless and infirm man had
struggled for a time with poverty; his sons who were at home, poor as
himself, were little able to help him, while George was at a distance
in Scotland. On his return, however, with his savings in his pocket,
his first step was to pay off his father's debts, amounting to about
£15; and, shortly after, he removed the aged pair from Jolly's Close
to a comfortable cottage adjoining the tram-road near the West Moor at
Killingworth, where the old man lived for many years, supported by his
son.

Stephenson was again taken on as a brakesman at the West Moor Pit. He
does not seem to have been very hopeful as to his prospects in life at
the time. Indeed, the condition of the working classes was then very
discouraging. England was engaged in a great war, which pressed upon
the industry, and severely tried the resources of the country. Heavy
taxes were imposed upon all the articles of consumption that would bear
them. There was a constant demand for men to fill the army, navy,
and militia. Never before had England witnessed such drumming and
fifing for recruits. In 1805, the gross forces of the United Kingdom
amounted to nearly 700,000 men, and early in 1808 Lord Castlereagh
carried a measure for the establishment of a local militia of 200,000
men. These measures were accompanied by general distress among the
laboring classes. There were riots in Manchester, Newcastle, and
elsewhere, through scarcity of work and lowness of wages. The working
people were also liable to be pressed for the navy, or drawn for the
militia; and though people could not fail to be discontented under such
circumstances, they scarcely dared even to mutter their discontent to
their neighbors.

George Stephenson was one of those drawn for the militia. He must
therefore either quit his work and go a-soldiering, or find a
substitute. He adopted the latter course, and borrowed £6, which, with
the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militia-man to
serve in his stead. Thus the whole of his hard-won earnings were swept
away at a stroke. He was almost in despair, and contemplated the idea
of leaving the country, and emigrating to the United States. Although
a voyage thither was then a much more formidable thing for a working
man to accomplish than a voyage to Australia is now, he seriously
entertained the project, and had all but made up his mind to go. His
sister Ann, with her husband, emigrated about that time, but George
could not raise the requisite money, and they departed without him.
After all, it went sore against his heart to leave his home and his
kindred, the scenes of his youth and the friends of his boyhood, and
he struggled long with the idea, brooding over it in sorrow. Speaking
afterward to a friend of his thoughts at the time, he said: "You know
the road from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I remember
once when I went along that road I wept bitterly, for I knew not where
my lot in life would be cast." But his poverty prevented him from
prosecuting the idea of emigration, and rooted him to the place where
he afterward worked out his career so manfully and victoriously.

In 1808, Stephenson, with two other brakesmen, took a small contract
under the colliery lessees, brakeing the engines at the West Moor
Pit. The brakesmen found the oil and tallow; they divided the work
among them, and were paid so much per score for their labor. There
being two engines working night and day, two of the three men were
always on duty, the average earnings of each amounting to from 18_s._
to 20_s._ a week. It was the interest of the brakesmen to economize
the working as much as possible, and George no sooner entered upon
the contract than he proceeded to devise ways and means of making the
contract "pay." He observed that the ropes with which the coal was
drawn out of the pit by the winding-engine were badly arranged; they
"glued" and wore each other to tatters by the perpetual friction. There
was thus great wear and tear, and a serious increase in the expenses
of the pit. George found that the ropes which, at other pits in the
neighborhood, lasted about three months, at the West Moor Pit became
worn out in about a month. He accordingly set himself to ascertain the
cause of the defect; and, finding that it was occasioned by excessive
friction, he proceeded, with the sanction of the head engine-wright and
of the colliery owners, to shift the pulley-wheels so that they worked
immediately over the centre of the pit. By this expedient, accompanied
by an entire rearrangement of the gearing of the machine, he shortly
succeeded in greatly lessening the wear and tear of the ropes, to
the advantage of the owners as well as of the workmen, who were thus
enabled to labor more continuously and profitably.

About the same time he attempted an improvement in the winding-engine
which he worked, by placing a valve between the air-pump and condenser.
This expedient, although it led to no practical result, showed that his
mind was actively engaged in studying new mechanical adaptations. It
continued to be his regular habit, on Saturdays, to take his engine to
pieces, for the purpose at the same time of familiarizing himself with
its action, and of placing it in a state of thorough working order; and
by mastering the details of the engine, he was enabled, as opportunity
occurred, to turn to practical account the knowledge thus diligently
and patiently acquired.

Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. In the year
1810, a pit was sunk by the "Grand Allies" (the lessees of the mines)
at the village of Killingworth, now known as the Killingworth High Pit.
An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, originally made by Smeaton, was
fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft;
but, somehow or other, the engine failed to clear the pit. As one of
the workmen has since described the circumstance--"She couldn't keep
her jack-head in water: all the engine-men in the neighborhood were
tried, as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet."
The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, and
came to be regarded as a total failure. Stephenson had gone to look
at it when in course of erection, and then observed to the over-man
that he thought it was defective; he also gave it as his opinion that
if there were much water in the mine, the engine could never keep
it under. Of course, as he was only a brakesman, his opinion was
considered to be worth very little on such a point. He continued,
however, to make frequent visits to the engine to see "how she was
getting on." From the bank-head where he worked his brake he could see
the chimney smoking at the High Pit; and as the workmen were passing to
and from their work, he would call out and inquire "if they had gotten
to the bottom yet." And the reply was always to the same effect--the
pumping made no progress, and the workmen were still "drowned out."

One Saturday afternoon he went over to the High Pit to examine the
engine more carefully than he had yet done. He had been turning the
subject over in his mind, and, after a long examination, he seemed to
have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit Heppel, one
of the sinkers, asked him, "Weel, George, what do you mak' o' her? Do
you think you could do any thing to improve her?" "Man," said George,
in reply, "I could alter her and make her draw: in a week's time from
this I could send you to the bottom."

Heppel at once reported this conversation to Ralph Dodds, the head
viewer, who, being now quite in despair, and hopeless of succeeding
with the engine, determined to give George's skill a trial. George had
already acquired the character of a very clever and ingenious workman,
and, at the worst, he could only fail, as the rest had done. In the
evening Dodds went in search of Stephenson, and met him on the road,
dressed in his Sunday's suit, on his way to "the preaching" in the
Methodist Chapel, which he at that time attended. "Well, George," said
Dodds, "they tell me that you think you can put the engine at the
High Pit to rights." "Yes, sir," said George, "I think I could." "If
that's the case, I'll give you a fair trial, and you must set to work
immediately. We are clean drowned out, and can not get a step farther.
The engineers hereabouts are all bet; and if you really succeed in
accomplishing what they can not do, you may depend upon it I will make
you a man for life."

Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only condition
that he made, before setting to work, was that he should select his
own workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jealousy among
the "regular" men that a colliery brakesman should pretend to know
more about their engine than they themselves did, and attempt to
remedy defects which the most skilled men of their craft, including
the engineer of the colliery, had failed to do. But George made the
condition a _sine quâ non_. "The workmen," said he, "must either be
all Whigs or all Tories." There was no help for it, so Dodds ordered
the old hands to stand aside. The men grumbled, but gave way; and then
George and his party went in.

The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing the
injection water was raised ten feet; the injection cock, being too
small, was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so
arranged that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the
stroke. These and other alterations were necessarily performed in a
rough way, but, as the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson
also, finding that the boiler would bear a greater pressure than five
pounds to the inch, determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds,
though this was contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and Smeaton.

The necessary alterations were made in about three days, and many
persons came to see the engine start, including the men who had put
her up. The pit being nearly full of water, she had little to do on
starting, and, to use George's words, "came bounce into the house."
Dodds exclaimed, "Why, she was better as she was; now, she will knock
the house down." After a short time, however, the engine got fairly
to work, and by ten o'clock that night the water was lower in the pit
than it had ever been before. The engine was kept pumping all Thursday,
and by the Friday afternoon the pit was cleared of water, and the
workmen were "sent to the bottom," as Stephenson had promised. Thus
the alterations effected in the pumping apparatus proved completely
successful.[26]

Mr. Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the
job had been done, and he made Stephenson a present of ten pounds,
which, though very inadequate when compared with the value of the work
performed, was accepted with gratitude. George was proud of the gift
as the first marked recognition of his skill as a workman; and he used
afterward to say that it was the biggest sum of money he had up to that
time earned in one lump. Ralph Dodds, however, did more than this; he
released the brakesman from the handles of his engine at West Moor, and
appointed him engine-man at the High Pit, at good wages, during the
time the pit was sinking--the job lasting for about a year; and he also
kept him in mind for farther advancement.

Stephenson's skill as an engine-doctor soon became noised abroad, and
he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, wheezy, and
ineffective pumping-machines in the neighborhood. In this capacity he
soon left the "regular" men far behind, though they, in their turn,
were very much disposed to treat the Killingworth brakesman as no
better than a quack. Nevertheless, his practice was really founded
upon a close study of the principles of mechanics, and on an intimate
practical acquaintance with the details of the pumping-engine.

Another of his smaller achievements in the same line is still told
by the people of the district. At the corner of the road leading to
Long Benton there was a quarry from which a peculiar and scarce kind
of ochre was taken. In the course of working it out, the water had
collected in considerable quantities; and there being no means of
draining it off, it accumulated to such an extent that the farther
working of the ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps were
tried, and failed; and then a windmill was tried, and failed too. On
this, George was asked what ought to be done to clear the quarry of
the water. He said "he would set up for them an engine, little bigger
than a kailpot, that would clear them out in a week." And he did so.
A little engine was speedily erected, by means of which the quarry was
pumped dry in the course of a few days. Thus his skill as a pump-doctor
soon became the marvel of the district.

In elastic muscular vigor Stephenson was now in his prime, and he
still continued zealous in measuring his strength and agility with
his fellow-workmen. The competitive element in his nature was always
strong, and his success in these feats of rivalry was certainly
remarkable. Few, if any, could lift such weights, throw the hammer
and put the stone so far, or cover so great a space at a standing or
running leap. One day, between the engine hour and the rope-rolling
hour, Kit Heppel challenged him to leap from one high wall to another,
with a deep gap between. To Heppel's surprise and dismay, George took
the standing leap, and cleared the eleven feet at a bound. Had his eye
been less accurate, or his limbs less agile and sure, the feat must
have cost him his life.

But so full of redundant muscular vigor was he, that leaping, putting,
or throwing the hammer, were not enough for him. He was also ambitious
of riding on horseback; and, as he had not yet been promoted to an
office enabling him to keep a horse of his own, he sometimes borrowed
one of the gin-horses for a ride. On one of these occasions he brought
the animal back reeking, when Tommy Mitcheson, the bank horse-keeper,
a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him, "Set such fellows as you on
horseback, and you'll soon ride to the De'il." But Tommy Mitcheson
lived to tell the story, and to confess that, after all, there had been
a better issue of George's horsemanship than what he had predicted.

Old Cree, the engine-wright at Killingworth High Pit, having been
killed by an accident, George Stephenson was, in 1812, appointed
engine-wright of the colliery at the salary of £100 a year. He was also
allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of inspection
to the collieries leased by the "Grand Allies" in that neighborhood.

The "Grand Allies" were a company of gentlemen, consisting of Sir
Thomas Liddell (afterward Lord Ravensworth), the Earl of Strathmore,
and Mr. Stuart Wortley (afterward Lord Wharncliffe), the lessees
of the Killingworth collieries. Having been informed of the merits of
Stephenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill which he had
displayed in the repairs of the pumping-engines, they readily acceded
to Mr. Dodds's recommendation that he should be appointed the colliery
engine-wright; and, as we shall afterward find, they continued to honor
him by distinguished marks of their approval.

[Illustration: KILLINGWORTH HIGH PIT.]

FOOTNOTES:

[22] The Stephenson Memorial Schools have since been erected on the
site of the old cottage at Willington Quay represented in the engraving
at the head of this chapter. A vignette of the Memorial Schools will be
found at the end of the volume.

[23] No register was made of Robert Stephenson's birth, and he himself
was in doubt whether he was born in October, November, or December. For
instance, a dinner was given to him by the contractors of the London
and Birmingham Railway on the 16th of November, 1839, that day being
then supposed by his father to have been his birthday. When preparing
the "Life of George Stephenson," Robert stated to the author that the
16th of December was the correct day. But, after the book had passed
through four editions, he desired the date to be corrected to the 16th
of October, which, on the whole, he thought the right date, and it was
so altered accordingly.

[24] The congregation in a church near Newcastle were one Sunday
morning plentifully powdered with chips from the white ceiling of
the church, which had been _crept under_, being above an old mine.
"It is only the pit a-creeping," said the parish clerk, by way of
encouragement to the people to remain. But it would not do; for there
was a sudden _creep out_ of the congregation. The clerk went at
last, with a powdered head, crying out, "It's only a creep."--"Our
Coal-Fields and our Coal-Pits."

[25] This incident was related by Robert Stephenson during a voyage to
the north of Scotland in 1857, when off Montrose, on board his yacht
_Titania_; and the reminiscence was immediately communicated to the
author by the late Mr. William Kell, of Gateshead, who was present, at
Mr. Stephenson's request, as being worthy of insertion in his father's
biography. Mr. George Elliott, one of the most skilled coal-viewers in
the North, was of the party, and expressed his admiration at the ready
skill with which the difficulty had been overcome, the expedient of
the boot being then unknown in the Northumberland and Durham mines. He
acknowledged it to be "a wrinkle," adding that its application would,
in several instances within his own knowledge, have been of great
practical value.

[26] As different versions have been given of this affair, it may be
mentioned that the above statement is made on the authority of the late
Robert Stephenson, and of George Stephenson himself, as communicated by
the latter to his friend Thomas L. Gooch, C.E., who has kindly supplied
the author with his memoranda on the subject.



[Illustration: GLEBE FARM-HOUSE, BENTON. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

CHAPTER IV.

THE STEPHENSONS AT KILLINGWORTH--EDUCATION AND SELF-EDUCATION OF FATHER
AND SON.


George Stephenson had now been diligently employed for several years in
the work of self-improvement, and he experienced the usual results in
increasing mental strength, capability, and skill. Perhaps the secret
of every man's best success in life is to be found in the alacrity
and industry with which he takes advantage of the opportunities which
present themselves for well-doing. Our engine-man was an eminent
illustration of the importance of cultivating this habit of life. Every
spare moment was laid under contribution by him, either for the purpose
of adding to his earnings or to his knowledge. He missed no opportunity
of extending his observations, especially in his own department of
work, aiming at improvement, and trying to turn all that he did know to
useful practical account.

He continued his attempts to solve the mystery of Perpetual Motion,
and contrived several model machines with the object of embodying his
ideas in a practical working shape. He afterward used to lament the
time he had lost in these futile efforts, and said that if he had
enjoyed the opportunities which most young men now have, of learning
from books what previous experimenters had accomplished, he would
have been spared much labor and mortification. Not being acquainted
with what other mechanics had done, he groped his way in pursuit of
some idea originated by his own independent thinking and observation,
and, when he had brought it into some definite form, lo! he found
that his supposed invention had long been known and recorded in
scientific books. Often he thought he had hit upon discoveries which
he subsequently found were but old and exploded fallacies. Yet his
very struggle to overcome the difficulties which lay in his way was
of itself an education of the best sort. By wrestling with them, he
strengthened his judgment and sharpened his skill, stimulating and
cultivating his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity. Being very much
in earnest, he was compelled to consider the subject of his special
inquiry in all its relations, and thus he gradually acquired practical
ability through his very efforts after the impracticable.

Many of his evenings were spent in the society of John Wigham, whose
father occupied the Glebe farm at Benton close at hand. John was a fair
penman and good arithmetician, and Stephenson frequented his society
chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and "figuring."
Under Andrew Robertson he had never quite mastered the Rule of Three,
and it was only when Wigham took him in hand that he made progress in
the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with him
to the Wighams' cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work
them out while tending his engine on the following day. When too busy
with other work to be able to call upon Wigham in person, he sent the
slate by a fellow-workman to have the former sums corrected and new
ones set. Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was enabled to do a
little "figuring" with chalk upon the sides of the coal-wagons. So much
patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed; and by dint of
practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to master the successive
rules of arithmetic.

John Wigham was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good
talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading
went in those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store
of information might be comparatively small when measured with that
of more highly cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to
Stephenson, who regarded him as a very clever and extraordinary person.
Wigham also taught him to draw plans and sections, though in this
branch Stephenson proved so apt that he soon surpassed his master. A
volume of "Ferguson's Lectures on Mechanics" which fell into their
hands was a great treasure to both the students. One who remembers
their evening occupations says he "used to wonder what they meant by
weighing the air and water in so odd a way." They were trying the
specific gravities of objects; and the devices which they employed,
the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often of the rudest
kind. In these evening entertainments the mechanical contrivances were
supplied by Stephenson, while Wigham found the scientific rationale.
The opportunity thus afforded to the former of cultivating his mind
by contact with one wiser than himself proved of great value, and in
after life Stephenson gratefully remembered the assistance which, when
a humble workman, he had received from John Wigham, the farmer's son.

His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that
Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme
on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appears that on the
invitation of his master, Ralph Dodds--and an invitation from a master
to a workman is not easy to resist--he had, on one or two occasions,
been induced to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public house
of the village. But one day, about noon, when Mr. Dodds had got him as
far as the public-house door, on his invitation to "come in and take
a glass o' yel," Stephenson made a dead stop, and said, firmly, "No,
sir, you must excuse me; I have made a resolution to drink no more at
this time of day." And he went back. He desired to retain the character
of a steady workman; and the instances of men about him who had made
shipwreck of their character through intemperance were then, as now,
unhappily too frequent.

But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already
begun to exercise an important influence upon his life. This was the
training and education of his son Robert, now growing up an active,
intelligent boy, as full of fun and tricks as his father had been.
When a little fellow, scarce big enough to reach so high as to put a
clock-head on when placed upon the table, his father would make him
mount a chair for the purpose; and to "help father" was the proudest
work which the boy then, and ever after, could take part in. When the
little engine was set up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert
was scarcely absent for an hour. He watched the machine very eagerly
when it was set to work, and he was very much annoyed at the fire
burning away the grates. The man who fired the engine was a sort of
wag, and thinking to get a laugh at the boy, he said, "Those bars are
getting varra bad, Robert; I think we maun cut up some of that hard
wood, and put it in instead." "What would be the use of that, you
fool?" said the boy, quickly. "You would no sooner have put them in
than they would be burnt out again!"

[Illustration: RUTTER'S SCHOOL-HOUSE, LONG BENTON. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

So soon as Robert was of a proper age, his father sent him over to the
road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk.
But the education which he gave was of a very limited kind, scarcely
extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a brakesman
on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had often bethought him of
the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his want of
schooling, and he formed the determination that no labor, nor pains,
nor self-denial on his part should be spared to furnish his son with
the best education that it was in his power to bestow.

It is true, his earnings were comparatively small at that time. He was
still maintaining his infirm parents, and the cost of living continued
excessive. But he fell back, as before, upon his old expedient of
working up his spare time in the evenings at home, or during the
night shifts when it was his turn to tend the engine, in mending and
making shoes, cleaning clocks and watches, making shoe-lasts for the
shoemakers of the neighborhood, and cutting out the pitmen's clothes
for their wives; and we have been told that to this day there are
clothes worn at Killingworth made after "Geordy Steevie's cut." To give
his own words: "In the earlier period of my career," said he, "when
Robert was a little boy, I saw how deficient I was in education, and
I made up my mind that he should not labor under the same defect, but
that I would put him to a good school, and give him a liberal training.
I was, however, a poor man; and how do you think I managed? I betook
myself to mending my neighbors' clocks and watches at nights, after my
daily labor was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my
son."[27]

By dint of such extra labor in his by-hours, with this object,
Stephenson contrived to save a sum of £100, which he accumulated
in _guineas_, each of which he afterward sold to Jews, who went
about buying up gold coins (then dearer than silver), at twenty-six
shillings apiece; and he lent out the proceeds at interest. He was now,
therefore, a comparatively thriving man.

When he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery, he was, of course,
still easier in his circumstances; and, carrying out the resolution
which he had formed as to his boy's education, Robert was sent to Mr.
Bruce's school in Percy Street, Newcastle, at mid-summer, 1815, when
he was about twelve years old. His father bought for him a donkey, on
which he rode into Newcastle and back daily; and there are many still
living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely
gray stuff cut out by his father, cantering along to school upon the
"cuddy," with his wallet of provisions for the day and his bag of books
slung over his shoulder.

When Robert went to Mr. Bruce's school he was a shy, unpolished country
lad, speaking the broad dialect of the pitmen; and the other boys would
occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of
his Killingworth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off by familiarity,
his love of fun began to show itself, and he was found able enough
to hold his own among the other boys. As a scholar he was steady and
diligent, and his master was accustomed to hold him up to the laggards
of the school as an example of good conduct and industry. But his
progress, though satisfactory, was by no means extraordinary. He used
in after life to pride himself on his achievements in mensuration,
though another boy, John Taylor, beat him at arithmetic. He also made
considerable progress in mathematics; and in a letter written to the
son of his teacher, many years after, he said, "It was to Mr. Bruce's
tuition and methods of modeling the mind that I attribute much of my
success as an engineer, for it was from him that I derived my taste
for mathematical pursuits, and the facility I possess of applying this
kind of knowledge to practical purposes, and modifying it according to
circumstances."

[Illustration: BRUCE'S SCHOOL, NEWCASTLE. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father made
the boy's education instrumental to his own. Robert was accustomed
to spend some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary and
Philosophical Institute, and when he went home in the evening he would
recount to his father the results of his reading. Sometimes he was
allowed to take with him to Killingworth a volume of the "Repertory of
Arts and Sciences," which father and son studied together. But many of
the most valuable works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not
permitted to be removed from the rooms; these Robert was instructed
to read and study, and bring away with him descriptions and sketches
for his father's information. His father also practiced him in the
reading of plans and drawings without at all referring to the written
descriptions. He used to observe to his son, "A good drawing or plan
should always explain itself;" and, placing a drawing of an engine or
machine before the youth, he would say, "There, now, describe that
to me--the arrangement and the action." Thus he taught him to read a
drawing as easily as he would read a page of a book. Both father and
son profited by this excellent practice, which shortly enabled them
to apprehend with the greatest facility the details of even the most
difficult and complicated mechanical drawing.

While Robert went on with his lessons in the evenings, his father was
usually occupied with his watch and clock cleaning, or contriving
models of pumping-engines, or endeavoring to embody in a tangible shape
the mechanical inventions which he found described in the odd volumes
on Mechanics which fell in his way. This daily and unceasing example
of industry and application, working on before the boy's eyes in the
person of a loving and beloved father, imprinted itself deeply upon his
mind in characters never to be effaced. A spirit of self-improvement
was thus early and carefully planted and fostered in him, which
continued to influence his character through life; and toward the close
of his career he was proud to confess that if his professional success
had been great, it was mainly to the example and training of his father
that he owed it.

Robert was not, however, exclusively devoted to study, but, like most
boys full of animal spirits, he was very fond of fun and play, and
sometimes of mischief. Dr. Bruce relates that an old Killingworth
laborer, when asked by Robert, on one of his last visits to Newcastle,
if he remembered him, replied with emotion, "Ay, indeed! Haven't I paid
your head many a time when you came with your father's bait, for you
were always a sad hempy?"

The author had the pleasure, in the year 1854, of accompanying Robert
Stephenson on a visit to his old home and haunts at Killingworth. He
had so often traveled the road upon his donkey to and from school
that every foot of it was familiar to him, and each turn in it served
to recall to mind some incident of his boyish days.[28] His eyes
glistened when he came in sight of Killingworth pit head. Pointing to
a humble red-tiled house by the roadside at Benton, he said, "You see
that house--that was Rutter's, where I learned my A B C, and made a
beginning of my school learning; and there," pointing to a colliery
chimney on the left, "there is Long Benton, where my father put up
his first pumping-engine; and a great success it was. And this humble
clay-floored cottage you see here is where my grandfather lived till
the close of his life. Many a time have I ridden straight into the
house, mounted on my cuddy, and called upon grandfather to admire his
points. I remember the old man feeling the animal all over--he was then
quite blind--after which he would dilate upon the shape of his ears,
fetlocks, and quarters, and usually end by pronouncing him to be a
'real blood.' I was a great favorite with the old man, who continued
very fond of animals, and cheerful to the last; and I believe nothing
gave him greater pleasure than a visit from me and my cuddy."

On the way from Benton to High Killingworth, Mr. Stephenson pointed to
a corner of the road where he had once played a boyish trick upon a
Killingworth collier. "Straker," said he, "was a great bully, a coarse,
swearing fellow, and a perfect tyrant among the women and children.
He would go tearing into old Nanny the huxter's shop in the village,
and demand in a savage voice, 'What's ye'r best ham the pund?' 'What's
floor the hunder?' 'What d'ye ax for prime bacon?'--his categories
usually ending with the miserable order, accompanied with a tremendous
oath, of 'Gie's a penny rrow (roll) an' a baubee herrin'!' The poor
woman was usually set 'all of a shake' by a visit from this fellow. He
was also a great boaster, and used to crow over the robbers whom he had
put to flight; mere men in buckram, as every body knew. We boys," he
continued, "believed him to be a great coward, and determined to play
him a trick. Two other boys joined me in waylaying Straker one night at
that corner," pointing to it. "We sprang out and called upon him, in
as gruff voices as we could assume, to 'stand and deliver!' He dropped
down upon his knees in the dirt, declaring he was a poor man, with a
sma' family, asking for 'mercy,' and imploring us, as 'gentlemen, for
God's sake, t' let him a-be!' We couldn't stand this any longer, and
set up a shout of laughter. Recognizing our boys' voices, he sprang
to his feet again and rattled out a volley of oaths, on which we cut
through the hedge, and heard him shortly after swearing his way along
the road to the yel-house."

On another occasion Robert played a series of tricks of a somewhat
different character. Like his father, he was very fond of reducing
his scientific reading to practice; and after studying Franklin's
description of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to expend his
store of Saturday pennies in purchasing about half a mile of copper
wire at a brazier's shop in Newcastle. Having prepared his kite, he set
it up in the field opposite his father's door, and bringing the wire,
insulated by means of a few feet of silk cord, over the backs of some
of Farmer Wigham's cows, he soon had them skipping about the field in
all directions with their tails up. One day he had his kite flying at
the cottage-door as his father's galloway was hanging by the bridle
to the paling, waiting for the master to mount. Bringing the end of
the wire just over the pony's crupper, so smart an electric shock was
given it that the brute was almost knocked down. At this juncture his
father issued from the house, riding-whip in hand, and was witness
to the scientific trick just played off upon his galloway. "Ah! you
mischievous scoondrel!" cried he to the boy, who ran off, himself
inwardly chuckling with pride, nevertheless, at Robert's successful
experiment.[29]

At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cottage
standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor Pit to
Killingworth. The railway from West Moor crosses this road close by
the easternmost end of the cottage. The dwelling originally consisted
of but one apartment on the ground floor, with a garret overhead, to
which access was obtained by means of a step-ladder. With his own hands
Stephenson built an oven, and in the course of time he added rooms to
the cottage, until it became expanded into a comfortable four-roomed
dwelling, in which he remained as long as he lived at Killingworth.

[Illustration: STEPHENSON'S COTTAGE, WEST MOOR. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

He continued as fond of birds and animals as ever, and seemed to have
the power of attaching them to him in a remarkable degree. He had a
blackbird at Killingworth so fond of him that it would fly about the
cottage, and on holding out his finger the bird would come and perch
upon it directly. A cage was built for "blackie" in the partition
between the passage and the room, a square of glass forming its outer
wall; and Robert used afterward to take pleasure in describing the
oddity of the bird, imitating the manner in which it would cock its
head on his father's entering the house, and follow him with its eye
into the inner apartment.

Neighbors were accustomed to call at the cottage and have their clocks
and watches set to rights when they went wrong. One day, after looking
at the works of a watch left by a pitman's wife, George handed it to
his son: "Put her in the oven, Robert," said he, "for a quarter of an
hour or so." It seemed an odd way of repairing a watch; nevertheless,
the watch was put into the oven, and at the end of the appointed time
it was taken out, going all right. The wheels had merely got clogged by
the oil congealed by the cold, which at once explains the rationale of
the remedy adopted.

There was a little garden attached to the cottage, in which, while
a workman, Stephenson took a pride in growing gigantic leeks and
astonishing cabbages. There was great competition in the growing of
vegetables among the villagers, all of whom he excelled excepting one,
whose cabbages sometimes outshone his. To protect his garden-crops from
the ravages of the birds, he invented a strange sort of "fley-craw,"
which moved its arms with the wind; and he fastened his garden-door by
means of a piece of ingenious mechanism, so that no one but himself
could enter it. His cottage was quite a curiosity-shop of models of
engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion machines. The last
named contrivances, however, were only unsuccessful attempts to solve a
problem which had already baffled hundreds of preceding inventors.

His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder among the
Killingworth villagers. He won the women's admiration by connecting
their cradles with the smoke-jack, and making them self-acting. Then
he astonished the pitmen by attaching an alarm to the clock of the
watchman whose duty it was to call them betimes in the morning. He also
contrived a wonderful lamp which burned under water, with which he was
afterward wont to amuse the Brandling family at Gosforth--going into
the fish-pond at night, lamp in hand, attracting and catching the fish,
which rushed wildly toward the flame.

Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with the joiner
at Killingworth as to which of them could make the best shoe-last; and
when the former had done his work, either for the humor of the thing
or to secure fair play from the appointed judge, he took it to the
Morrisons in Newcastle, and got them to put their stamp upon it; so
that it is possible the Killingworth brakesman, afterward the inventor
of a safety-lamp and originator of the locomotive railway system,
and John Morrison, the last-maker, afterward the translator of the
Scriptures into the Chinese language, may have confronted each other
in solemn contemplation of the successful last, which won the verdict
coveted by its maker.

Sometimes George would endeavor to impart to his fellow-workmen the
results of his scientific reading. Every thing that he learned from
books was so new and so wonderful to him, that he regarded the facts
he drew from them in the light of discoveries, as if they had been
made but yesterday. Once he tried to explain to some of the pitmen how
the earth was round, and kept turning round. But his auditors flatly
declared the thing to be impossible, as it was clear that "at the
bottom side they must fall off!" "Ah!" said George, "you don't quite
understand it yet." His son Robert also early endeavored to communicate
to others the information which he had gathered at school; and Dr.
Bruce relates that, when visiting Killingworth on one occasion, he
found him engaged in teaching algebra to such of the pitmen's boys as
would become his pupils.

While Robert was still at school, his father proposed to him during the
holidays that he should construct a sun-dial, to be placed over their
cottage-door at West Moor. "I expostulated with him at first," said
Robert, "that I had not learned sufficient astronomy and mathematics
to enable me to make the necessary calculations. But he would have
no denial. 'The thing is to be done,' said he, 'so just set about
it at once.' Well, we got a 'Ferguson's Astronomy,' and studied the
subject together. Many a sore head I had while making the necessary
calculations to adapt the dial to the latitude of Killingworth. But
at length it was fairly drawn out on paper, and then my father got
a stone, and we hewed, and carved, and polished it, until we made a
very respectable dial of it; and there it is, you see," pointing to it
over the cottage door, "still quietly numbering the hours when the sun
shines. I assure you, not a little was thought of that piece of work
by the pitmen when it was put up, and began to tell its tale of time."
The date carved upon the dial is "August 11th, MDCCCXVI." Both father
and son were in after life very proud of their joint production.
Many years after, George took a party of savans, when attending the
meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, over to Killingworth
to see the pits, and he did not fail to direct their attention to the
sun-dial; and Robert, on the last visit which he made to the place,
a short time before his death, took a friend into the cottage, and
pointed out to him the very desk, still there, at which he had sat when
making his calculations of the latitude of Killingworth.

[Illustration: (Sun-dial, Killingworth)]

From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit,
George Stephenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of
manual labor, having, as we have seen, advanced himself to the grade
of a higher-class workman. He had not ceased to be a worker, though he
employed his industry in a different way. It might, indeed, be inferred
that he had now the command of greater leisure; but his spare hours
were as much as ever given to work, either necessary or self-imposed.
So far as regarded his social position, he had already reached the
summit of his ambition; and when he had got his hundred a year, and his
dun galloway to ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher. When
Robert Wetherly offered to give him an old gig, his traveling having so
much increased of late, he accepted it with great reluctance, observing
that he should be ashamed to get into it, "people would think him so
proud."

When the High Pit had been sunk and the coal was ready for working,
Stephenson erected his first winding-engine to draw the coals out of
the pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton colliery, both of
which proved quite successful. Among other works of this time, he
projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity
which fell toward the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had
formerly officiated as brakesman; and he so arranged it that the full
wagons, descending, drew the empty wagons up the railroad. This was
one of the first self-acting inclines laid down in the district.

The following is Stephenson's own account of his various duties and
labors at this period of his life, as given before a Committee of the
House of Commons in 1835:[30]

  "After making some improvements in the steam-engines above ground,
  I was requested by the manager of the colliery to go underground
  along with him, to see if any improvements could be made in the
  mines by employing machinery as a substitute for manual labor
  and horse-power in bringing the coals out of the deeper workings
  of the mine. On my first going down the Killingworth pit, there
  was a steam-engine underground for the purpose of drawing water
  from a pit that was sunk at some distance from the first shaft.
  The Killingworth coal-field is considerably dislocated. After the
  colliery was opened, at a very short distance from the shaft, one
  of those dislocations was met with. The coal was thrown down about
  forty yards. Considerable time was spent in sinking another pit to
  this depth. And on my going down to examine the work, I proposed
  making the engine (which had been erected some time previously) to
  draw the coals up an inclined plane which descended immediately
  from the place where it was fixed. A considerable change was
  accordingly made in the mode of working the colliery, not only
  in applying the machinery, but in employing putters instead
  of horses in bringing the coals from the hewers; and by those
  changes the number of horses in the pit was reduced from about
  100 to 15 or 16. During the time I was engaged in making these
  important alterations, I went round the workings in the pit with
  the viewer almost every time that he went into the mine, not only
  at Killingworth, but at Mountmoor, Derwentcrook, Southmoor, all of
  which collieries belonged to Lord Ravensworth and his partners; and
  the whole of the machinery in all these collieries was put under my
  charge."

It will thus be observed that Stephenson had now much better
opportunities for improving himself in mechanics than he had heretofore
possessed. His practical knowledge of the steam-engine could not
fail to prove of the greatest value to him. His shrewd insight,
together with his intimate acquaintance with its mechanism, enabled
him to apprehend, as if by intuition, its most abstruse and difficult
combinations. The study which he had given to it when a workman, and
the patient manner in which he had groped his way through all the
details of the machine, gave him the power of a master in dealing with
it as applied to colliery purposes.

Sir Thomas Liddell was frequently about the works, and took pleasure in
giving every encouragement to the engine-wright in his efforts after
improvement. The subject of the locomotive engine was already occupying
Stephenson's careful attention, although it was still regarded in
the light of a curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real
use. But he had at an early period recognized its practical value,
and formed an adequate conception of the might which as yet slumbered
within it, and he now proceeded to bend the whole faculties of his mind
to the development of its powers.

[Illustration: COLLIERS' COTTAGES AT LONG BENTON. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Speech at Newcastle, on the 18th of June, 1844, at the meeting
held in celebration of the opening of the Newcastle and Darlington
Railway.

[28] At one part of the road he was once pulled off his donkey by some
mischievous boys, and released by a young man named James Burnet. Many
years after, Burnet was taken on as a workman at the Newcastle factory,
probably owing his selection in some measure to the above circumstance.

[29] Robert Stephenson was, perhaps, prouder of this little boyish
experiment than he was of many of his subsequent achievements. Not
having been quite accurately stated in the first edition of this book,
Mr. Stephenson noted the correction for the second, and wrote to the
author (Sept. 18th, 1857) as follows: "In the kite experiment, will
you say that the copper wire was insulated by a few feet of silk cord;
without this, the experiment can not be made."

[30] Evidence given before the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines,
1835.



CHAPTER V.

THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE--GEORGE STEPHENSON BEGINS ITS IMPROVEMENT.


The rapid increase in the coal-trade of the Tyne about the beginning
of the present century had the effect of stimulating the ingenuity
of mechanics, and encouraging them to devise improved methods of
transporting the coal from the pits to the shipping-places. From our
introductory chapter, it will have been observed that the improvements
which had thus far been effected were confined almost entirely to
the road. The railway wagons still continued to be drawn by horses.
By improving and flattening the tram-way, considerable economy in
horse-power had been secured; but, unless some more effective method
of mechanical traction could be devised, it was clear that railway
improvement had almost reached its limits.

Notwithstanding Trevithick's comparatively successful experiment with
the first railway locomotive on the Merthyr Tydvil tram-road in 1804,
described in a former chapter, he seems to have taken no farther steps
to bring his invention into notice. He was probably discouraged by the
breakage of the cast-iron plates, of which the road was formed, which
were crushed under the load of his engine, and could not induce the
owners of the line to relay it with better materials so as to give his
locomotive a fair trial.

An imaginary difficulty, also, seems to have tended, among other
obstacles, to prevent the adoption of the locomotive, viz., the idea
that, if a heavy weight were placed behind the engine, the "grip"
or "bite" of its smooth wheels upon the equally smooth iron rail
must necessarily be so slight that they would whirl round upon it,
and, consequently, that the machine would not make any progress.[31]
Hence Trevithick, in his patent, provided that the periphery of the
driving-wheels should be made rough by the projection of bolts or
cross-grooves, so that the adhesion of the wheels to the road might
thereby be better secured.

Trevithick himself does not seem to have erected another engine, but we
gather from the evidence given by Mr. Rastrick in the committee on the
Liverpool and Manchester Bill in 1825, that ten or twelve years before
that time he had made an engine for Trevithick after his patent, and
that the engine was exhibited in London. "A circular railroad was laid
down," said Mr. Rastrick, "and it was stated that this engine was to
run against a horse, and that which went a sufficient number of miles
was to win." It is not known what afterward became of this engine.

There were, however, at a much earlier period, several wealthy and
enterprising men, both in Yorkshire and Northumberland, who were
willing to give the locomotive a fair trial; and had Trevithick but
possessed the requisite tenacity of purpose--had he not been too soon
discouraged by partially successful experiments--he might have risen to
both fame and fortune, not only as the inventor of the locomotive, but
as the practical introducer of railway locomotion.

One of Trevithick's early friends and admirers was Mr. Blackett,
of Wylam. The Wylam wagon-way is one of the oldest in the north of
England. Down to the year 1807 it was formed of wooden spars or rails,
laid down between the colliery at Wylam--where old Robert Stephenson
worked--and the village of Lemington, some four miles down the Tyne,
where the coals were loaded into keels or barges, and floated down
past Newcastle, to be shipped for London. Each chaldron-wagon had a
man in charge of it, and was originally drawn by one horse. The rate
at which the wagons were hauled was so slow that only two journeys
were performed by each man and horse in one day, and three on the day
following. This primitive wagon-way passed, as before stated, close in
front of the cottage in which George Stephenson was born, and one of
the earliest sights which met his infant eyes was this wooden tram-road
worked by horses.

Mr. Blackett was the first colliery owner in the North who took
an active interest in the locomotive. He had witnessed the first
performances of Trevithick's steam-carriage in London, and was so taken
with the idea of its application to railway locomotion that he resolved
to have an engine erected after the new patent for use upon his
tram-way at Wylam. He accordingly obtained from Trevithick, in October,
1804, a plan of his engine, provided with "friction-wheels," and
employed Mr. John Whinfield, of Pipewellgate, Gateshead, to construct
it at his foundery there. The engine was made under the superintendence
of one John Steele,[32] an ingenious mechanic, who had been in Wales,
and worked under Trevithick in fitting the engine at Pen-y-darran. When
the Gateshead locomotive was finished, a temporary way was laid down
in the works, on which it was run backward and forward many times. For
some reason or other, however--it is said because the engine was too
light for drawing the coal-trains--it never left the works, but was
dismounted from the wheels, and set to blow the cupola of the foundery,
in which service it long continued to be employed.

Several years elapsed before Mr. Blackett took any farther steps to
carry out his idea. The final abandonment of Trevithick's locomotive at
Pen-y-darran perhaps contributed to deter him from proceeding farther;
but he had the Wylam wooden tram-way taken up in 1808, and a plate-way
of cast iron laid down instead--a single line furnished with sidings
to enable the laden wagons to pass the empty ones. The new iron road
proved so much smoother than the old wooden one, that a single horse,
instead of drawing one, was enabled to draw two, or even three laden
wagons.

[Illustration: BLENKINSOP'S LEEDS ENGINE.]

Although the locomotive seemed about to be lost sight of, it was not
forgotten. In 1811, Mr. Blenkinsop, the manager of the Middleton
Collieries, near Leeds, revived the idea of employing it in lieu of
horses to haul the coals along his tram-way. Mr. Blenkinsop, in the
patent which he took out for his proposed engine, followed in many
respects the design of Trevithick; but, with the help of Matthew
Murray, of Leeds, one of the most ingenious mechanics of his day,
he introduced several important and valuable modifications. Thus
he employed two cylinders of 8 in. diameter instead of one, as in
Trevithick's engine. These cylinders were placed vertically, and
immersed for more than half their length in the steam space of the
boiler. The eduction pipes met in a single tube at the top, and threw
the steam into the air. The boiler was cylindrical in form, but of
cast iron. It had one flue, the fire being at one end and the chimney
at the other. The engine was supported on a carriage without springs,
resting directly upon two pairs of wheels and axles unconnected with
the working parts, and which merely served to carry the engine upon the
rails. The motion was effected in this way: the piston-rods, by means
of cross-heads, worked the connecting-rods, which came down to two
cranks on each side below the boiler, placed at right angles in order
to pass their centres with certainty. These cranks worked two shafts
fixed across the engine, on which were small-toothed wheels working
into a larger one between them; and on the axis of this large wheel,
outside the framing, were the driving-wheels, one of which was toothed,
and worked into a rack on one side of the railway.

It will be observed that the principal new features in this engine were
the two cylinders and the toothed-wheel working into a rack-rail. Mr.
Blenkinsop contrived the latter expedient in order to insure sufficient
adhesion between the wheel and the road, supposing that smooth wheels
and smooth rails would be insufficient for the purpose. Clumsy and
slow though the engine was compared with modern locomotives, it was
nevertheless a success. It was the first engine that plied regularly
upon any railway, doing useful work; and it continued so employed for
more than twenty years. What was more, it was a commercial success, for
its employment was found to be economical compared with horse-power.
In a letter to Sir John Sinclair, Mr. Blenkinsop stated that his
engine weighed five tons; consumed two thirds of a hundred weight of
coals and fifty gallons of water per hour; drew twenty-seven wagons,
weighing ninety-four tons, on a dead level, at three and a half miles
an hour, or fifteen tons up an ascent of 2 in. in the yard; that when
"lightly loaded" it traveled at a speed of ten miles an hour; that it
did the work of sixteen horses in twelve hours; and that its cost was
£400. Such was Mr. Blenkinsop's own account of the performances of
his engine, which was for a long time regarded as one of the wonders
of the neighborhood.[33] The Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812
endeavored to overcome the same fictitious difficulty of the want of
adhesion between the wheel and the rail by patenting a locomotive to
work along the road by means of a chain stretched from one end of it
to the other. This chain was passed once round a grooved barrel-wheel
under the centre of the engine, so that when the wheel turned, the
locomotive, as it were, dragged itself along the railway. An engine
constructed after this plan was tried on the Heaton Railway, near
Newcastle; but it was so clumsy in action, there was so great a loss of
power by friction, and it was found to be so expensive and difficult
to keep in repair, that it was very soon abandoned. Another remarkable
expedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterley Works,
Derbyshire, who in 1813 patented his Mechanical Traveler, to go _upon
legs_ working alternately like those of a horse.[34] But this engine
never got beyond the experimental state, for, at its very first trial,
the driver, to make sure of a good start, overloaded the safety-valve,
when the boiler burst and killed a number of the by-standers, wounding
many more. These, and other contrivances with the same object,
projected about the same time, show that invention was busily at work,
and that many minds were anxiously laboring to solve the problem of
steam locomotion on railways.

Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, was encouraged by the success of Mr.
Blenkinsop's experiment, and again he resolved to make a trial of
the locomotive upon his wagon-way. Accordingly, in 1812, he ordered
a second engine, which was so designed as to work with a toothed
driving-wheel upon a rack-rail as at Leeds. This locomotive was
constructed by Thomas Waters, of Gateshead, under the superintendence
of Jonathan Foster, Mr. Blackett's principal engine-wright. It was a
combination of Trevithick's and Blenkinsop's engines; but it was of
a more awkward construction than either. Like Trevithick's, it had a
single cylinder with a fly-wheel, which Blenkinsop had discarded. The
boiler was of cast iron. Jonathan Foster described it to the author in
1854 as "a strange machine, with lots of pumps, cog-wheels, and plugs,
requiring constant attention while at work." The weight of the whole
was about six tons.

When finished, it was conveyed to Wylam on a wagon, and there mounted
upon a wooden frame, supported by four pairs of wheels, which had been
constructed for its reception. A barrel of water, placed on another
frame upon wheels, was attached to it as a tender. After a great deal
of labor, the cumbrous machine was got upon the road. At first it would
not move an inch. Its maker, Tommy Waters, became impatient, and at
length enraged, and, taking hold of the lever of the safety-valve,
declared in his desperation that "either _she_ or _he_ should go."
At length the machinery was set in motion, on which, as Jonathan
Foster described to the author, "she flew all to pieces, and it was
the biggest wonder i' the world that we were not all blewn up." The
incompetent and useless engine was declared to be a failure; it was
shortly after dismounted and sold; and Mr. Blackett's praiseworthy
efforts thus far proved in vain.

He was still, however, desirous of testing the practicability of
employing locomotive power in working the coal down to Lemington, and
he determined on making yet another trial. He accordingly directed
his engine-wright, Jonathan Foster, to proceed with the building of a
third engine in the Wylam workshops. This new locomotive had a single
8-inch cylinder, was provided with a fly-wheel like its predecessor,
and the driving-wheel was cogged on one side to enable it to travel in
the rack-rail laid along the road. The engine proved more successful
than the former one, and it was found capable of dragging eight or nine
loaded wagons, though at the rate of little more than a mile an hour,
from the colliery to the shipping-place. It sometimes took six hours to
perform the journey of five miles. Its weight was found too great for
the road, and the cast-iron plates were constantly breaking. It was
also very apt to get off the rack-rail, and then it stood still. The
driver was one day asked how he got on. "Get on?" said he, "we don't
get on; we only get off!" On such occasions, horses had to be sent out
to drag the wagons as before, and others to haul the engine back to the
workshops. It was constantly getting out of order; its plugs, pumps,
or cranks got wrong, and it was under repair as often as at work. At
length it became so cranky that the horses were usually sent after it
to drag it along when it gave up, and the workmen generally declared
it to be a "perfect plague." Mr. Blackett did not obtain credit among
his neighbors for these experiments. Many laughed at his machines,
regarding them only in the light of crotchets--frequently quoting the
proverb of "a fool and his money are soon parted." Others regarded them
as absurd innovations on the established method of hauling coal, and
pronounced that they would "never answer."

Notwithstanding, however, the comparative failure of the second
locomotive, Mr. Blackett persevered with his experiments. He was
zealously assisted by Jonathan Foster, the engine-wright, and William
Hedley, the viewer of the colliery, a highly ingenious person, who
proved of great use in carrying out the experiments to a successful
issue. One of the chief causes of failure being the rack-rail, the
idea occurred to Mr. Hedley that it might be possible to secure
sufficient adhesion between the wheel and the rail by the mere weight
of the engine, and he proceeded to make a series of experiments for
the purpose of determining this problem. He had a frame placed on
four wheels, and fitted up with windlasses attached by gearing to the
several wheels. The frame having been properly weighted, six men were
set to work the windlasses, when it was found that the adhesion of
the smooth wheels on the smooth rails was quite sufficient to enable
them to propel the machine without slipping. Having then found the
proportion which the power bore to the weight, he demonstrated by
successive experiments that the weight of the engine would of itself
produce sufficient adhesion to enable it to draw upon a smooth railroad
the requisite number of wagons in all kinds of weather. And thus was
the fallacy which had heretofore prevailed on this subject completely
exploded, and it was satisfactorily proved that rack-rails, toothed
wheels, endless chains, and legs, were alike unnecessary for the
efficient traction of loaded wagons upon a moderately level road.[35]

From this time forward, considerably less difficulty was experienced
in working the coal-trains upon the Wylam tram-road. At length the
rack-rail was dispensed with. The road was laid with heavier rails; the
working of the old engine was improved; and a new engine was shortly
after built and placed upon the road, still on eight wheels, driven
by seven rack-wheels working inside them--with a wrought-iron boiler
through which the flue was returned so as largely to increase the
heating surface, and thus give increased power to the engine.[36] Below
is a representation of this improved Wylam engine.

[Illustration: WYLAM ENGINE.]

As may readily be imagined, the jets of steam from the piston, blowing
off into the air at high pressure while the engine was in motion,
caused considerable annoyance to horses passing along the Wylam road,
at that time a public highway. The nuisance was felt to be almost
intolerable, and a neighboring gentleman threatened to have it put
down. To diminish the noise as much as possible, Mr. Blackett gave
orders that so soon as any horse, or vehicle drawn by horses, came in
sight, the locomotive was to be stopped, and the frightful blast of
the engine thus suspended until the passing animals had got out of
sight. Much interruption was thus caused to the working of the railway,
and it excited considerable dissatisfaction among the workmen. The
following plan was adopted to abate the nuisance: a reservoir was
provided immediately behind the chimney (as shown in the opposite
cut) into which the waste steam was thrown after it had performed its
office in the cylinder, and from this reservoir the steam gradually
escaped into the atmosphere without noise. This arrangement was devised
with the express object of preventing a blast in the chimney, the
value of which, as we shall subsequently find, was not detected until
George Stephenson, adopting it with a preconceived design and purpose,
demonstrated its importance and value--as being, in fact, the very
life-breath of the locomotive engine.

While Mr. Blackett was thus experimenting and building locomotives
at Wylam, George Stephenson was anxiously studying the same subject
at Killingworth. He was no sooner appointed engine-wright of the
collieries than his attention was directed to the means of more
economically hauling the coal from the pits to the river side. We
have seen that one of the first important improvements which he
made, after being placed in charge of the colliery machinery, was to
apply the surplus power of a pumping steam-engine fixed underground,
for the purpose of drawing the coals out of the deeper workings of
the Killingworth mines, by which he succeeded in effecting a large
reduction in the expenditure on manual and horse labor.

The coals, when brought above ground, had next to be laboriously
dragged by means of horses to the shipping staiths on the Tyne, several
miles distant. The adoption of a tram-road, it is true, had tended to
facilitate their transit; nevertheless, the haulage was both tedious
and expensive. With the view of economizing labor, Stephenson laid
down inclined planes where the nature of the ground would admit of
this expedient being adopted. Thus a train of full wagons let down
the incline by means of a rope running over wheels laid along the
tram-road, the other end of which was attached to a train of empty
wagons placed at the bottom of the parallel road on the same incline,
dragged them up by the simple power of gravity. But this applied only
to a comparatively small part of the road. An economical method of
working the coal-trains, instead of by means of horses--the keep of
which was at that time very costly, in consequence of the high price of
corn--was still a great desideratum, and the best practical minds in
the collieries were actively engaged in trying to solve the problem.

In the first place, Stephenson resolved to make himself thoroughly
acquainted with what had already been done. Mr. Blackett's engines were
working daily at Wylam, past the cottage where he had been born, and
thither he frequently went[37] to inspect the improvements made by Mr.
Blackett from time to time both in the locomotive and in the plate-way
along which it worked. Jonathan Foster informed us that, after one of
these visits, Stephenson declared to him his conviction that a much
more effective engine might be made, that should work more steadily and
draw the load more effectively.

He had also the advantage, about the same time, of seeing one of
Blenkinsop's Leeds engines, which was placed on the tram-way leading
from the collieries of Kenton and Coxlodge, on the 2d of September,
1813. This locomotive drew sixteen chaldron wagons, containing an
aggregate weight of seventy tons, at the rate of about three miles an
hour. George Stephenson and several of the Killingworth men were among
the crowd of spectators that day; and after examining the engine and
observing its performances, he remarked to his companions that "he
thought he could make a better engine than that, to go upon legs."
Probably he had heard of the invention of Brunton, whose patent had
by this time been published, and proved the subject of much curious
speculation in the colliery districts. Certain it is that, shortly
after the inspection of the Coxlodge engine, he contemplated the
construction of a new locomotive, which was to surpass all that had
preceded it. He observed that those engines which had been constructed
up to this time, however ingenious in their arrangements, were in a
great measure practical failures. Mr. Blackett's was as yet both clumsy
and expensive. Chapman's had been removed from the Heaton tram-way in
1812, and was regarded as a total failure. And the Blenkinsop engine at
Coxlodge was found very unsteady and costly in its working; besides, it
pulled the rails to pieces, the entire strain being upon the rack-rail
on one side of the road. The boiler, however, having shortly blown up,
there was an end of that engine, and the colliery owners did not feel
encouraged to try any farther experiment.

An efficient and economical working locomotive engine, therefore, still
remained to be invented, and to accomplish this object Stephenson now
applied himself. Profiting by what his predecessors had done, warned by
their failures and encouraged by their partial successes, he commenced
his labors. There was still wanting the man who should accomplish for
the locomotive what James Watt had done for the steam-engine, and
combine in a complete form the best points in the separate plans of
others, embodying with them such original inventions and adaptations
of his own as to entitle him to the merit of inventing the working
locomotive, as James Watt is to be regarded as the inventor of the
working condensing engine. This was the great work upon which George
Stephenson now entered, though probably without any adequate idea of
the ultimate importance of his labors to society and civilization.

He proceeded to bring the subject of constructing a "Traveling Engine,"
as he then denominated the locomotive, under the notice of the lessees
of the Killingworth Colliery, in the year 1813. Lord Ravensworth, the
principal partner, had already formed a very favorable opinion of
the new colliery engine-wright from the improvements which he had
effected in the colliery engines, both above and below ground; and,
after considering the matter, and hearing Stephenson's explanations,
he authorized him to proceed with the construction of a locomotive,
though his lordship was by some called a fool for advancing money for
such a purpose. "The first locomotive that I made," said Stephenson,
many years after,[38] when speaking of his early career at a public
meeting in Newcastle, "was at Killingworth Colliery, and with Lord
Ravensworth's money. Yes, Lord Ravensworth and partners were the first
to intrust me, thirty-two years since, with money to make a locomotive
engine. I said to my friends, there was no limit to the speed of such
an engine, if the works could be made to stand."

Our engine-wright had, however, many obstacles to encounter before
he could get fairly to work with the erection of his locomotive.
His chief difficulty was in finding workmen sufficiently skilled in
mechanics and in the use of tools to follow his instructions and
embody his designs in a practical shape. The tools then in use about
the collieries were rude and clumsy, and there were no such facilities
as now exist for turning out machinery of an entirely new character.
Stephenson was under the necessity of working with such men and tools
as were at his command, and he had in a great measure to train and
instruct the workmen himself. The engine was built in the workshops at
the West Moor, the leading mechanic being John Thirlwall, the colliery
blacksmith, an excellent mechanic in his way, though quite new to the
work now intrusted to him.

[Illustration: THE SPUR-GEAR.]

In this first locomotive constructed at Killingworth, Stephenson to
some extent followed the plan of Blenkinsop's engine. The wrought-iron
boiler was cylindrical, eight feet in length and thirty-four inches in
diameter, with an internal flue-tube twenty inches wide passing through
it. The engine had two vertical cylinders of eight inches diameter and
two feet stroke let into the boiler, which worked the propelling gear
with cross-heads and connecting-rods. The power of the two cylinders
was combined by means of spur-wheels, which communicated the motive
power to the wheels supporting the engine on the rail, instead of, as
in Blenkinsop's engine, to cog-wheels which acted on the cogged rail
independent of the four supporting wheels. The engine thus worked upon
what is termed the second motion. The chimney was of wrought iron,
round which was a chamber extending back to the feed-pumps, for the
purpose of heating the water previous to its injection into the boiler.
The engine had no springs, and was mounted on a wooden frame supported
on four wheels. In order to neutralize as much as possible the jolts
and shocks which such an engine would necessarily encounter from the
obstacles and inequalities of the then very imperfect plate-way, the
water-barrel which served for a tender was fixed to the end of a lever
and weighted, the other end of the lever being connected with the frame
of the locomotive carriage. By this means the weight of the two was
more equally distributed, though the contrivance did not by any means
compensate for the total absence of springs.

The wheels of the locomotive were all smooth, Stephenson having
satisfied himself by experiment that the adhesion between the wheels
of a loaded engine and the rail would be sufficient for the purpose of
traction. Robert Stephenson informed us that his father caused a number
of workmen to mount upon the wheels of a wagon moderately loaded, and
throw their entire weight upon the spokes on one side, when he found
that the wagon could thus be easily propelled forward without the
wheels slipping. This, together with other experiments, satisfied him,
as it had already satisfied Mr. Hedley, of the expediency of adopting
smooth wheels on his engine, and it was so made accordingly.

The engine was, after much labor and anxiety, and frequent alterations
of parts, at length brought to completion, having been about ten months
in hand. It was placed upon the Killingworth Railway on the 25th of
July, 1814, and its powers were tried on the same day. On an ascending
gradient of 1 in 450, the engine succeeded in drawing after it eight
loaded carriages of thirty tons' weight at about four miles an hour;
and for some time after it continued regularly at work.

Although a considerable advance upon previous locomotives, "Blucher"
(as the engine was popularly called) was nevertheless a somewhat
cumbrous and clumsy machine. The parts were huddled together. The
boiler constituted the principal feature; and, being the foundation
of the other parts, it was made to do duty not only as a generator
of steam, but also as a basis for the fixings of the machinery and
for the bearings of the wheels and axles. The want of springs was
seriously felt; and the progress of the engine was a succession of
jolts, causing considerable derangement to the machinery. The mode of
communicating the motive power to the wheels by means of the spur-gear
also caused frequent jerks, each cylinder alternately propelling or
becoming propelled by the other, as the pressure of the one upon the
wheels became greater or less than the pressure of the other; and, when
the teeth of the cog-wheels became at all worn, a rattling noise was
produced during the traveling of the engine.

As the principal test of the success of the locomotive was its economy
as compared with horse-power, careful calculations were made with the
view of ascertaining this important point. The result was, that it
was found the working of the engine was at first barely economical;
and at the end of the year the steam-power and the horse-power were
ascertained to be as nearly as possible upon a par in point of cost.

We give the remainder of the history of George Stephenson's efforts
to produce an economical working locomotive in the words of his son
Robert, as communicated to the author in 1856, for the purposes of his
father's "Life."

  "A few months of experience and careful observation upon the
  operation of this (his first) engine convinced my father that the
  complication arising out of the action of the two cylinders being
  combined by spur-wheels would prevent their coming into practical
  application. He then directed his attention to an entire change in
  the construction and mechanical arrangements, and in the following
  year took out a patent, dated February 28th, 1815, for an engine
  which combined in a remarkable degree the essential requisites of
  an economical locomotive--that is to say, few parts, simplicity in
  their action, and great simplicity in the mode by which power was
  communicated to the wheels supporting the engine.

  "This second engine consisted as before of two vertical
  cylinders, which communicated directly with each pair of the
  four wheels that supported the engine by a cross-head and a pair
  of connecting-rods; but, in attempting to establish a direct
  communication between the cylinders and the wheels that rolled
  upon the rails, considerable difficulties presented themselves.
  The ordinary joints could not be employed to unite the engine,
  which was a rigid mass, with the wheels rolling upon the irregular
  surface of the rails; for it was evident that the two rails of the
  line of railway could not always be maintained at the same level
  with respect to each other--that one wheel at the end of the axle
  might be depressed into a part of the line which had subsided,
  while the other would be elevated. In such a position of the
  axle and wheels it was clear that a rigid communication between
  the cross-head and the wheels was impracticable. Hence it became
  necessary to form a joint at the top of the piston-rod where it
  united with the cross-head, so as to permit the cross-head always
  to preserve complete parallelism with the axle of the wheels with
  which it was in communication.

  "In order to obtain the flexibility combined with direct action
  which was essential for insuring power and avoiding needless
  friction and jars from irregularities in the rail, my father
  employed the 'ball and socket' joint for effecting a union
  between the ends of the cross-heads where they united with the
  connecting-rods, and between the end of the connecting-rods
  where they were united with the crank-pins attached to each
  driving-wheel. By this arrangement the parallelism between the
  cross-head and the axle was at all times maintained, it being
  permitted to take place without producing jar or friction upon any
  part of the machine.

  "The next important point was to combine each pair of wheels by
  some simple mechanism, instead of the cog-wheels which had formerly
  been used. My father began by inserting each axle into two cranks
  at right angles to each other, with rods communicating horizontally
  between them. An engine was made on this plan, and answered
  extremely well. But at that period (1815) the mechanical skill of
  the country was not equal to the task of forging cranked axles of
  the soundness and strength necessary to stand the jars incident
  to locomotive work; so my father was compelled to fall back upon
  a substitute which, though less simple and less efficient, was
  within the mechanical capabilities of the workmen of that day,
  either for construction or repair. He adopted a chain which rolled
  over indented wheels placed on the centre of each axle, and so
  arranged that the two pairs of wheels were effectually coupled and
  made to keep pace with each other. But these chains after a few
  years' use became stretched, and then the engines were liable to
  irregularity in their working, especially in changing from working
  back to forward again. Nevertheless, these engines continued in
  profitable use upon the Killingworth Colliery Railway for some
  years. Eventually the chain was laid aside, and the front and hind
  wheels were united by rods on the _outside_, instead of by rods and
  crank-ankles _inside_, as specified in the original patent; and
  this expedient completely answered the purpose required, without
  involving any expensive or difficult workmanship.

[Illustration: SECTION OF KILLINGWORTH LOCOMOTIVE, 1815.]

  "Another important improvement was introduced in this engine. The
  eduction steam had hitherto been allowed to escape direct into the
  open atmosphere; but my father, having observed the great velocity
  with which the waste-steam escaped, compared with the velocity
  with which the smoke issued from the chimney of the same engine,
  thought that by conveying the eduction steam into the chimney, and
  there allowing it to escape in a vertical direction, its velocity
  would be imparted to the smoke from the engine, or to the ascending
  current of air in the chimney. The experiment was no sooner made
  than the power of the engine became more than doubled; combustion
  was stimulated, as it were, by a blast; consequently, the power of
  the boiler for generating steam was increased, and, in the same
  proportion, the useful duty of the engine was augmented.

  "Thus, in 1815, my father had succeeded in manufacturing an engine
  which included the following important improvements on all previous
  attempts in the same direction: simple and direct communication
  between the cylinder and the wheels rolling upon the rails; joint
  adhesion of all the wheels, attained by the use of horizontal
  connecting-rods; and, finally, a beautiful method of exciting the
  combustion of fuel by employing the waste steam which had formerly
  been allowed uselessly to escape. It is, perhaps, not too much to
  say that this engine, as a mechanical contrivance, contained the
  germ of all that has since been effected. It may be regarded, in
  fact, as a type of the present locomotive engine.

  "In describing my father's application of the waste steam for the
  purpose of increasing the intensity of combustion in the boiler,
  and thus increasing the power of the engine without adding to its
  weight, and while claiming for this engine the merit of being
  a type of all those which have been successfully devised since
  the commencement of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, it is
  necessary to observe that the next great improvement in the same
  direction, the 'multitubular boiler,' which took place some years
  later, could never have been used without the help of that simple
  expedient, _the steam-blast_, by which power only the burning of
  coke was rendered possible.

  "I can not pass over this last-named invention of my father's
  without remarking how slightly, as an original idea, it has been
  appreciated; and yet how small would be the comparative value of
  the locomotive engine of the present day without the application of
  that important invention!

  "Engines constructed by my father in the year 1818 upon the
  principles just described are in use on the Killingworth Colliery
  Railway to this very day (1856), conveying, at the speed of
  perhaps five or six miles an hour, heavy coal-trains, probably as
  economically as any of the more perfect engines now in use.

  "There was another remarkable piece of ingenuity in this machine,
  which was completed so many years before the possibility of
  steam-locomotion became an object of general commercial interest
  and Parliamentary inquiry. I have before observed that up to and
  after the year 1818 there was no such class of skilled mechanics,
  nor were there such machinery and tools for working in metals, as
  are now at the disposal of inventors and manufacturers. Among other
  difficulties of a similar character, it was not possible at that
  time to construct springs of sufficient strength to support the
  improved engines. The rails then used being extremely light, the
  roads became worn down by the traffic, and occasionally the whole
  weight of the engine, instead of being uniformly distributed over
  four wheels, was thrown almost diagonally upon two. In order to
  avoid the danger arising from such irregularities in the road, my
  father arranged the boiler so that it was supported upon the frame
  of the engine by four cylinders which opened into the interior of
  the boiler. These cylinders were occupied by pistons with rods,
  which passed downward and pressed upon the upper side of the axles.
  The cylinders, opening into the interior of the boiler, allowed the
  pressure of steam to be applied to the upper side of the piston,
  and that pressure being nearly equal to the support of one fourth
  of the weight of the engine, each axle, whatever might be its
  position, had the same amount of weight to bear, and consequently
  the entire weight was at all times nearly equally distributed among
  the wheels. This expedient was more necessary in this case, as
  the weight of the new locomotive engines far exceeded that of the
  carriages which had hitherto been used upon colliery railways, and
  therefore subjected the rails to much greater risk from breakage.
  And this mode of supporting the engine remained in use until the
  progress of spring-making had considerably advanced, when steel
  springs of sufficient strength superseded this highly ingenious
  mode of distributing the weight of the engine uniformly among the
  wheels."

The invention of the Steam-blast by George Stephenson in 1815 was
fraught with the most important consequences to railway locomotion, and
it is not saying too much to aver that the success of the locomotive
has been in a great measure the result of its adoption. Without
the steam-blast, by means of which the intensity of combustion is
maintained at its highest point, producing a correspondingly rapid
evolution of steam, high rates of speed could not have been kept up;
the advantages of the multitubular boiler (afterward invented) could
never have been fully tested; and locomotives might still have been
dragging themselves unwieldily along at little more than five or six
miles an hour.

As this invention has been the subject of considerable controversy, it
becomes necessary to add a few words respecting it in this place. It
has been claimed as the invention of Trevithick in 1804, of Hedley
in 1814, of Goldsworthy Gurney in 1820, and of Timothy Hackworth in
1829. With respect to Trevithick, it appears that he discharged the
waste steam into the chimney of his engine, but without any intention
of thereby producing a blast;[39] and that he attached no value to
the expedient is sufficiently obvious from the fact that in 1815 he
took out a patent for urging the fire by means of fanners, similar
to a winnowing machine. The claim put forward on behalf of William
Hedley, that he invented the blast-pipe for the Wylam engine, is
sufficiently contradicted by the fact that the Wylam engine had _no_
blast-pipe. "I remember the Wylam engine," Robert Stephenson wrote to
the author in 1857, "and I am positive there was no blast-pipe." On
the contrary, the Wylam engine embodied a contrivance for the express
purpose of _preventing_ a blast. This is clearly shown by the drawing
and description of it contained in the first edition of Nicholas Wood's
"Practical Treatise on Railroads," published in 1825. This evidence is
all the more valuable for our purpose as it was published long before
any controversy had arisen as to the authorship of the invention, and,
indeed, before it was believed that any merit whatever belonged to it.
And it is the more remarkable, as Nicholas Wood himself, who published
the first practical work on railways, did not at that time approve of
the steam-blast, and referred to the Wylam engine in illustration of
how it might be prevented.

The following passage from Mr. Wood's book clearly describes the
express object and purpose for which George Stephenson invented and
applied the steam-blast in the Killingworth engines. Describing their
action, Mr. Wood says:

  "The steam is admitted to the top and bottom of the piston by means
  of a sliding valve, which, being moved up and down alternately,
  opens a communication between the top and bottom of the cylinder
  and the pipe that is _open into the chimney and turns up within
  it_. The steam, after performing its office within the cylinder, is
  thus thrown into the chimney, and the power with which it issues
  will be proportionate to the degree of elasticity; and _the exit
  being directed upward, accelerates the velocity of the current of
  heated air accordingly_."[40]

And again, at another part of the book, he says:

  "There is another great objection urged against locomotives,
  which is, the noise that the steam makes in escaping into the
  chimney; this objection is very singular, as it is not the result
  of any inherent form in the organization of such engines, but an
  accidental circumstance. When the engines _were first made_, the
  steam escaped into the atmosphere, and made comparatively little
  noise; _it was found difficult then to produce steam in sufficient
  quantity to keep the engine constantly working, or rather to obtain
  an adequate rapidity of current in the chimney to give sufficient
  intensity to the fire. To effect a greater rapidity, or to increase
  the draught of the chimney, Mr. Stephenson thought that by causing
  the steam to escape into the chimney through a pipe with its end
  turned upward, the velocity of the current would be accelerated,
  and such was the effect_; but, in remedying one evil, another has
  been produced, which, though objectionable in some places, was not
  considered as objectionable on a private railroad. The tube through
  the boiler having been increased, there is now no longer any
  occasion for the action of the steam to assist the motion of the
  heated air in the chimney. The steam thrown in this manner into the
  chimney acts as a trumpet, and certainly makes a very disagreeable
  noise. Nothing, however, is more easy to remedy, and the very act
  of remedying this defect will also be the means of economizing the
  fuel."[41]

Mr. Wood then proceeds to show how the noise caused by the blast--how,
in fact, the blast itself, might be effectually prevented by adopting
the expedient employed in the Wylam engine; which was, to send the
exhaust steam, not into the chimney (where alone the blast could act
with effect by stimulating the draught), but into a steam-reservoir
provided for the purpose. His words are these:

  "Nothing more is wanted to destroy the noise than _to cause the
  steam to expand itself into a reservoir, and then allow it to
  escape gradually to the atmosphere through the chimney._ Upon the
  Wylam railroad the noise was made the subject of complaint by a
  neighboring gentleman, and they adopted this mode, which had the
  effect above mentioned."[42]

It is curious to find that Mr. Nicholas Wood continued to object to
the use of the steam-blast down even to the time when the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway Bill was before Parliament. In his evidence
before the Committee on that Bill in 1825, he said: "Those engines [at
Killingworth] _puff very much, and the object is to get an increased
draught in the chimney_. Now (by enlarging the flue-tube and giving it
a double turn through the boiler) we have got a sufficiency of steam
without it, and I have no doubt, by allowing the steam to exhaust
itself in a reservoir, it would pass quietly into the chimney without
that noise." In fact, Mr. Wood was still in favor of the arrangement
adopted in the Wylam engine, by which the steam-blast had been got rid
of altogether.

If these statements, made in Mr. Wood's book, be correct--and they
have never been disputed--they render it perfectly clear that George
Stephenson invented and applied the steam-blast for the express
purpose of quickening combustion in the furnace by increasing the
draught in the chimney. Although urged by Wood to abandon the blast,
Stephenson continued to hold by it as one of the vital powers of the
locomotive engine. It is quite true that in the early engines, with
only a double flue passing through the boiler, run as they were at
low speeds, the blast was of comparatively less importance. It was
only when the improved passenger engine, fitted with the multitubular
boiler, was required to be run at high speeds that the full merits of
the blast were brought out; and in detecting its essential uses in this
respect, and sharpening it for the purpose of increasing its action,
the sagacity of Timothy Hackworth, of Darlington, is entitled to due
recognition.

[Illustration: (Colliery Whimsey)]

FOOTNOTES:

[31] The same fallacy seems long to have held its ground in France;
for M. Granier tells us that some time after the first of George
Stephenson's locomotives had been placed on the Liverpool and
Manchester line, a model of one was exhibited before the Academy. After
it had been examined, a member of that learned body said, smiling,
"Yes, this is all very ingenious, no doubt, but unfortunately the
machine will never move. The wheels will turn round and round in the
same place."

[32] John Steele was one of the many "born mechanics" of the
Northumberland district. When a boy at Colliery Dykes, his native
place, he was noted for his "turn for machinery." He used to take his
playfellows home to see and admire his imitations of pit-engines. While
a mere youth he lost his leg by an accident; and those who remember
him at Whinfield's speak of his hopping about the locomotive, of which
he was very proud, upon his wooden leg. It was a great disappointment
to him when Mr. Blackett refused to take the engine. One day he took
a friend to look at it when reduced to its degraded office of blowing
the cupola bellows; and, referring to the cause of its rejection, he
observed that he was certain it would succeed, if made sufficiently
heavy. "Our master," he continued, "will not be at the expense of
following it up; but depend upon it the day will come when such an
engine will be fairly tried, and then it will be found to answer."
Steele was afterward extensively employed by the British government in
raising sunken ships; and later in life he established engine-works at
Rouen, where he made marine-engines for the French government. He was
unfortunately killed by the explosion of an engine-boiler (with the
safety-valve of which something had gone wrong) when on an experimental
trip with one of the steamers fitted up by himself, and on his way to
England to visit his family near Newcastle.

[33] Thomas Gray, a native of Leeds, was an enthusiastic believer in
the new tractive power, and wherever he went he preached up railways
and Blenkinsop's locomotive. While he was living at Brussels in 1816,
a canal to Charleroi was under consideration, on which he seized
the opportunity of urging the superior merits of a railway. When
he returned to England in 1820, he wrote a book upon the subject,
entitled, "Observations on a General Iron Railway," in which he
strongly advocated the advantages of railways generally, giving as
a frontispiece to the book an engraving of Blenkinsop's engine. And
several years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
we find Thomas Gray, true to his first love, urging in the "Mechanics'
Magazine" the superiority of Blenkinsop's cogged wheel and rail over
the smooth road and rail of the modern railway.

[34] Other machines with legs were patented in the following year
by Lewis Gompertz and by Thomas Tindall. In Tindall's specification
it is provided that the power of the engine is to be assisted by a
_horizontal windmill_; and the four pushers, or legs, are to be caused
to come successively in contact with the ground, and impel the carriage.

[35] Mr. Hedley took out a patent to secure his invention, dated the
13th of March, 1813. Specification No. 3666. If it be true, as alleged,
that the wheels of Trevithick's first locomotive were smooth, it seems
strange that the fallacy should ever have existed.

[36] By the year 1825, the progress made on the Wylam Railroad was
thus described by Mr. Mackenzie in his "History of Northumberland:" "A
stranger," said he, "is struck with surprise and astonishment on seeing
a locomotive engine moving majestically along the road at the rate of
four or five miles an hour, drawing along from ten to fourteen loaded
wagons, weighing about 21-1/2 tons; and his surprise is increased on
witnessing the extraordinary facility with which the engine is managed.
This invention is a noble triumph of science."

[37] At the Stephenson Memorial meeting at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 26th of
October, 1858, Mr. Hugh Taylor, chairman of the Northern Coal-owners,
gave the following account of one of such visits made by Stephenson
to Wylam, in the company of Mr. Nicholas Wood and himself: "It was, I
think, in 1812, that Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Wood came to my house, then
at Newburn, and after we had dined, we went and examined the locomotive
then on Mr. Blackett's wagon-way. At that early date it went by a sort
of cog-wheel; there was also something of a chain to it. There was no
idea that the machine would be sufficiently adhesive to the rails by
the action of its own weight; but I remember a man going before--that
was after the chain was abrogated--and scattering ashes on the rails,
in order to give it adhesiveness, and two or three miles an hour was
about the rate of progress."

[38] Speech at the opening of the Newcastle and Darlington Railway,
June 18, 1844.

[39] It must, however, be mentioned that Mr. Zerah Colburn, in his
excellent work on "Locomotive Engineering and the Mechanism of
Railways," points out that Mr. Davies Gilbert noted the effect of the
discharge of the waste steam up the chimney of Trevithick's engine in
increasing the draught, and wrote a letter to "Nicholson's Journal"
(Sept., 1805) on the subject; and Mr. Nicholson himself proceeded
to investigate the subject, and in 1806 he took out a patent for
"steam-blasting apparatus," applicable to fixed engines, which,
however, does not seem to have come into use. (See _ante_, p. 82.)

[40] Nicholas Wood, "Practical Treatise on Railways," ed. 1825, p. 147.

[41] Ibid., p. 292-3.

[42] Nicholas Wood, "Practical Treatise on Railways," ed. 1825, p.
294. These passages will be found in the first edition of Mr. Wood's
work, published in 1825. The subsequent editions do not contain them.
A few years' experience wrought great changes of opinion on many
points connected with the practical working of railways, and Mr. Wood
altered his text accordingly. But it is most important for our present
purpose to note that, in the year 1825, long before the Liverpool and
Manchester line was opened, Mr. Wood should have so clearly described
the steam-blast, which had been in regular use for more than ten
years in all Stephenson's locomotives employed in the working of the
Killingworth railway.



CHAPTER VI.

INVENTION OF THE "GEORDY" SAFETY-LAMP.


Explosions of fire-damp were unusually frequent in the coal-mines of
Northumberland and Durham about the time when George Stephenson was
engaged in the construction of his first locomotives. These explosions
were often attended with fearful loss of life and dreadful suffering
to the work-people. Killingworth Colliery was not free from such
deplorable calamities; and during the time that Stephenson was employed
as brakesman at the West Moor, several "blasts" took place in the
pit, by which many workmen were scorched and killed, and the owners
of the colliery sustained heavy losses. One of the most serious of
these accidents occurred in 1806, not long after he had been appointed
brakesman, by which ten persons were killed. Stephenson was near
the pit mouth at the time, and the circumstances connected with the
explosion made a deep impression on his mind, as appears from the
graphic account which he gave of it to the Committee of the House of
Commons on accidents in mines, some thirty years after the event.

  "The pit," said he, "had just ceased drawing coals, and nearly all
  the men had got out. It was some time in the afternoon, a little
  after midday. There were five men that went down the pit; four
  of them for the purpose of preparing a place for the furnace.
  The fifth was a person who went down to set them to work. I sent
  this man down myself, and he had just got to the bottom of the
  shaft about two or three minutes when the explosion took place. I
  had left the mouth of the pit, and had gone about fifty or sixty
  yards away, when I heard a tremendous noise, looked round, and
  saw the discharge come out of the pit like the discharge of a
  cannon. It continued to blow, I think, for a quarter of an hour,
  discharging every thing that had come into the current. Wood came
  up, stones came up, and trusses of hay that went up into the air
  like balloons. Those trusses had been sent down during the day, and
  I think they had in some measure injured the ventilation of the
  mine. The ground all round the top of the pit was in a trembling
  state. I went as near as I durst go; every thing appeared cracking
  and rending about me. Part of the brattice, which was very strong,
  was blown away at the bottom of the pits. Very large pumps were
  lifted from their places, so that the engine could not work. The
  pit was divided into four by partitions; it was a large pit,
  fourteen feet in diameter, and partitions were put down at right
  angles, which made four compartments. The explosion took place
  in one of those four quarters, but it broke through into all the
  others at the bottom, and the brattice or partitions were set on
  fire at the first explosion.

  "Nobody durst go near the shafts for some time, for fear of another
  explosion taking place. At last we considered it necessary to run
  the rope backward and forward, and give the miners, if there were
  any at the bottom of the shaft, an opportunity of catching the
  rope as it came to the bottom. Several men were safely got up in
  this way; one man, who had got hold of the rope, was being drawn
  up, when a farther explosion took place while he was still in the
  shaft, and the increased current which came about him projected
  him as it were up the shaft; yet he was landed without injury:
  it was a singular case.... The pit continued to blast every two
  or three hours for about two days. It appears that the coal had
  taken fire, and as soon as the carbureted hydrogen gas collected
  in sufficient quantity to reach the part where it was burning, it
  ignited again; but none of the explosions were equal to the first,
  on account of many parts of the mine having become filled with
  azotic gas, or the _after-damp_ of the mine. All the ditches in the
  countryside were stopped to get water to pour into the pit. We had
  fire-engines brought from Newcastle, and the water was poured in
  till it came above the fire, and then it was extinguished. The loss
  to the owners of the colliery by this accident must have been about
  £20,000."[43]

Another explosion took place in the same pit in 1809, by which twelve
persons lost their lives. The blast did not reach the shaft as in the
former case, the unfortunate persons in the pit having been suffocated
by the after-damp. More calamitous still were the explosions which
took place in the neighboring collieries, one of the worst being that
of 1812, in the Felling Pit near Gateshead, a mine belonging to Mr.
Brandling, by which no fewer than ninety men and boys were suffocated
or burnt to death; and a similar accident occurred in the same pit in
the year following, by which twenty-two men and boys perished.

[Illustration: The Pit Head, West Moor. [By R. P. Leitch.]]

It was natural that Stephenson should devote his attention to the
causes of these deplorable accidents, and to the means by which they
might, if possible, be prevented. His daily occupation led him to
think much and deeply on the subject. As engine-wright of a colliery
so extensive as that of Killingworth, where there were nearly 160
miles of gallery excavation, in which he personally superintended the
working of inclined planes, along which the coals were sent to the
pit entrance, he was necessarily very often under ground, and brought
face to face with the dangers of fire-damp. From fissures in the roofs
of the galleries carbureted hydrogen gas was constantly flowing; and
in some of the more dangerous places it might be heard escaping from
the crevices of the coal with a hissing noise. Ventilation, firing,
and all conceivable modes of drawing out the foul air had been tried,
while the more dangerous parts of the galleries were built up. Still
the danger could not be wholly prevented. The miners must necessarily
guide their steps through the extensive underground ways with lighted
lamps or candles, the naked flame of which, coming in contact with the
inflammable air, daily exposed them and their fellow-workers in the pit
to the risk of death in one of its most dreadful forms.

One day in the year 1814, a workman hurried into Stephenson's cottage
with the startling information that the deepest main of the colliery
was on fire! He immediately hastened to the pit-head, about a hundred
yards off, whither the women and children of the colliery were running,
with wildness and terror depicted in every face. In a commanding voice,
Stephenson ordered the engine-man to lower him down the shaft in the
corve. There was danger, it might be death, before him, but he must go.

He was soon at the bottom and in the midst of the men, who were
paralyzed at the danger which threatened the lives of all in the pit.
Leaping from the corve on its touching the ground, he called out, "Are
there six men among you who have the courage to follow me? If so, come,
and we will put the fire out." The Killingworth pitmen had the most
perfect confidence in their engine-wright, and they readily volunteered
to follow him. Silence succeeded the frantic tumult of the previous
minute, and the men set to work with a will. In every mine, bricks,
mortar, and tools enough are at hand, and by Stephenson's direction the
materials were forthwith carried to the required spot, where, in a very
short time, a wall was raised at the entrance to the main, he himself
taking the most active part in the work. The atmospheric air was by
this means excluded, the fire was extinguished, most of the people in
the pit were saved from death, and the mine was preserved.

This anecdote of George Stephenson was related to the writer, near the
pit-mouth, by one of the men, Kit Heppel, who had been present, and
helped to build up the brick wall by which the fire was stayed, though
several of the workmen were suffocated. Heppel relates that, when down
the pit some days after, seeking out the dead bodies, the cause of
the accident was the subject of some conversation between himself and
Stephenson, and Heppel then asked him, "Can nothing be done to prevent
such awful occurrences?" Stephenson replied that he thought something
might be done. "Then," said Heppel, "the sooner you begin the better,
for the price of coal-mining now is _pitmen's lives_."

Fifty years since, many of the best pits were so full of the
inflammable gas given forth by the coal that they could not be worked
without the greatest danger, and for this reason some were altogether
abandoned. The rudest possible means were adopted of producing light
sufficient to enable the pitmen to work by. The phosphorescence
of decayed fish-skins was tried; but this, though safe, was very
inefficient. The most common method employed was what was called a
steel mill, the notched wheel of which, being made to revolve against a
flint, struck a succession of sparks, which scarcely served to do more
than make the darkness visible. A boy carried the apparatus, working
the wheel; and by the imperfect light thus given forth the miner plied
his dangerous trade. Candles were only used in those parts of the pit
where gas was not abundant. Under this rude system not more than one
third of the coal could be worked, while two thirds were left.

What the workmen, not less than the coal-owners, eagerly desired was
a lamp that should give forth sufficient light, without communicating
flame to the inflammable gas which accumulated in certain parts of the
pit. Something had already been done toward the invention of such a
lamp by Dr. Clanny, of Sunderland, who, in 1813, contrived an apparatus
to which he gave air from the mine through water, by means of bellows.
This lamp went out of itself in inflammable gas. It was found, however,
too unwieldy to be used by the miners for the purposes of their work,
and did not come into general use. A committee of gentlemen interested
in coal-mining was formed to investigate the causes of the explosions,
and to devise, if possible, some means of preventing them. At the
invitation of that committee, Sir Humphry Davy, then in the full zenith
of his reputation, was requested to turn his attention to the subject.
He accordingly visited the collieries near Newcastle on the 24th of
August, 1815, and at the close of that year, on the 9th of November,
1815, he read before the Royal Society of London his celebrated paper
"On the Fire-damp of Coal Mines, and on Methods of Lighting the Mine so
as to prevent its Explosion."

But a humbler though not less diligent and original thinker had been at
work before him, and had already practically solved the problem of the
Safety-lamp. Stephenson was, of course, well aware of the desire which
prevailed in the colliery districts for the invention of a lamp which
should give light enough for the miners to work by without exploding
the fire-damp, and the painful incidents above described only served to
quicken his eagerness to master the difficulty.

For several years he had been engaged, in his own rude way, in making
experiments with the fire-damp in the Killingworth mine. The pitmen
used to expostulate with him on these occasions, believing the
experiments to be fraught with danger. One of the sinkers, called
M'Crie, observing him holding up lighted candles to the windward of the
"blower" or fissure from which the inflammable gas escaped, entreated
him to desist; but Stephenson's answer was, that "he was busy with a
plan by which he hoped to make his experiments useful for preserving
men's lives." On these occasions the miners usually got out of the way
before he lit the gas.

In 1815, although he was very much occupied with the business of the
collieries and the improvement of his locomotive engine, he was also
busily engaged in making experiments upon the inflammable gas in the
Killingworth Pit. As he himself afterward related to the Committee of
the House of Commons which sat on the subject of Accidents in Mines in
1835, he imagined that if he could construct a lamp with a chimney so
arranged as to cause a strong current, it would not fire at the top
of the chimney, as the burnt air would ascend with such a velocity as
to prevent the inflammable air of the pit from descending toward the
flame; and such a lamp, he thought, might be taken into a dangerous
atmosphere without risk of exploding.

Such was Stephenson's theory, when he proceeded to embody his idea of
a miner's safety-lamp in a practical form. In the month of August,
1815, he requested his friend Nicholas Wood, the head viewer, to
prepare a drawing of a lamp according to the description which he gave
him. After several evenings' careful deliberations, the drawing was
prepared, and it was shown to several of the head men about the works.
"My first lamp," said Stephenson, describing it to the committee above
referred to, "had a chimney at the top of the lamp, and a tube at the
bottom to admit the atmospheric air, or fire-damp and air, to feed
the burner or combustion of the lamp. I was not aware of the precise
quantity required to feed the combustion; but to know what quantity was
necessary, I had a slide at the bottom of the tube in my first lamp, to
admit such a quantity of air as might eventually be found necessary to
keep up the combustion."

Accompanied by his friend Wood, Stephenson went into Newcastle, and
ordered a lamp to be made according to his plan by the Messrs. Hogg,
tinmen, at the head of the Side--a well-known street in Newcastle.
At the same time, he ordered a glass to be made for the lamp at the
Northumberland Glass-house in the same town. This lamp was received
from the makers on the 21st of October, and was taken to Killingworth
for the purpose of immediate experiment.

  "I remember that evening as distinctly as if it had been but
  yesterday," said Robert Stephenson, describing the circumstances to
  the author in 1857. "Moodie came to our cottage about dusk, and asked
  'if father had got back with the lamp.' 'No.' 'Then I'll wait till he
  comes,' said Moodie; 'he can't be long now.' In about half an hour,
  in came my father, his face all radiant. He had the lamp with him! It
  was at once uncovered and shown to Moodie. Then it was filled with
  oil, trimmed, and lighted. All was ready, only the head viewer hadn't
  arrived. 'Run over to Benton for Nichol, Robert,' said my father to
  me, 'and ask him to come directly; say we're going down the pit to
  try the lamp.' By this time it was quite dark, and off I ran to bring
  Nicholas Wood. His house was at Benton, about a mile off. There was
  a short cut through Benton Church-yard, but just as I was about to
  pass the wicket I saw what I thought was a white figure moving about
  among the grave-stones. I took it for a ghost! My heart fluttered,
  and I was in a great fright, but to Nichol's house I must get, so
  I made the circuit of the church-yard; and when I got round to the
  other side I looked, and, lo! the figure was still there. But what do
  you think it was? Only the grave-digger, plying his work at that late
  hour by the light of his lantern set upon one of the grave-stones! I
  found Wood at home, and in a few minutes he was mounted and off to my
  father's. When I got home I was told they had just left--it was then
  about eleven--and gone down the shaft to try the lamp in one of the
  most dangerous parts of the mine."

Arrived at the bottom of the shaft with the lamp, the party directed
their steps toward one of the foulest galleries in the pit, where the
explosive gas was issuing through a blower in the roof of the mine with
a loud hissing noise. By erecting some deal boarding round that part of
the gallery into which the gas was escaping, the air was thus made more
foul for the purpose of the experiment. After waiting about an hour,
Moodie, whose practical experience of fire-damp in pits was greater
than that of either Stephenson or Wood, was requested to go into the
place which had thus been made foul; and, having done so, he returned,
and told them that the smell of the air was such that if a lighted
candle were now introduced an explosion must inevitably take place. He
cautioned Stephenson as to the danger both to themselves and to the pit
if the gas took fire; but Stephenson declared his confidence in the
safety of his lamp, and, having lit the wick, he boldly proceeded with
it toward the explosive air. The others, more timid and doubtful, hung
back when they came within hearing of the blower; and, apprehensive
of the danger, they retired into a safe place, out of sight of the
lamp, which gradually disappeared with its bearer in the recesses of
the mine. It was a critical moment, and the danger was such as would
have tried the stoutest heart. Stephenson, advancing alone, with his
yet untried lamp, in the depths of those underground workings, calmly
venturing his life in the determination to discover a mode by which
the lives of many might be saved, and death disarmed in these fatal
caverns, presented an example of intrepid nerve and manly courage
more noble even than that which, in the excitement of battle and the
collective impetuosity of a charge, carries a man up to the cannon's
mouth.

Advancing to the place of danger, and entering within the fouled air,
his lighted lamp in hand, Stephenson held it firmly out, in the full
current of the blower, and within a few inches of its mouth. Thus
exposed, the flame of the lamp at first increased, then flickered, and
then went out; but there was no explosion of the gas. Returning to
his companions, who were still at a distance, he told them what had
occurred. Having now acquired somewhat more confidence, they advanced
with him to a point from which they could observe the experiment
repeated, but still at a safe distance. They saw that when the lighted
lamp was held within the explosive mixture, there was a great flame;
the lamp was almost full of fire; and then it seemed to be smothered
out. Again returning to his companions, he relighted the lamp, and
repeated the experiment. This was done several times, with the same
result. At length Wood and Moodie ventured to advance close to the
fouled part of the pit; and, in making some of the later trials, Mr.
Wood himself held up the lighted lamp to the blower.[44] Such was the
result of the first experiments with the _first practical Miner's
Safety-lamp_, and such was the daring resolution of its inventor in
testing its qualities.

Before leaving the pit, Stephenson expressed his opinion that, by
an alteration of the lamp which he contemplated, he could make it
burn better. This was by a change in the slide through which the
air was admitted into the lower part of the lamp, under the flame.
After making some experiments on the air collected at the blower, by
means of bladders which were mounted with tubes of various diameters,
he satisfied himself that, when the tube was reduced to a certain
diameter, the explosion would not pass through; and he fashioned his
slide accordingly, reducing the diameter of the tube until he conceived
it was quite safe. In about a fortnight the experiments were repeated
in the pit, in a place purposely made foul as before. On this occasion
a larger number of persons ventured to witness the experiments, which
again proved successful. The lamp was not yet, however, so efficient as
the inventor desired. It required, he observed, to be kept very steady
when burning in the inflammable gas, otherwise it was liable to go out,
in consequence, as he imagined, of the contact of the burnt air (as he
then called it), or azotic gas, which lodged round the exterior of the
flame. If the lamp was moved backward and forward, the azote came in
contact with the flame and extinguished it. "It struck me," said he,
"that if I put more tubes in, I should discharge the poisonous matter
that hung round the flame by admitting the air to its exterior part."

Although he had then no access to scientific works, nor intercourse
with scientific men, nor any thing that could assist him in his
inquiries on the subject besides his own indefatigable spirit of
inquiry, Stephenson contrived a rude apparatus, by means of which he
proceeded to test the explosive properties of the gas and the velocity
of current (for this was the direction of his inquiries) required to
permit the explosion to pass through tubes of different diameters. In
making these experiments in his cottage at the West Moor, Nicholas Wood
and George's son Robert usually acted as his assistants, and sometimes
the gentlemen of the neighborhood--among others, William Brandling
and Matthew Bell, who were interested in coal-mining--attended as
spectators. One who was present on such an occasion remembers that,
when an experiment was about to be performed, and all was ready, George
called to Mr. Wood, who worked the stop-cocks of the gasometer, "Wise
on [turn on] the hydrogen, Nichol!"

These experiments were not performed without risk, for on one occasion
the experimenting party had nearly blown off the roof of the cottage.
One of these "blows up" was described by Stephenson himself before the
Committee on Accidents in Coal Mines in 1835:

  "I made several experiments," said he, "as to the velocity
  required in tubes of different diameters, to prevent explosion
  from fire-damp. We made the mixture in all proportions of light
  carbureted hydrogen with atmospheric air in the receiver, and we
  found by the experiments that when a current of the most explosive
  mixture that we could make was forced up a tube four tenths of
  an inch in diameter, the necessary current was nine inches in a
  second to prevent its coming down that tube. These experiments were
  repeated several times. We had two or three blows up in making the
  experiments, by the flame getting down into the receiver, though we
  had a piece of very fine wire-gauze put at the bottom of the pipe,
  between the receiver and the pipe through which we were forcing the
  current. In one of these experiments I was watching the flame in
  the tube, my son was taking the vibrations of the pendulum of the
  clock, and Mr. Wood was attending to give me the column of water
  as I called for it, to keep the current up to a certain point. As
  I saw the flame descending in the tube I called for more water,
  and Wood unfortunately turned the cock the wrong way; the current
  ceased, the flame went down the tube, and all our implements were
  blown to pieces, which at the time we were not very well able to
  replace."

The explosion of this glass receiver, which had been borrowed from the
stores of the Philosophical Society at Newcastle for the purpose of
making the experiments, caused the greatest possible dismay among the
party, and they dreaded to inform Mr. Turner, the secretary,[45] of the
calamity which had occurred. Fortunately, none of the experimenters
were injured by the accident.

Stephenson followed up these experiments by others of a similar kind,
with the view of ascertaining whether ordinary flame would pass through
tubes of a small diameter, and with this object he filed off the
barrels of several small keys. Placing these together, he held them
perpendicularly over a strong flame, and ascertained that it did not
pass upward. This was a farther proof to him of the soundness of the
principle on which he had been proceeding.

In order to correct the defect of his first lamp, he accordingly
proceeded to alter it so as to admit the air to the flame by several
tubes of reduced diameter instead of by a single tube. He inferred
that a sufficient quantity of air would thus be introduced into the
lamp for the purposes of combustion, while the smallness of the
apertures would still prevent the explosion passing downward, at the
same time that the "burnt air" (the cause, in his opinion, of the
lamp going out) would be more effectually dislodged. The requisite
alterations were made in the lamp by Mr. Matthews, a tinman in
Newcastle, and it was so altered that the air was admitted by three
small tubes inserted in the bottom, the openings of which were placed
on the outside of the burner, instead of having (as in the original
lamp) the one tube opening directly under the flame.

This second or altered lamp was tried in the Killingworth Pit on the
4th of November, and was found to burn better than the first lamp, and
to be perfectly safe. But, as it did not yet come up entirely to the
inventor's expectations, he proceeded to contrive a third lamp, in
which he proposed to surround the oil vessel with a number of capillary
tubes. Then it struck him that if he cut off the middle of the tubes,
or made holes in metal plates, placed at a distance from each other
equal to the length of the tubes, the air would get in better, and the
effect in preventing the communication of explosion would be the same.

He was encouraged to persevere in the completion of his safety-lamp
by the occurrence of several fatal accidents about this time in
the Killingworth Pit. On the 9th of November a boy was killed by a
blast in the _A_ pit, at the very place where Stephenson had made
the experiments with his first lamp; and, when told of the accident,
he observed that if the boy had been provided with his lamp, his
life would have been saved. On the 20th of November he went over
to Newcastle to order his third lamp from Mr. Watson, a plumber in
that town. Mr. Watson referred him to his clerk, Henry Smith, whom
Stephenson invited to join him at a neighboring public house, where
they might quietly talk over the matter, and finally settle the plan
of the new lamp. They adjourned to the "Newcastle Arms," near the
present High-Level Bridge, where they had some ale, and a design of
the lamp was drawn in pencil upon a half-sheet of foolscap, with a
rough specification subjoined. The sketch, when shown to us by Robert
Stephenson some years since, still bore the marks of the ale. It was
a very rude design, but sufficient to work from. It was immediately
placed in the hands of the workmen, finished in the course of a
few days, and experimentally tested in the Killingworth Pit like
the previous lamps on the 30th of November, by which date neither
Stephenson nor Wood had heard of Sir Humphry Davy's experiments, nor of
the lamp which that gentleman proposed to construct.

[Illustration: DAVY'S SAFETY-LAMP.]

[Illustration: STEPHENSON'S SAFETY-LAMP.]

An angry controversy afterward took place as to the respective merits
of George Stephenson and Sir Humphry Davy in respect of the invention
of the Safety-lamp. A committee was formed on both sides, and the facts
were stated in various ways. It is perfectly clear, however, that
Stephenson had ascertained _the fact_ that flame will not pass through
tubes of a certain diameter--the principle on which the safety-lamp
is constructed--before Sir Humphry Davy had formed any definite idea
on the subject, or invented the model lamp afterward exhibited by him
before the Royal Society. Stephenson had actually constructed a lamp
on such a principle, and proved its safety, before Sir Humphry had
communicated his views on the subject to any person; and by the time
that the first public intimation had been given of his discovery,
Stephenson's second lamp had been constructed and tested in like
manner in the Killingworth Pit. The _first_ was tried on the 21st of
October, 1815; the _second_ was tried on the 4th of November; but it
was not until the 9th of November that Sir Humphry Davy presented his
first lamp to the public. And by the 30th of the same month, as we have
seen, Stephenson had constructed and tested his _third_ safety-lamp.

Stephenson's theory of the "burnt air" and the "draught" was no doubt
wrong, but his lamp was right, and that was the great fact which mainly
concerned him. Torricelli did not know the rationale of his tube, nor
Otto von Guericke that of his air-pump; yet no one thinks of denying
them the merit of their inventions on that account. The discoveries
of Volta and Galvani were in like manner independent of theory; the
greatest discoveries consisting in bringing to light certain grand
facts, on which theories are afterward framed. Our inventor had been
pursuing the Baconian method, though he did not think of that; his
sole object being to invent a safe lamp, which he knew could only be
done through the process of repeated experiment. Hence his numerous
experiments on the fire-damp at the blowers in the mine, as well as on
carbureted hydrogen gas in his cottage by means of the apparatus above
described. By experiment he distinctly ascertained that the explosion
of fire-damp could not pass through small tubes; and he also did what
had not before been done by any inventor--he constructed a lamp on this
principle, and repeatedly proved its safety at the risk of his life. At
the same time, there is no doubt that it was to Sir Humphry Davy that
the merit belonged of elucidating the true law on which the safety-lamp
is constructed.

The subject of this important invention excited so much interest in the
northern mining districts, and Stephenson's numerous friends considered
his lamp so completely successful--having stood the test of repeated
experiments--that they urged him to bring his invention before the
Philosophical and Literary Society of Newcastle, of whose apparatus
he had availed himself in the course of his experiments on fire-damp.
After much persuasion he consented to do so, and a meeting was
appointed for the purpose of receiving his explanations on the evening
of the 5th of December, 1815. Stephenson was at that time so diffident
in manner and unpracticed in speech, that he took with him his friend
Nicholas Wood to act as his interpreter and expositor on the occasion.
From eighty to a hundred of the most intelligent members of the society
were present at the meeting, when Mr. Wood stood forward to expound
the principles on which the lamp had been formed, and to describe the
details of its construction. Several questions were put, to which
Mr. Wood proceeded to give replies to the best of his knowledge. But
Stephenson, who up to that time had stood behind Wood, screened from
notice, observing that the explanations given were not quite correct,
could no longer control himself, and, standing forward, he proceeded
in his strong Northumbrian dialect to describe the lamp down to its
minutest details. He then produced several bladders full of carbureted
hydrogen, which he had collected from the blowers in the Killingworth
mine, and proved the safety of his lamp by numerous experiments with
the gas, repeated in various ways, his earnest and impressive manner
exciting in the minds of his auditors the liveliest interest both in
the inventor and his invention.

[Illustration: LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE, NEWCASTLE.]

Shortly after, Sir H. Davy's model lamp was received and exhibited to
the coal-miners at Newcastle, on which occasion the observation was
made by several gentlemen, "Why, it is the same as Stephenson's!"

Notwithstanding Stephenson's claim to be regarded as the first inventor
of the Tube Safety-lamp, his merits do not seem to have been generally
recognized. Sir Humphry Davy carried off the larger share of the
_éclat_ which attached to the discovery. What chance had the unknown
workman of Killingworth with so distinguished a competitor? The one
was as yet but a colliery engine-wright, scarce raised above the
manual-labor class, without chemical knowledge or literary culture,
pursuing his experiments in obscurity, with a view only to usefulness;
the other was the scientific prodigy of his day, the pet of the Royal
Society, the favorite of princes, the most brilliant of lecturers, and
the most popular of philosophers.

No small indignation was expressed by the friends of Sir Humphry Davy
at Stephenson's "presumption" in laying claim to the invention of the
Safety-lamp. The scientific class united to ignore him entirely in the
matter. In 1831, Dr. Paris, in his "Life of Sir Humphry Davy," thus
wrote: "It will hereafter be scarcely believed that an invention so
eminently scientific, and which could never have been derived but from
the sterling treasury of science, should have been claimed on behalf of
an engine-wright of Killingworth, of the name of Stephenson--a person
not even possessing a knowledge of the elements of chemistry."

But Stephenson was really far above claiming for himself an invention
not his own. He had already accomplished a far greater thing even
than the making of a safety-lamp: he had constructed a successful
locomotive, which was to be seen in daily work on the Killingworth
Railway. By the improvements he had made in the engine, he might
almost be said to have _invented_ it; yet no one--not even the
philosophers--detected as yet the significance of that wonderful
machine. It excited no scientific interest, called forth no leading
articles in the newspapers or the reviews, and formed the subject of
no eloquent lectures at the Royal Society; for railways were as yet
comparatively unknown, and the might which slumbered in the locomotive
was scarcely, as yet, even dreamed of. What railways were to become
rested in a great measure with that "engine-wright of Killingworth, of
the name of Stephenson," though he was scarcely known as yet beyond the
bounds of his own district.

As to the value of the invention of the safety-lamp there could be no
doubt, and the colliery owners of Durham and Northumberland, to testify
their sense of its importance, determined to present a testimonial to
its inventor. The friends of Sir H. Davy met in August, 1816, to take
steps to raise a subscription for the purpose. The advertised object
of the meeting was to present him with a reward for the invention
of _his_ safety-lamp. To this no objection could be taken; for,
though the principle on which the safety-lamps of Stephenson and Davy
were constructed was the same, and although Stephenson's lamp was
unquestionably the first successful lamp that had been constructed on
such principle, and proved to be efficient, yet Sir H. Davy did invent
a safety-lamp, no doubt quite independently of all that Stephenson
had done; and having directed his careful attention to the subject,
and elucidated the true theory of explosion of carbureted hydrogen,
he was entitled to all praise and reward for his labor. But when
the meeting of coal-owners proposed to raise a subscription for the
purpose of presenting Sir H. Davy with a reward for "his invention of
_the_ safety-lamp," the case was entirely altered, and Stephenson's
friends then proceeded to assert his claims to be regarded as its first
inventor.

Many meetings took place on the subject, and much discussion ensued,
the result of which was that a sum of £2000 was presented to Sir
Humphry Davy as "the inventor of the safety-lamp;" but, at the same
time, a purse of 100 guineas was voted to George Stephenson, in
consideration of what he had done in the same direction. This result
was, however, very unsatisfactory to Stephenson, as well as to his
friends; and Mr. Brandling, of Gosforth, suggested to him that, the
subject being now fairly before the public, he should publish a
statement of the facts on which his claim was founded.

But this was not at all in George Stephenson's line. He had never
appeared in print before, and it seemed to him a far more formidable
thing to write a letter for publication in "the papers" than even to
invent a safety-lamp or design a locomotive. Having called his son
Robert to his assistance, he set him down before a sheet of foolscap,
and when all was ready, he said, "Now, put down there just what I tell
you." The composition of this letter, as we were informed by the writer
of it, occupied more evenings than one; and when it was at length
finished after many corrections, and fairly copied out, the father and
son set out--the latter dressed in his Sunday's round jacket--to lay
the joint production before Mr. Brandling, at Gosforth House. Glancing
over the letter, Mr. Brandling said, "George, this will never do."
"It is all true, sir," was the reply. "That may be; but it is badly
written." Robert blushed, for he thought it was the penmanship that was
called in question, and he had written his very best. Mr. Brandling
then requested his visitors to sit down while he put the letter in a
more polished form, which he did, and it was shortly after published in
the local papers.

As the controversy continued for some time longer to be carried on
in the Newcastle papers, Mr. Stephenson, in the year 1817, consented
to publish the detailed plans, with descriptions, of the several
safety-lamps which he had contrived for use in the Killingworth
Colliery. The whole forms a pamphlet of only sixteen pages of
letter-press.[46]

His friends, being fully satisfied of his claims to priority as
the inventor of the safety-lamp used in the Killingworth and other
collieries, proceeded to hold a public meeting for the purpose of
presenting him with a reward "for the valuable service he had thus
rendered to mankind." Charles J. Brandling, Esq., occupied the chair;
and several resolutions were passed, of which the first and most
important was as follows: "That it is the opinion of this meeting that
Mr. George Stephenson, having _discovered the fact_ that explosion
of hydrogen gas will not pass through tubes and apertures of small
dimensions, and having been _the first to apply that principle in the
construction of a safety-lamp_, is entitled to a public reward."

A subscription was immediately commenced with this object, and a
committee was formed, consisting of the Earl of Strathmore, C. J.
Brandling, and others. The subscription list was headed by Lord
Ravensworth, one of the partners in the Killingworth Colliery,
who showed his appreciation of the merits of Stephenson by giving
100 guineas. C. J. Brandling and partners gave a like sum, and
Matthew Bell and partners, and John Brandling and partners, gave 50
guineas each. When the resolutions appeared in the newspapers, the
scientific friends of Sir Humphry Davy in London met, and passed a
series of counter-resolutions, which they published, declaring their
opinion that Mr. Stephenson was _not_ the author of the discovery
of the fact that explosion of hydrogen will not pass through tubes
and apertures of small dimensions, and that he was _not_ the first
to apply that principle to the construction of a safety-lamp. To
these counter-resolutions were attached the well-known names of Sir
Joseph Banks, P.R.S., William Thomas Brande, Charles Hatchett, W. H.
Wollaston, and Thomas Young.

Mr. Stephenson's friends then, to make assurance doubly sure, and with
a view to set the question at rest, determined to take evidence in
detail as to the date of discovery by George Stephenson of the fact
in question, and its practical application by him in the formation
and actual trial of his safety-lamp. The witnesses examined were
George Stephenson himself, Mr. Nicholas Wood, and John Moodie, who
had been present at the first trial of the lamp; the several tinmen
who made the lamps; the secretary and other members of the Literary
and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, who were present at the
exhibition of the third lamp; and some of the workmen who were present
at the Killingworth Colliery, who had been witnesses of Stephenson's
experiments on fire-damp made with the lamps at different times before
Sir Humphry Davy's investigations had been heard of. This evidence was
quite conclusive to the minds of the gentlemen who investigated the
subject, and they published it in 1817, together with their Report,
in which they declared that, "after a careful inquiry into the merits
of the case, conducted, as they trust, in a spirit of fairness and
moderation, they can perceive no satisfactory reason for changing their
opinion."[47] The Stephenson subscription, when collected, amounted
to £1000. Part of the money was devoted to the purchase of a silver
tankard, which was presented to the inventor, together with the balance
of the subscription, at a public dinner given in the Assembly Rooms
at Newcastle.[48] But what gave Stephenson even greater pleasure than
the silver tankard and purse of sovereigns was the gift of a silver
watch, purchased by small subscriptions collected among the colliers
themselves, and presented to him by them as a token of their esteem
and regard for him as a man, as well as of their gratitude for the
perseverance and skill with which he had prosecuted his valuable and
life-saving invention to a successful issue. To the last day of his
life he spoke with pride of this watch as the most highly-prized gift
he had ever received.

However great may be the merits of Stephenson in connection with
the invention of the tube safety-lamp, they can not be regarded as
detracting in any degree from the reputation of Sir Humphry Davy. His
inquiries into the explosive properties of carbureted hydrogen gas
were quite original, and his discovery of the fact that explosion will
not pass through tubes of a certain diameter was made independently
of all that Stephenson had done in verification of the same fact. It
would even appear that Mr. Smithson Tennant and Dr. Wollaston had
observed the same fact several years before, though neither Stephenson
nor Davy knew of it while they were prosecuting their experiments. Sir
Humphry Davy's subsequent modification of the tube-lamp, by which,
while diminishing the diameter, he in the same ratio shortened the
tubes without danger, and in the form of wire-gauze enveloped the
safety-lamp by a multiplicity of tubes, was a beautiful application of
the true theory which he had formed upon the subject.

The increased number of accidents which have occurred from explosions
in coal-mines since the general introduction of the Davy lamp led to
considerable doubts being entertained as to its safety, and inquiries
were consequently made as to the means by which it might be farther
improved; for experience has shown that, under certain circumstances,
the Davy lamp is _not_ safe. Stephenson was himself of opinion that
the modification of his own and Sir Humphry Davy's lamp, by combining
the glass cylinder with the wire-gauze, would give the best lamp. At
the same time, it must be admitted that the Davy and the Geordy lamps
alike failed to stand the severe tests to which they were submitted
by Dr. Pereira, before the Committee on Accidents in Mines. Indeed,
Dr. Pereira did not hesitate to say that, when exposed to a current
of explosive gas, the Davy lamp is "decidedly unsafe," and that
the experiments by which its safety had been "demonstrated" in the
lecture-room had proved entirely "fallacious."

It is worthy of remark that, under circumstances in which the
wire-gauze of the Davy lamp becomes red-hot from the high explosiveness
of the gas, the Geordy lamp is extinguished; and we can not but think
that this fact testifies to the decidedly superior safety of the
Geordy. An accident occurred in the Oaks Colliery Pit at Barnsley on
the 20th of August, 1857, which strikingly exemplified the respective
qualities of the lamps. A sudden outburst of gas took place from the
floor of the mine along a distance of fifty yards. Fortunately, the men
working in the pit at the time were all supplied with safety-lamps--the
hewers with Stephenson's, and the hurriers with Davy's. On this
occasion, the whole of the Stephenson lamps, over a space of five
hundred yards, were extinguished almost instantaneously; whereas the
Davy lamps were filled with fire and became red-hot, so that several
of the men using them had their hands burnt by the gauze. Had a strong
current of air been blowing through the gallery at the time, an
explosion would most probably have taken place--an accident which, it
will be observed, could not, under such circumstances, occur from the
use of the Geordy, which is immediately extinguished as soon as the
air becomes explosive.[49]

Nicholas Wood, a good judge, has said of the two inventions, "Priority
has been claimed for each of them--I believe the inventions to be
parallel. By different roads they both arrived at the same result.
Stephenson's is the superior lamp. Davy's is safe--Stephenson's is
safer."

When the question of priority was under discussion at Mr. Lough's
studio in 1857, Sir Matthew White Ridley asked Robert Stephenson, who
was present, for his opinion on the subject. His answer was, "I am not
exactly the person to give an unbiased opinion; but, as you ask me
frankly, I will as frankly say, that if George Stephenson had never
lived, Sir Humphry Davy could and most probably would have invented the
safety-lamp; but again, if Sir Humphry Davy had never lived, George
Stephenson certainly would have invented the safety-lamp, as I believe
he did, independently of all that Sir Humphry Davy had done in the
matter."

To this day the Geordy lamp continues in regular use in the
Killingworth Collieries, and the Killingworth pitmen have expressed to
the writer their decided preference for it compared with the Davy. It
is certainly a strong testimony in its favor that no accident is known
to have arisen from its use since it was generally introduced into the
Killingworth pits.

[Illustration: THE STEPHENSON TANKARD.]

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Evidence given by George Stephenson before the Select Committee on
Accidents in Mines, 26th June, 1835.

[44] The accuracy of the above statement having been called in
question, it is proper to state that the facts as set forth were
verbally communicated to the author in the first place by Robert
Stephenson, to whom the chapter was afterward read in MS. in the
presence of Mr. Sopwith, F.R.S., and received his entire approval.
But at the time at which Mr. Stephenson communicated the verbal
information, he also handed a little book with his name written in it,
still in the author's possession, saying, "Read that; you will find it
all there." This little book contains, among other things, a pamphlet,
entitled "Report on the Claims of Mr. George Stephenson relative to the
Invention of his Safety-lamp. By the Committee appointed at a Meeting
holden in Newcastle, on the 1st of November, 1817. With an Appendix
containing the Evidence." Among the witnesses examined were George
Stephenson, Nicholas Wood, and John Moodie, and their evidence is given
in the pamphlet. Stephenson said that he tried the first lamp "in a
part of the mine where the air was highly explosive. Nicholas Wood and
John Moodie were his companions when the trial was made. They became
frightened when they came within hearing of the blower, and would not
go any farther. Mr. Stephenson went alone with the lamp to the mouth
of the blower," etc. This evidence was confirmed by John Moodie, who
said the air of the place where the experiment was about to be tried
was such, that, if a lighted candle had been introduced, an explosion
would have taken place that would have been "extremely dangerous."
"Told Stephenson it was foul, and hinted at the danger; nevertheless,
Stephenson _would_ try the lamp, confiding in its safety. Stephenson
took the lamp and went with it into the place in which Moodie had been,
and Moodie and Wood, apprehensive of the danger, retired to a greater
distance," etc. The accuracy of the other statements made in the text
relative to the invention of the safety-lamp is confirmed by the same
publication.

[45] The early connection of Robert with the Philosophical and Literary
Society of Newcastle had brought him into communication with the
Rev. William Turner, one of the secretaries of the institution. That
gentleman was always ready to assist the inquirer after knowledge,
and took an early interest in the studious youth from Killingworth,
with whose father he also became acquainted. Mr. Turner cheerfully
helped them in their joint inquiries, and excited while he endeavored
to satisfy their thirst for scientific information. Toward the close
of his life Mr. Stephenson often spoke of the gratitude and esteem he
felt toward his revered instructor. "Mr. Turner," he said, "was always
ready to assist me with books, with instruments, and with counsel,
gratuitously and cheerfully. He gave me the most valuable assistance
and instruction, and to my dying day I can never forget the obligations
which I owe to my venerable friend."

[46] "A Description of the Safety-lamp, invented by George Stephenson,
and now in use in the Killingworth Colliery." London, 1817.

[47] The committee, in their report, after setting forth in a tabular
form the dates at which Stephenson and Davy verified their theories by
experiments, and brought out their respective safety-lamps, proceeded
to say: "The friends of Mr. Stephenson, with this table before them,
conceive their resolution to be fully borne out by the testimony of
dates and facts, so far as they are known; and without the slightest
idea or wish of detracting from the scientific fame, honor, or veracity
of Sir Humphry Davy, they would repeat, and confine themselves to
the simple assertion of their belief, that Mr. Stephenson was the
first to construct a lamp upon the principle in question. And when
the friends of Mr. Stephenson remember the humble and laborious
station of life which he has occupied; when they consider the scanty
means and opportunities which he has had for pursuing researches in
practical science, and look to the improvements and discoveries which,
notwithstanding so many disadvantages, he has been enabled to make by
the judicious and unremitting exercise of the energy and acuteness of
his natural understanding, they can not persuade themselves that they
have said any thing more than any liberal and feeling mind would most
readily admit."

[48] The tankard bore the following inscription: "This piece of plate,
purchased with a part of the sum of £1000, a subscription raised
for the remuneration of Mr. George Stephenson for having discovered
the fact that inflamed fire-damp will not pass through tubes and
apertures of small dimensions, and having been _the first_ to apply
that principle in the construction of a safety-lamp calculated for
the preservation of human life in situations formerly of the greatest
danger, was presented to him at a meeting of the subscribers, Charles
John Brandling, Esq., in the chair, January 12th, 1818."

[49] The accident above referred to was described in the "Barnsley
Times," a copy of which, containing the account, Robert Stephenson
forwarded to the author, with the observation that "it is evidently
written by a practical miner, and is, I think, worthy of record in my
father's Life." Mr. John Browne, C.E., Barnsley, in a communication
which appeared in the "Times" of December 24th, 1860, observed:

"At the period of this occurrence we had two kinds of safety-lamps in
use in this pit, viz., 'Davy' and 'Stephenson,' and the gas, in going
off to the upcast shaft, had to pass great numbers of men, who were at
work with both kinds of lamps. The whole of the 'Davy's' became red-hot
almost instantaneously from the rapid ignition of the gas within the
gauze; the 'Stephenson's' were as instantly self-extinguished from the
same cause, it being the prominent qualification of these lamps that,
in addition to affording a somewhat better light than the 'Davy' lamp,
they are suddenly extinguished when placed within a highly explosive
atmosphere, so that no person can remain working and run the risk of
his lamp becoming red-hot, which, under such circumstances, would be
the result with the 'Davy' lamp.

"The red-hot lamps were, most fortunately, all safely put out, although
the men in many cases had their hands severely burnt by the gauze;
but from that time I fully resolved to adopt the exclusive use of the
'Stephenson' lamps, and not expose men to the fearful risk they must
run from working with 'Davy' lamps during the probable recurrence of a
similar event.

"I may remark that the 'Stephenson' lamp, originally invented by the
great George Stephenson, in its present shape combines the merits of
his discovery with that of Sir Humphry Davy, constituting, to my mind,
the safest lamp at present known, and I speak from the long use of many
hundreds daily in various collieries."

In an account given in the "Times" of the 10th of August, 1867, of a
number of experiments made upon different safety-lamps at the Barnsley
Gas-works, occasioned by the terrible explosion at the Lund Hill
Colliery, it is stated that the different lamps were tested with the
following results: "The 'Davy' lamp with no shield on the outside
exploded the gas in six seconds, and with the shield inside the gauze
in nine seconds. The 'Belgian' lamp exploded in ten seconds; the
'Mozard' in ten seconds; the small 'Clanny' in seven seconds, the large
one in ten seconds; and the 'Stephenson' in seventy-five seconds.
Although the 'Stephenson' is undoubtedly the best, it will be seen that
none of the so-called safety-lamps can be depended upon when coming in
contact with a _strong explosive current_ of fire-damp and air."



CHAPTER VII.

GEORGE STEPHENSON'S FARTHER IMPROVEMENTS IN THE LOCOMOTIVE--THE HETTON
RAILWAY--ROBERT STEPHENSON AS VIEWER'S APPRENTICE AND STUDENT.


Stephenson's experiments on fire-damp, and his labors in connection
with the invention of the safety-lamp, occupied but a small portion
of his time, which was necessarily devoted, for the most part, to the
ordinary business of the colliery. From the day of his appointment as
engine-wright, one of the subjects which particularly occupied his
attention was the best practical method of winning and raising the
coal. Nicholas Wood has said of him that he was one of the first to
introduce steam machinery underground with that object. Indeed, the
Killingworth mines came to be regarded as the models of the district;
and when Mr. Robert Bald, the celebrated Scotch mining engineer, was
requested by Dr. (afterward Sir David) Brewster to prepare the article
"Mine" for the "Edinburg Encyclopædia," he proceeded to Killingworth
principally for the purpose of examining Stephenson's underground
machinery. Mr. Bald has favored us with an account of his visit made
with that object in 1818, and he states that he was much struck with
the novelty, as well as the remarkable efficiency of Stephenson's
arrangements, especially in regard to what is called the underdip
working.

  "I found," he says, "that a mine had been commenced near the main
  pit-bottom, and carried forward down the dip or slope of the coal,
  the rate of dip being about one in twelve; and the coals were drawn
  from the dip to the pit-bottom by the steam machinery in a very
  rapid manner. The water which oozed from the upper winning was
  disposed of at the pit-bottom in a barrel or trunk, and was drawn
  up by the power of the engine which worked the other machinery.
  The dip at the time of my visit was nearly a mile in length, but
  has since been greatly extended. As I was considerably tired by my
  wanderings in the galleries, when I arrived at the forehead of the
  dip, Mr. Stephenson said to me, 'You may very speedily be carried
  up to the rise by laying yourself flat upon the coal-baskets,'
  which were laden and ready to be taken up the incline. This I at
  once did, and was straightway wafted on the wings of fire to the
  bottom of the pit, from whence I was borne swiftly up to the light
  by the steam machinery on the pit-head."

The whole of the working arrangements seemed to Mr. Bald to be
conducted in the most skillful and efficient manner, reflecting the
highest credit on the colliery engineer.

Besides attending to the underground arrangements, the improved transit
of the coals above ground from the pit-head to the shipping-place
demanded an increasing share of Stephenson's attention. Every day's
experience convinced him that the locomotive constructed by him after
his patent of the year 1815 was far from perfect, though he continued
to entertain confident hopes of its complete eventual success. He even
went so far as to say that the locomotive would yet supersede every
other traction-power for drawing heavy loads. It is true, many persons
continued to regard his traveling engine as little better than a
dangerous curiosity; and some, shaking their heads, predicted for it "a
terrible blow-up some day." Nevertheless, it was daily performing its
work with regularity, dragging the coal-wagons between the colliery and
the staiths, and saving the labor of many men and horses.

There was not, however, so marked a saving in the expense of haulage as
to induce the colliery masters to adopt locomotive power generally as
a substitute for horses. How it could be improved, and rendered more
efficient as well as economical, was constantly present to Stephenson's
mind. He was fully conscious of the imperfections both in the road
and the engine, and gave himself no rest until he had brought the
efficiency of both up to a higher point. Thus he worked his way inch by
inch, slowly but surely, and every step gained was made good as a basis
for farther improvements.

At an early period of his labors, or about the time when he had
completed his second locomotive, he began to direct his particular
attention to the state of the Road, perceiving that the extended use
of the locomotive must necessarily depend in a great measure upon the
perfection, solidity, continuity, and smoothness of the way along
which the engine traveled. Even at that early period he was in the
habit of regarding the road and the locomotive as one machine, speaking
of the Rail and the Wheel as "Man and Wife."

All railways were at that time laid in a careless and loose manner,
and great inequalities of level were allowed to occur without much
attention being paid to repairs. The consequence was a great loss of
power, as well as much wear and tear of the machinery, by the frequent
jolts and blows of the wheels against the rails. Stephenson's first
object, therefore, was to remove the inequalities produced by the
imperfect junction between rail and rail.

At that time (1816) the rails were made of cast iron, each rail being
about three feet long; and sufficient care was not taken to maintain
the points of junction on the same level. The chairs, or cast-iron
pedestals into which the rails were inserted, were flat at the bottom,
so that whenever any disturbance took place in the stone blocks or
sleepers supporting them, the flat base of the chair upon which the
rails rested being tilted by unequal subsidence, the end of one rail
became depressed, while that of the other was elevated. Hence constant
jolts and shocks, the reaction of which very often caused the fracture
of the rails, and occasionally threw the engine off the road.

[Illustration: HALF-LAP JOINT.]

To remedy this imperfection, Mr. Stephenson devised a new chair, with
an entirely new mode of fixing the rails therein. Instead of adopting
the _butt-joint_ which had hitherto been used in all cast-iron rails,
he adopted the _half-lap joint_, by which means the rails extended a
certain distance over each other at the ends like a scarf-joint. These
ends, instead of resting on the flat chair, were made to rest upon the
apex of a curve forming the bottom of the chair. The supports were
also extended from three feet to three feet nine inches or four feet
apart. These rails were accordingly substituted for the old cast-iron
plates on the Killingworth Colliery Railway, and they were found to
be a very great improvement on the previous system, adding both to
the efficiency of the horse-power (still used on the railway) and to
the smooth action of the locomotive engine, but more particularly
increasing the efficiency of the latter.

This improved form of the rail and chair was embodied in a patent taken
out in the joint names of Mr. Losh, of Newcastle, iron founder, and
of Mr. Stephenson, bearing date the 30th of September, 1816. Mr. Losh
being a wealthy, enterprising iron-manufacturer, and having confidence
in George Stephenson and his improvements, found the money for the
purpose of taking out the patent, which in those days was a very costly
as well as troublesome affair. At the same time, Mr. Losh guaranteed
Stephenson a salary of £100 per annum, with a share in the profits
arising from his inventions, conditional on his attending at the Walker
Iron-works two days a week--an arrangement to which the owners of the
Killingworth Colliery cheerfully gave their sanction.

[Illustration: OLD KILLINGWORTH LOCOMOTIVE STILL IN USE.]

The specification of 1816 included various important improvements in
the locomotive itself. The wheels of the engine were improved, being
altered from cast to malleable iron, in whole or in part, by which
they were made lighter as well as more durable and safe. The patent
also included the ingenious and original contrivance by which the
steam generated in the boiler was made to serve as a substitute for
springs--an expedient already explained in a preceding chapter.

The result of the actual working of the new locomotive on the improved
road amply justified the promises held forth in the specification.
The traffic was conducted with greater regularity and economy, and
the superiority of the engine, as compared with horse traction,
became still more marked. And it is a fact worthy of notice, that
the identical engines constructed by Stephenson in 1816 are to this
day in regular useful work upon the Killingworth Railway, conveying
heavy coal-trains at the speed of between five and six miles an hour,
probably as economically as any of the more perfect locomotives now in
use.

George Stephenson's endeavors having been attended with such marked
success in the adaptation of locomotive power to railways, his
attention was called by many of his friends, about the year 1818, to
the application of steam to traveling on common roads. It was from this
point, indeed, that the locomotive had started, Trevithick's first
engine having been constructed with this special object. Stephenson's
friends having observed how far behind he had left the original
projector of the locomotive in its application to railroads, perhaps
naturally inferred that he would be equally successful in applying
it to the purpose for which Trevithick and Vivian had intended their
first engine. But the accuracy with which he estimated the resistance
to which loads were exposed on railways, arising from friction and
gravity, led him at a very early stage to reject the idea of ever
applying steam-power economically to common road traveling. In October,
1818, he made a series of careful experiments, in conjunction with
Mr. Nicholas Wood, on the resistance to which carriages were exposed
on railways, testing the results by means of a dynamometer of his own
contrivance. The series of practical observations made by means of
this instrument were interesting, as the first systematic attempt to
determine the precise amount of resistance to carriages moving along
railways. It was then for the first time ascertained by experiment that
the friction was a constant quantity at all velocities. Although this
theory had long before been developed by Vince and Coulomb, and was
well known to scientific men as an established truth, yet, at the time
when Stephenson made his experiments, the deductions of philosophers
on the subject were neither believed in nor acted upon by practical
engineers. To quote again from the MS. account supplied to the author
by Robert Stephenson for the purposes of his father's "Life:"

  "It was maintained by many that the results of the experiments led
  to the greatest possible mechanical absurdities. For instance, it
  was maintained that, if friction were constant at all velocities
  upon a level railway, when once a power was applied to a carriage
  which exceeded the friction of that carriage by the smallest
  possible amount, that same small excess of power would be able
  to convey the carriage along a level railway at all conceivable
  velocities. When this position was put by those who opposed
  the conclusions at which my father had arrived, he felt great
  hesitation in maintaining his own views; for it appeared to him
  at first sight really to be--as it was put by his opponents--an
  absurdity. Frequent repetition, however, of the experiments
  to which I have alluded, left no doubt upon his mind that his
  conclusion that friction was uniform at all velocities was a
  fact which must be received as positively established; and he
  soon afterward boldly maintained that that which was an apparent
  absurdity was, instead, a necessary consequence. I well remember
  the ridicule that was thrown upon this view by many of those
  persons with whom he was associated at the time. Nevertheless, it
  is undoubted, that, could you practically be always applying a
  power in excess of the resistance, a constant increase of velocity
  would of necessity follow without any limit. This is so obvious to
  most professional men of the present day, and is now so axiomatic,
  that I only allude to the discussion which took place when these
  experiments of my father were announced for the purpose of showing
  how small was the amount of science at that time blended with
  engineering practice. A few years afterward, an excellent pamphlet
  was published by Mr. Silvester on this question; he took up the
  whole subject, and demonstrated in a very simple and beautiful
  manner the correctness of all the views at which my father had
  arrived by his course of experiments.

  "The other resistances to which carriages were exposed were also
  investigated experimentally by my father. He perceived that these
  resistances were mainly three--the first being upon the axles
  of the carriage; the second, which may be called the rolling
  resistance, being between the circumference of the wheel and the
  surface of the rail; and the third being the resistance of gravity.

  "The amount of friction and gravity he accurately ascertained; but
  the rolling resistance was a matter of greater difficulty, for it
  was subject to great variation. He, however, satisfied himself
  that it was so great, when the surface presented to the wheel was
  of a rough character, that the idea of working steam-carriages
  economically on common roads was out of the question. Even so early
  as the period alluded to he brought his theoretical calculations to
  a practical test; he scattered sand upon the rails when an engine
  was running, and found that a small quantity was quite sufficient
  to retard and even stop the most powerful locomotive engine that he
  had at that time made. And he never failed to urge this conclusive
  experiment upon the attention of those who were wasting their money
  and time upon the vain attempt to apply steam to common roads.

  "The following were the principal arguments which influenced his
  mind to work out the use of the locomotive in a directly opposite
  course to that pursued by a number of ingenious inventors, who,
  between 1820 and 1836, were engaged in attempting to apply
  steam-power to turnpike roads. Having ascertained that resistance
  might be taken as represented by 10 lbs. to a ton weight on a level
  railway, it became obvious to him that so small a rise as 1 in 100
  would diminish the useful effort of a locomotive by upward of fifty
  per cent. This fact called my father's attention to the question of
  gradients in future locomotive lines. He then became convinced of
  the vital importance, in an economical point of view, of reducing
  the country through which a railway was intended to pass to as near
  a level as possible. This originated in his mind the distinctive
  character of railway works as contradistinguished from all other
  roads; for in railroads he early contended that large sums would be
  wisely expended in perforating barriers of hills with long tunnels,
  and in raising low ground with the excess cut down from the
  adjacent high ground. In proportion as these views fixed themselves
  upon his mind, and were corroborated by his daily experience, he
  became more and more convinced of the hopelessness of applying
  steam locomotion to common roads; for every argument in favor of a
  level railway was an argument against the rough and hilly course
  of a common road. He never ceased to urge upon the patrons of road
  steam-carriages that if, by any amount of ingenuity, an engine
  could be made which could by possibility traverse a turnpike road
  at a speed at least equal to that obtainable by horse-power, and at
  a less cost, such an engine, if applied to the more perfect surface
  of a railway, would have its efficiency enormously enhanced. For
  instance, he calculated that if an engine had been constructed, and
  had been found to travel uniformly between London and Birmingham
  at an average speed of 10 miles an hour--conveying, say, 20 or
  30 passengers at a cost of 1_s_. per mile, it was clear that the
  same engine, if applied to a railway, instead of conveying 20 or
  30 people, would have conveyed 200 or 300 people, and instead of a
  speed of 10 or 12 miles an hour, a speed of at least 30 to 40 miles
  an hour would have been obtained."

At this day it is difficult to understand how the sagacious and
strong common-sense views of Stephenson on this subject failed to
force themselves sooner upon the minds of those who were persisting
in their vain though ingenious attempts to apply locomotive power to
ordinary roads. For a long time they continued to hold with obstinate
perseverance to the belief that for such purposes a soft road was
better than a hard one--a road easily crushed better than one incapable
of being crushed; and they held to this after it had been demonstrated
in all parts of the mining districts that iron tram-ways were better
than paved roads. But the fallacy that iron was incapable of adhesion
upon iron continued to prevail, and the projectors of steam-traveling
on common roads only shared in the common belief. They still considered
that roughness of surface was essential to produce "bite," especially
in surmounting acclivities; the truth being that they confounded
roughness of surface with tenacity of surface and contact of parts,
not perceiving that a yielding surface which would adapt itself to the
tread of the wheel could never become an unyielding surface to form a
fulcrum for its progression.

Although Stephenson's locomotive engines were in daily use for
many years on the Killingworth Railway, they excited comparatively
little interest. They were no longer experimental, but had become an
established tractive power. The experience of years had proved that
they worked more steadily, drew heavier loads, and were, on the whole,
considerably more economical than horses. Nevertheless, eight years
passed before another locomotive railway was constructed and opened for
the purposes of coal or other traffic.

It is difficult to account for this early indifference on the part of
the public to the merits of the greatest mechanical invention of the
age. Steam-carriages were exciting much interest, and numerous and
repeated experiments were made with them. The improvements effected
by M'Adam in the mode of constructing turnpike roads were the subject
of frequent discussions in the Legislature, on the grants of public
money being proposed, which were from time to time made to him. Yet
here at Killingworth, without the aid of a farthing of government
money, a system of road locomotion had been in existence since 1814,
which was destined, before many years, to revolutionize the internal
communications of England and of the world, but of which the English
public and the English government as yet knew nothing.

But Stephenson had no means of bringing his important invention
prominently under the notice of the public. He himself knew well its
importance, and he already anticipated its eventual general adoption;
but, being an unlettered man, he could not give utterance to the
thoughts which brooded within him on the subject. Killingworth Colliery
lay far from London, the centre of scientific life in England. It was
visited by no savans nor literary men, who might have succeeded in
introducing to notice the wonderful machine of Stephenson. Even the
local chroniclers seem to have taken no notice of the Killingworth
Railway. The "Puffing Billy" was doing its daily quota of hard work,
and had long ceased to be a curiosity in the neighborhood. Blenkinsop's
clumsier and less successful engine--which has long since been
disused, while Stephenson's Killingworth engines continue working to
this day--excited far more interest, partly, perhaps, because it was
close to the large town of Leeds, and used to be visited by strangers
as one of the few objects of interest in that place. Blenkinsop was
also an educated man, and was in communication with some of the most
distinguished personages of his day on the subject of his locomotive,
which thus obtained considerable celebrity.

The first engine constructed by Stephenson to order, after the
Killingworth model, was made for the Duke of Portland in 1817, for use
upon his tram-road, about ten miles long, extending from Kilmarnock
to Troon, in Ayrshire. It was employed to haul the coals from the
duke's collieries along the line to Troon harbor. Its use was,
however, discontinued in consequence of the frequent breakages of the
cast-iron rails, by which the working of the line was interrupted, and
accordingly horses were again employed as before.[50]

There seemed, indeed, to be so small a prospect of introducing the
locomotive into general use, that Stephenson--perhaps conscious of the
capabilities within him--again recurred to his old idea of emigrating
to the United States. Before entering as sleeping partner in a small
foundery at Forth Banks, Newcastle, managed by Mr. John Burrell, he
had thrown out the suggestion to the latter that it would be a good
speculation for them to emigrate to North America, and introduce
steam-boats on the great inland lakes there. The first steamers were
then plying upon the Tyne before his eyes, and he saw in them the
germ of a great revolution in navigation. It occurred to him that the
great lakes of North America presented the finest field for trying
their wonderful powers. He was an engineer, and Mr. Burrell was an
iron-founder; and between them, he thought they might strike out a path
to fortune in the mighty West. Fortunately, this idea remained a mere
speculation so far as Stephenson was concerned, and it was left to
others to do what he had dreamed of achieving. After all his patient
waiting, his skill, industry, and perseverance were at length about to
bear fruit.

In 1819, the owners of the Hetton Colliery, in the county of Durham,
determined to have their wagon-way altered to a locomotive railroad.
The result of the working of the Killingworth Railway had been so
satisfactory that they resolved to adopt the same system. One reason
why an experiment so long continued and so successful as that at
Killingworth should have been so slow in producing results perhaps was,
that to lay down a railway and furnish it with locomotives, or fixed
engines where necessary, required a very large capital, beyond the
means of ordinary coal-owners; while the small amount of interest felt
in railways by the general public, and the supposed impracticability
of working them to a profit, as yet prevented the ordinary capitalists
from venturing their money in the promotion of such undertakings. The
Hetton Coal Company were, however, possessed of adequate means, and
the local reputation of the Killingworth engine-wright pointed him
out as the man best calculated to lay out their line and superintend
their works. They accordingly invited him to act as the engineer of the
proposed railway. Being in the service of the Killingworth Company,
Stephenson felt it necessary to obtain their permission to enter upon
this new work. This was at once granted. The best feeling existed
between him and his employers, and they regarded it as a compliment
that their colliery engineer should be selected for a work so important
as the laying down of the Hetton Railway, which was to be the longest
locomotive line that had, up to that time, been constructed in the
neighborhood. Stephenson accepted the appointment, his brother Robert
acting as resident engineer and personally superintending the execution
of the works.

The Hetton Railway extended from the Hetton Colliery, situated about
two miles south of Houghton-le-Spring, to the ship-places on the banks
of the Wear, near Sunderland. Its length was about eight miles; and
in its course it crossed Warden Law, one of the highest hills in the
district. The character of the country forbade the construction of
a flat line, or one of comparatively easy gradients, except by the
expenditure of a much larger capital than was placed at Stephenson's
command. Heavy works could not be executed; it was therefore
necessary to form the line with but little deviation from the natural
conformation of the district which it traversed, and also to adapt the
mechanical methods employed for its working to the character of the
gradients, which in some places were necessarily heavy.

Although George Stephenson had, with every step made toward its
increased utility, become more and more identified with the success
of the locomotive engine, he did not allow his enthusiasm to carry
him away into costly mistakes. He carefully drew the line between the
cases in which the locomotive could be usefully employed and those
in which stationary engines were calculated to be more economical.
This led him, as in the instance of the Hetton Railway, to execute
lines through and over rough countries, where gradients within the
powers of the locomotive engine of that day could not be secured,
employing in their stead stationary engines where locomotives were not
practicable. In the present case, this course was adopted by him most
successfully. On the original Hetton line there were five self-acting
inclines--the full wagons drawing the empty ones up--and two inclines
worked by fixed reciprocating engines of sixty-horse power each. The
locomotive traveling engine, or "the iron horse," as the people of
the neighborhood then styled it, worked the rest of the line. On the
day of the opening of the Hetton Railway, the 18th of November, 1822,
crowds of spectators assembled from all parts to witness the first
operations of this ingenious and powerful machinery, which was entirely
successful. On that day five of Stephenson's locomotives were at work
upon the railway, under the direction of his brother Robert; and the
first shipment of coal was then made by the Hetton Company at their new
staiths on the Wear. The speed at which the locomotives traveled was
about four miles an hour, and each engine dragged after it a train of
seventeen wagons weighing about sixty-four tons.

While thus advancing step by step--attending to the business of the
Killingworth Colliery, and laying out railways in the neighborhood--he
was carefully watching over the education of his son. We have already
seen that Robert was sent to school at Newcastle, where he remained
about four years. While Robert was at school, his father, as usual,
made his son's education instrumental to his own. He entered him a
member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Institute, the
subscription to which was three guineas a year. Robert spent much of
his leisure hours there, reading and studying; and when he went home
in the afternoons, he was accustomed to carry home with him a volume
of the "Repertory of Arts and Sciences," or of some work on practical
science, which furnished the subject of interesting reading and
discussion in the evening hours. Both father and son were always ready
to acknowledge the great advantages they had derived from the use of so
excellent a library of books; and, toward the close of his life, the
latter, in recognition of his debt of gratitude to the institution,
contributed a large sum for the purpose of clearing off the debt, but
conditional on the annual subscription being reduced to a guinea, in
order that the usefulness of the Institute might be extended.

Robert left school in the summer of 1819, and was put apprentice to
Mr. Nicholas Wood, the head viewer at Killingworth, to learn the
business of the colliery. He served in that capacity for about three
years, during which time he became familiar with most departments of
underground work. His occupation was not unattended with peril, as
the following incident will show. Though the use of the Geordy lamp
had become general in the Killingworth pits, and the workmen were
bound, under a penalty of half a crown, not to use a naked candle, it
was difficult to enforce the rule, and even the masters themselves
occasionally broke it. One day Nicholas Wood, the head viewer, Moodie,
the under viewer, and Robert Stephenson, were proceeding along one
of the galleries, Wood with a naked candle in his hand, and Robert
following him with a lamp. They came to a place where a fall of stones
from the roof had taken place, on which Wood, who was first, proceeded
to clamber over the stones, holding high the naked candle. He had
nearly reached the summit of the heap, when the fire-damp, which had
accumulated in the hollow of the roof, exploded, and instantly the
whole party were blown down, and the lights extinguished. They were a
mile from the shaft, and quite in the dark. There was a rush of the
work-people from all quarters toward the shaft, for it was feared
that the fire might extend to more dangerous parts of the pit, where,
if the gas had exploded, every soul in the mine must inevitably have
perished. Robert Stephenson and Moodie, on the first impulse, ran back
at full speed along the dark gallery leading to the shaft, coming into
collision, on their way, with the hind quarters of a horse stunned
by the explosion. When they had gone half way, Moodie halted, and
bethought him of Nicholas Wood. "Stop, laddie!" said he to Robert,
"stop; we maun gang back and seek the maister." So they retraced
their steps. Happily, no farther explosion took place. They found the
master lying on the heap of stones, stunned and bruised, with his
hands severely burnt. They led him to the bottom of the shaft; and he
afterward took care not to venture into the dangerous parts of the mine
without the protection of a Geordy lamp.

The time that Robert spent at Killingworth as viewer's apprentice
was of advantage both to his father and himself. The evenings were
generally devoted to reading and study, the two from this time working
together as friends and co-laborers. One who used to drop in at the
cottage of an evening well remembers the animated and eager discussions
which on some occasions took place, more especially with reference
to the growing powers of the locomotive engine. The son was even more
enthusiastic than his father on the subject. Robert would suggest
numerous alterations and improvements in detail. His father, on the
contrary, would offer every possible objection, defending the existing
arrangements--proud, nevertheless, of his son's suggestions, and often
warmed and excited by his brilliant anticipations of the ultimate
triumph of the locomotive.

These discussions probably had considerable influence in inducing
Stephenson to take the next important step in the education of his
son. Although Robert, who was only nineteen years of age, was doing
well, and was certain, at the expiration of his apprenticeship, to
rise to a higher position, his father was not satisfied with the
amount of instruction which he had as yet given him. Remembering the
disadvantages under which he had himself labored through his ignorance
of practical chemistry during his investigations connected with the
safety-lamp, more especially with reference to the properties of
gas, as well as in the course of his experiments with the object of
improving the locomotive engine, he determined to furnish his son
with a better scientific culture than he had yet attained. He also
believed that a proper training in technical science was indispensable
to success in the higher walks of the engineer's profession, and he
determined to give Robert the education, in a certain degree, which he
so much desired for himself. He would thus, he knew, secure an able
co-worker in the elaboration of the great ideas now looming before him,
and with their united practical and scientific knowledge he probably
felt that they would be equal to any enterprise.

He accordingly took Robert from his labors as under viewer in the
West Moor Pit, and in October, 1822, sent him for a short course
of instruction to the Edinburg University. Robert was furnished
with letters of introduction to several men of literary eminence in
Edinburg, his father's reputation in connection with the safety-lamp
being of service to him in this respect. He lodged in Drummond Street,
in the immediate vicinity of the college, and attended the Chemical
Lectures of Dr. Hope, the Natural Philosophy Lectures of Sir John
Leslie, and the Natural History Class of Professor Jameson. He also
devoted several evenings in each week to the study of practical
Chemistry under Dr. John Murray, himself one of the numerous designers
of a safety-lamp. He took careful notes of the lectures, which he
copied out at night before he went to bed, so that, when he returned to
Killingworth, he might read them over to his father. He afterward had
the notes bound up and placed in his library.

Long years after, when conversing with Thomas Harrison, C.E., at his
house in Gloucester Square, he rose from his seat and took down a
volume from the shelves. Mr. Harrison observed that the book was in
MS., neatly written out. "What have we here?" he asked. The answer
was, "When I went to college, I knew the difficulty my father had
in collecting the funds to send me there. Before going I studied
short-hand; while at Edinburg I took down verbatim every lecture; and
in the evenings, before I went to bed, I transcribed those lectures
word for word. You see the result in that range of books." From this
it will be observed that the maxim of "Like father, like son," was one
that strictly applied to the Stephensons.

Robert was not without the pleasure of social intercourse either during
his stay at Edinburg. Among the letters of introduction which he took
with him was one to Robert Bald, the mining engineer, which proved of
much service to him. "I remember Mr. Bald very well," he said on one
occasion, when recounting his reminiscences of his Edinburg college
life. "He introduced me to Dr. Hope, Dr. Murray, and several of the
distinguished men of the North. Bald was the Buddle of Scotland. He
knew my father from having visited the pits at Killingworth, with
the object of describing the system of working them in his article
intended for the 'Edinburg Encyclopædia.' A strange adventure befell
that article before it appeared in print. Bald was living at Alloa when
he wrote it, and when finished he sent it to Edinburg by the hands of
young Maxton, his nephew, whom he enjoined to take special care of
it, and deliver it safely into the hands of the editor. The young man
took passage for New Haven by one of the little steamers which then
plied on the Forth; but on the voyage down the Firth she struck upon a
rock nearly opposite Queen's Ferry, and soon sank. When the accident
happened, Maxton's whole concern was about his uncle's article. He
durst not return to Alloa if he lost it, and he must not go on to
Edinburg without it. So he desperately clung to the chimney chains
with the paper parcel under his arm, while most of the other passengers
were washed away and drowned. And there he continued to cling until
rescued by some boatmen, parcel and all, after which he made his way to
Edinburg, and the article duly appeared."

Returning to the subject of his life in Edinburg, Robert continued:
"Besides taking me with him to the meetings of the Royal and other
societies, Mr. Bald introduced me to a very agreeable family, relatives
of his own, at whose house I spent many pleasant evenings. It was
there I met Jeannie M----. She was a bonnie lass, and I, being young
and susceptible, fairly fell in love with her. But, like most very
early attachments, mine proved evanescent. Years passed, and I had
all but forgotten Jeannie, when one day I received a letter from her,
from which it appeared that she was in great distress through the ruin
of her relatives. I sent her a sum of money, and continued to do so
for several years; but the last remittance not being acknowledged, I
directed my friend Sanderson to make inquiries. I afterward found that
the money had reached her at Portobello just as she was dying, and so,
poor thing, she had been unable to acknowledge it."

One of the practical sciences in the study of which Robert Stephenson
took special interest while at Edinburg was that of geology. The
situation of the city, in the midst of a district of highly interesting
geological formation, easily accessible to pedestrians, is indeed most
favorable to the pursuit of such a study; and it was the practice of
Professor Jameson frequently to head a band of his pupils, armed with
hammers, chisels, and clinometers, and take them with him on a long
ramble into the country, for the purpose of teaching them habits of
observation, and reading to them from the open book of Nature itself.
The professor was habitually grave and taciturn, but on such occasions
he would relax and even become genial. For his own special science he
had an almost engrossing enthusiasm, which on such occasions he did not
fail to inspire into his pupils, who thus not only got their knowledge
in the pleasantest possible way, but also fresh air and exercise in the
midst of glorious scenery and in joyous company.

At the close of this session, the professor took with him a select body
of his pupils on an excursion along the Great Glen of the Highlands,
in the line of the Caledonian Canal, and Robert formed one of the
party. They passed under the shadow of Ben Nevis, examined the famous
old sea-margins known as the "parallel roads of Glen Roy," and extended
their journey as far as Inverness, the professor teaching the young
men, as they traveled, how to observe in a mountain country. Not long
before his death, Robert Stephenson spoke in glowing terms of the
great pleasure and benefit which he had derived from that interesting
excursion. "I have traveled far, and enjoyed much," he said, "but that
delightful botanical and geological tour I shall never forget; and I am
just about to start in the _Titania_ for a trip round the east coast
of Scotland, returning south through the Caledonian Canal, to refresh
myself with the recollection of that first and brightest tour of my
life."

Toward the end of the summer the young student returned to Killingworth
to re-enter upon the active business of life. The six months' study
had cost his father £80--a considerable sum to him in those days; but
he was amply repaid by the additional scientific culture which his son
had acquired, and the evidence of ability and industry which he was
enabled to exhibit in a prize for mathematics which he had won at the
University.

[Illustration: WEST MOOR PIT, KILLINGWORTH.]

We may here add that by this time George Stephenson, after remaining
a widower fourteen years, had married, in 1820, his second wife,
Elizabeth Hindmarsh, the daughter of a respectable farmer at Black
Callerton. She was a woman of excellent character, sensible, and
intelligent, and of a kindly and affectionate nature. George's son
Robert, whom she loved as if he had been her own, to the last day of
his life spoke of her in the highest terms; and it is unquestionable
that she contributed in no small degree to the happiness of her
husband's home.

The story was for some time current that, while living at Black
Callerton in the capacity of engine-man, twenty years before, George
had made love to Miss Hindmarsh, and, failing to obtain her hand, in
despair he had married Paterson's servant. But the author has been
assured by Mr. Thomas Hindmarsh, of Newcastle, the lady's brother, that
the story was mere idle gossip, and altogether without foundation.

FOOTNOTE:

[50] The iron wheels of this engine were afterward removed, and
replaced with wooden wheels, when it was again put upon the road, and
continued working until quite recently. Its original cost was £750. It
was sold in 1848 for £13, and broken up as old materials.



CHAPTER VIII.

GEORGE STEPHENSON ENGINEER OF THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY.


It is not improbable that the slow progress made by railways in public
estimation was, in a considerable measure, due to the comparative want
of success which had attended the first projects. We do not refer
to the tram-roads and railroads which connected the collieries and
iron-works with the shipping-places. These were found convenient and
economical, and their use became general in Durham and Northumberland,
in South Wales, in Scotland, and throughout the colliery districts.
But none of these were public railways. Though the Merthyr Tydvil
Tram-road, the Sirhoway Railroad, and others in South Wales, were
constructed under the powers of special acts,[51] they were exclusively
used for the private purposes of the coal-owners and iron-masters at
whose expense they were made.

The first _public_ Railway Act was that passed in 1801, authorizing the
construction of a line from Wandsworth to Croydon, under the name of
"The Surrey Iron Railway." By a subsequent act, powers were obtained
to extend the line to Reigate, with a branch to Godstone. The object
of this railway was to furnish a more ready means for the transport of
coal and merchandise from the Thames to the districts of south London,
and at the same time to enable the lime-burners and proprietors of
stone-quarries to send the lime and stone to London. With this object,
the railroad was connected with a dock or basin in Wandsworth Creek
capable of containing thirty barges, with an entrance lock into the
Thames.

The works had scarcely been commenced ere the company got into
difficulties, but eventually 26 miles of iron-way were constructed
and opened for traffic. Any person was then at liberty to put wagons
on the line, and to carry goods within the prescribed rates, the
wagons being worked by horses, mules, and donkeys. Notwithstanding the
very sanguine expectations which were early formed as to the paying
qualities of this railway, it never realized any adequate profit to
the owners. But it continued to be worked, principally by donkeys for
the sake of cheapness, down to the passing of the act for constructing
the London and Brighton line in 1837, when the proprietors disposed
of their undertaking to the new company. The line was accordingly
dismantled; the stone blocks and rails were taken up and sold; and all
that remains of the Wandsworth, Croydon, and Merstham Railway is the
track still observable to the south of Croydon, along Smitham Bottom,
nearly parallel with the line of the present Brighton Railway, and an
occasional cutting and embankment, which still mark the route of this
first public railway.

The want of success of this undertaking doubtless had the effect of
deterring projectors from embarking in any similar enterprise. If
a line of the sort could not succeed near London, it was thought
improbable that it should succeed any where else. The Croydon and
Merstham line was a beacon to warn capitalists against embarking in
railways, and many years passed before another was ventured upon.

Sir Richard Phillips was one of the few who early recognized the
important uses of the locomotive and its employment on a large scale
for the haulage of goods and passengers by railway. In his "Morning
Walk to Kew" he crossed the line of the Wandsworth and Croydon Railway,
when the idea seems to have occurred to him, as it afterwards did to
Thomas Gray, that in the locomotive and the railway were to be found
the germs of a great and peaceful social revolution:

  "I found delight," said Sir Richard, in his book published in
  1813, "in witnessing at Wandsworth the economy of horse labor on
  the iron railway. Yet a heavy sigh escaped me as I thought of the
  inconceivable millions of money which have been spent about Malta,
  four or five of which might have been the means of extending double
  lines of iron railway from London to Edinburg, Glasgow, Holyhead,
  Milford, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dover, and Portsmouth. A reward of a
  single thousand would have supplied coaches and other vehicles, of
  various degrees of speed, with the best tackle for readily turning
  out; and we might, ere this, have witnessed our mail-coaches
  running at the rate of ten miles an hour drawn by a single horse,
  or impelled fifteen miles an hour by Blenkinsop's steam-engine.
  Such would have been a legitimate motive for over-stepping the
  income of a nation, and the completion of so great and useful a
  work would have afforded rational ground for public triumph in
  general jubilee."

There was, however, as yet, no general recognition of the advantages
either of railways or locomotives. The government of this country never
leads in any work of public enterprise, and is usually rather a drag
upon industrial operations than otherwise. As for the general public,
it was enough for them that the Wandsworth and Croydon Railway did not
pay.

Mr. Tredgold, in his "Practical Treatise on Railroads and Carriages,"
published in 1825, observes:

  "Up to this period railways have been employed with success only in
  the conveyance of heavy mineral products, and for short distances
  where immense quantities were to be conveyed. In the few instances
  where they have been intended for the general purposes of trade,
  they have never answered the expectations of their projectors. But
  this seems to have arisen altogether from following too closely
  the models adopted for the conveyance of minerals, such modes of
  forming and using railways not being at all adapted for the general
  purposes of trade."

The ill success of railways was generally recognized. Joint-stock
companies for all sorts of purposes were formed during the joint-stock
mania of 1821, but few projectors were found daring enough to propose
schemes so unpromising as railways. Hence nearly twenty years passed
between the construction of the first and the second public railway
in England; and this brings us to the projection of the Stockton and
Darlington, which may be regarded as the parent public locomotive
railway in the kingdom.

The district lying to the west of Darlington, in the county of Durham,
is one of the richest mineral fields of the North. Vast stores of
coal underlie the Bishop Auckland Valley, and from an early period
it was felt to be an exceedingly desirable object to open up new
communications to enable the article to be sent to market. But the
district lay a long way from the sea, and, the Tees being unnavigable,
there was next to no vend for the Bishop Auckland coal.

It is easy to understand, therefore, how the desire to obtain an outlet
for this coal for land sale, as well as for its transport to London by
sea, should have early occupied the attention of the coal-owners in
the Bishop Auckland district. The first idea that found favor was the
construction of a canal. About a century ago, in 1766, shortly after
the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal had been opened between Worsley and
Manchester, a movement was set on foot at Darlington with the view of
having the country surveyed between that place and Stockton-on-Tees.

Brindley was requested to lay out the proposed line of canal; but
he was engrossed at the time by the prosecution of the works on the
Duke's Canal to Liverpool, and Whitworth, his pupil and assistant,
was employed in his stead; George Dixon, grandfather of John Dixon,
engineer of the future Stockton and Darlington Railway, taking an
active part in the survey. In October, 1768, Whitworth presented his
plan of the proposed canal from Stockton by Darlington to Winston, and
in the following year, to give weight to the scheme, Brindley concurred
with him in a joint report as to the plan and estimate.

Nothing was, however, done in the matter. Enterprise was slow to move.
Stockton waited for Darlington, and Darlington waited for Stockton,
but neither stirred until twenty years later, when Stockton began to
consider the propriety of straightening the Tees below that town, and
thereby shortening and improving the navigation. When it became known
that some engineering scheme was afoot at Stockton, that indefatigable
writer of prospectuses and drawer of plans, Ralph Dodd, the first
projector of a tunnel under the Thames, the first projector of the
Waterloo Bridge, and the first to bring a steam-boat from Glasgow into
the Thames, addressed the Mayor and Corporation of Stockton in 1796 on
the propriety of forming a line of internal navigation by Darlington
and Staindrop to Winston. Still nothing was done. Four years later,
another engineer, George Atkinson, reported in favor of a water-way to
connect the then projected Great Trunk Canal, from about Boroughbridge
to Piersebridge, with the Tees above Yarm.

At length, in 1808, the Tees Navigation Company, slow in their
movements, obtained an act enabling them to make the short cut
projected seventeen years before, and two years later the cut was
opened, and celebrated by the inevitable dinner. The Stockton people,
who adopted as the motto of their company "Meliora speramus," held
a public meeting after the dinner to meditate upon and discuss the
better things to come. They appointed a committee to inquire into
the practicability and advantages of forming _a railway_ or canal
from Stockton by Darlington to Winston. Here, then, in 1810, we have
the first glimpse of the railway; but it was long before the idea
germinated and bore fruit. The collieries must be got at to make the
new cut a success, but _how_ for a long time remained the question.

Sixteen months passed, and the committee at Stockton went to sleep. But
it came up again, and this time at Darlington, with Edward Pease as one
of the members. The Darlington committee met and made their report, but
they could not decide between the respective merits of a railroad and a
canal. It was felt that either would be of great advantage. To settle
the question, they determined to call the celebrated engineer, John
Rennie, to their aid, and he was ready with his report in 1813. His
report was not published, but it is understood that he was in favor of
a canal on Brindley and Whitworth's line, though he afterward inclined
to a tram-road. Still nothing was done. War was on foot in Europe, and
enterprise was every where dormant. The scheme must therefore wait the
advent of peace. At length peace came, and with it a revival of former
projects.

At Newcastle, a plan was set on foot for connecting the Tyne with the
Solway Firth by a canal. A county meeting was held on the subject in
August, 1817, under the presidency of the high sheriff. Previous to
this time, Sir John Swinburne had stood up for a railway in preference
to a canal; but when the meeting took place, the opinion of those
present was in favor of a canal--Mr. William Armstrong (father of
the present Sir William) being one of the most zealous advocates of
the water-road. Yet there were even then railroads in the immediate
neighborhood of Newcastle, at Wylam and Killingworth, which had been
successfully and economically worked by the locomotive for years past,
but which the Northumbrians seem completely to have ignored. The
public head is usually very thick, and it is difficult to hammer a new
idea into it. Canals were established methods of conveyance, and were
every where recognized; whereas railways were new things, and were
struggling hard to gain a footing. Besides, the only public railway in
England, the Wandsworth, Croydon, and Merstham, had proved a commercial
failure, and was held up as a warning to all speculators in tram-ways.
But, though the Newcastle meeting approved of a canal in preference
to a railway from the Tyne to the Solway, nothing was really done to
promote the formation of either.

The movement in favor of a canal was again revived at Stockton. A
requisition, very numerously signed by persons of influence in South
Durham, was presented to the Mayor of Stockton in May, 1818, requesting
him to convene a public meeting "to consider the expediency of forming
a canal for the conveyance of coal, lime, etc., from Evenwood Bridge,
near West Auckland, to the River Tees, upon a plan recently made by Mr.
George Leatham, engineer." Among the names attached to the petition
we find those of Edward, John, and Thomas Pease, and John Dixon,
Darlington. They were doubtless willing to pull with any party that
would open up a way, whether by rail or by water, between the Bishop
Auckland coal-field and Stockton, whether the line passed through
Darlington or not.

An enthusiastic meeting was held at Stockton, and a committee was
appointed, by whom it was resolved to apply to Parliament for an act
to make the intended canal "if funds are forthcoming." Never was there
greater virtue in an _if_. Funds were _not_ forthcoming; the project
fell through, and a great blunder was prevented. When the Stockton men
had discussed and resolved without any practical result, the leading
men of Darlington took up the subject by themselves, determined, if
possible, to bring it to some practical issue. In September, 1818,
they met under the presidency of Thomas Meynell, Esq. Mr. Overton,
who had laid down several coal railways in Wales, was consulted, and,
after surveying the district between the Bishop Auckland coal-field
and the Tees, sent in his report. Mr. Rennie also was again consulted.
Both engineers gave their opinion in favor of a railway by Darlington
in preference to a canal by Auckland, "whether taken as a line for
the exportation of coal or as one for a local trade." The committee
accordingly reported in favor of the railway.

It is curious now to look back at the modest estimate of traffic formed
by the committee. They considered that the export trade in coal "might
be taken, perhaps, at 10,000 tons a year, which is about one cargo a
week!" It was intended to haul the coal by horse-power; a subsequent
report stating "on undoubted authority" that one horse of moderate
power could easily draw downward on the railway, between Darlington
and Stockton, about ten tons, and upward about four tons of loading,
exclusively of the empty wagons. No allusion was made to passengers
in any of the reports; nor did the committee at first contemplate the
accommodation of traffic of this description.

A survey of the line was then ordered, and steps were taken to apply
to Parliament for the necessary powers to construct the railway. But
the controversy was not yet at an end. Stockton stood by its favorite
project of a canal, and would not subscribe a farthing toward the
projected railway; but neither did it subscribe toward the canal.
The landlords, the road trustees, the carriers, the proprietors of
donkeys (by whom coals were principally carried for inland sale), were
strenuously opposed to the new project; while the general public,
stupid and skeptical, for the most part stood aloof, quoting old saws
and keeping their money in their pockets.

Several energetic men, however, were now at the head of the Stockton
and Darlington Railway project, and determined to persevere with it.
Among these, the Peases were the most zealous. Edward Pease might be
regarded as the back-bone of the concern. Opposition did not daunt him,
nor failure discourage him. When apparently overthrown and prostrate,
he would rise again like Antæus, stronger than before, and renew his
efforts with increased vigor. He had in him the energy and perseverance
of many men. One who knew him in 1818 said, "He was a man who could see
a hundred years ahead." When the author last saw him in 1854, a few
years before his death, Mr. Pease was in his eighty-eighth year; yet he
still possessed the hopefulness and mental vigor of a man in his prime.
Still sound in health, his eye had not lost its brilliancy, nor his
cheek its color, and there was an elasticity in his step which younger
men might have envied.

[Illustration: EDWARD PEASE.]

In getting up a company for surveying and forming a railway, Mr. Pease
had great difficulties to encounter. The people of the neighborhood
spoke of it as a ridiculous undertaking, and predicted that it would
be ruinous to all concerned in it. Even those most interested in the
opening up of new markets for the sale of their coal were indifferent,
if not hostile. Mr. Pease nevertheless persevered in the formation of
a company, and he induced many of his friends and relations to follow
his example. The Richardsons and Backhouses, members, like himself, of
the Society of Friends, influenced by his persuasion, united themselves
with him; and so many of the same denomination (having confidence
in these influential Darlington names) followed their example and
subscribed for shares, that the railway obtained the designation, which
it long retained, of "The Quakers' Line."

The Stockton and Darlington scheme had to run the gauntlet of a fierce
opposition in three successive sessions of Parliament. The application
of 1818 was defeated by the Duke of Cleveland, who afterward profited
so largely by the railway. The ground of his opposition was that the
line would interfere with one of his fox-covers, and it was mainly
through his influence that the bill was thrown out, but only by a
majority of thirteen, upward of one hundred members having voted for
the bill. A nobleman said, when he heard of the division, "Well, if the
Quakers in these times, when nobody knows any thing about railways, can
raise such a phalanx in their support, I should recommend the country
gentlemen to be very wary how they oppose them in future."

The next year, in 1819, an amended survey of the line was made, and,
the duke's fox-cover being avoided, his opposition was thus averted;
but, on Parliament becoming dissolved on the death of George III., the
bill was necessarily suspended until another session.

In the mean time the local opposition to the measure revived, and
now it was led by the road trustees, who spread it abroad that the
mortgagees of the tolls arising from the turnpike-road leading from
Darlington to West Auckland would be seriously injured by the formation
of the proposed railway. On this, Edward Pease issued a printed notice,
requesting any alarmed mortgagee to apply to the company's solicitors
at Darlington, who were authorized to purchase their securities at
the prices originally given for them. This notice had the effect of
allaying the alarm spread abroad; and the bill, though still strongly
opposed, passed both houses of Parliament in 1821.

[Illustration: MAP OF STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY.]

The preamble of the act sets forth the public utility of the proposed
line for the conveyance of coal and other commodities from the
interior of the county of Durham to Stockton and the northern parts of
Yorkshire. Nothing was said about passengers, for passenger-traffic
was not yet contemplated; and nothing was said about locomotives, as
it was at first intended to work the line entirely by horse-power. The
road was to be free to all persons who chose to place their wagons and
horses upon it for the haulage of coal and merchandise, provided they
paid the tolls fixed by the act.

The company were empowered to charge fourpence a ton per mile for
all coal intended for land sale, but only a halfpenny a ton per mile
for coal intended for shipment at Stockton. This latter proviso was
inserted at the instance of Mr. Lambton, afterward Earl of Durham, for
the express purpose of preventing the line being used in competition
against his coal loaded at Sunderland; for it was not believed possible
that coal could be carried at that low rate except at a heavy loss. As
it was, however, the rate thus fixed by the act eventually proved the
vital element of success in the working of the undertaking.

While the Stockton and Darlington Railway scheme was still before
Parliament, we find Edward Pease writing letters to a York paper,
urging the propriety of extending it southward into Yorkshire by a
branch from Croft. It is curious now to look back upon the arguments
by which Mr. Pease sought to influence public opinion in favor of
railways, and to observe the very modest anticipations which even its
most zealous advocate entertained as to their supposed utility and
capabilities:

  "The late improvements in the construction of railways," Mr. Pease
  wrote, "have rendered them much more perfect than when constructed
  after the old plan. To such a degree of utility have they now been
  brought that they may be regarded as _very little inferior to
  canals_.

  "If we compare the railway with the best lines of common road, it
  may be fairly stated that in the case of a level railway the work
  will be increased in at least an eightfold degree. The best horse
  is sufficiently loaded with three quarters of a ton on a common
  road, from the undulating line of its draught, while on a railway
  it is calculated that a horse will easily draw a load of ten tons.
  At Lord Elgin's works, Mr. Stevenson, the celebrated engineer,
  states that he has actually seen a horse draw twenty-three tons
  thirteen cwt. upon a railway which was in some parts level, and at
  other parts presented a gentle declivity!

  "The formation of a railway, if it creates no improvement in
  a country, certainly bars none, as all the former modes of
  communication remain unimpaired; and the public obtain, at the risk
  of the subscribers, another and better mode of carriage, which it
  will always be to the interest of the proprietors to make cheap and
  serviceable to the community.

  "On undertakings of this kind, when compared with canals, the
  advantages of which (where an ascending or descending line can be
  obtained) are nearly equal, it may be remarked that public opinion
  is not easily changed on any subject. It requires the experience
  of many years, sometimes ages, to accomplish this, even in cases
  which by some may be deemed obvious. Such is the effect of habit,
  and such the aversion of mankind to any thing like innovation or
  change. Although this is often regretted, yet, if the principle be
  investigated in all its ramifications, it will perhaps be found to
  be one of the most fortunate dispositions of the human mind.

  "The system of cast-iron railways is as yet to be considered but in
  its infancy. It will be found to be an immense improvement on the
  common road, and also on the wooden railway. It neither presents
  the friction of the tram-way, nor partakes of the perishable
  nature of the wooden railway, and, as regards utility, it may be
  considered as the medium between the navigable canal and the common
  road. We may therefore hope that as this system develops itself,
  our roads will be laid out as much as possible on _one level_, and
  in connection with the great lines of communication throughout the
  country."

Such were the modest anticipations of Edward Pease respecting railways
in the year 1821. Ten years later, an age of progress, by comparison,
had been effected.

Some time elapsed before any active steps were taken to proceed with
the construction of the railway. Doubts were raised whether the
line was the best that could be adopted for the district, and the
subscribers generally were not so sanguine about the undertaking as to
induce them to press it forward.

One day, about the end of the year 1821, two strangers knocked at the
door of Mr. Pease's house in Darlington, and a message was brought
to him that some persons from Killingworth wanted to speak with him.
They were invited in, on which one of the visitors introduced himself
as Nicholas Wood, viewer at Killingworth, and then turning to his
companion, he introduced him as George Stephenson, engine-wright, of
the same place.

Mr. Pease entered into conversation with his visitors, and was soon
told their object. Stephenson had heard of the passing of the Stockton
and Darlington Act, and desiring to increase his railway experience,
and also to employ in some larger field the practical knowledge he had
already acquired, he determined to visit the known projector of the
undertaking, with the view of being employed to carry it out. He had
brought with him his friend Wood for the purpose at the same time of
relieving his diffidence and supporting his application.

Mr. Pease liked the appearance of his visitor: "there was," as he
afterward remarked when speaking of Stephenson, "such an honest,
sensible look about him, and he seemed so modest and unpretending. He
spoke in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district, and described
himself as 'only the engine-wright at Killingworth; that's what he
was.'"

Mr. Pease soon saw that our engineer was the very man for his purpose.
The whole plans of the railway were still in an undetermined state,
and Mr. Pease was therefore glad to have the opportunity of profiting
by Stephenson's experience. In the course of their conversation, the
latter strongly recommended a _railway_ in preference to a tram-road.
They also discussed the kind of tractive power to be employed, Mr.
Pease stating that the company had based their whole calculations
on the employment of _horse_-power. "I was so satisfied," said he
afterward, "that a horse upon an iron road would draw ten tons for one
ton on a common road, that I felt sure that before long the railway
would become the king's highway."

But Mr. Pease was scarcely prepared for the bold assertion made
by his visitor, that the locomotive engine with which he had been
working the Killingworth Railway for many years past was worth fifty
horses, and that engines made after a similar plan would yet entirely
supersede all horse-power upon railroads. Stephenson was daily becoming
more positive as to the superiority of his locomotive, and hence he
strongly urged Mr. Pease to adopt it. "Come over to Killingworth,"
said he, "and see what my engines can do; seeing is believing, sir."
Mr. Pease accordingly promised that on some early day he would go over
to Killingworth, and take a look at the wonderful machine that was to
supersede horses.

The result of the interview was, that Mr. Pease promised to bring
Stephenson's application for the appointment of engineer before the
directors, and to support it with his influence; whereon the two
visitors prepared to take their leave, informing Mr. Pease that they
intended to return to Newcastle "by nip;" that is, they expected to get
a smuggled lift on the stage-coach by tipping Jehu--for in those days
the stage-coachmen regarded all casual roadside passengers as their
proper perquisites. They had, however, been so much engrossed by their
conversation that the lapse of time was forgotten, and when Stephenson
and his friend made inquiries about the return coach, they found the
last had left, and they had to walk eighteen miles to Durham on their
way back to Newcastle.

Mr. Pease having made farther inquiries respecting Stephenson's
character and qualifications, and having received a very strong
recommendation of him as the right man for the intended work, he
brought the subject of his application before the directors of
the Stockton and Darlington Company. They resolved to adopt his
recommendation that a railway be formed instead of a tram-road; and
they farther requested Mr. Pease to write to Stephenson, desiring him
to undertake a resurvey of the line at the earliest practicable period.

A man was dispatched on a horse with the letter, and when he reached
Killingworth he made diligent inquiry after the person named on the
address, "George Stephenson, Esquire, Engineer." No such person was
known in the village. It is said that the man was on the point of
giving up all farther search, when the happy thought struck some of the
colliers' wives who had gathered about him that it must be "Geordie the
engine-wright" the man was in search of, and to Geordie's cottage he
accordingly went, found him at home, and delivered the letter.

About the end of September Stephenson went carefully over the line of
the proposed railway for the purpose of suggesting such improvements
and deviations as he might consider desirable. He was accompanied
by an assistant and a chainman, his son Robert entering the figures
while his father took the sights. After being engaged in the work
at intervals for about six weeks, Stephenson reported the result of
his survey to the Board of Directors, and showed that, by certain
deviations, a line shorter by about three miles might be constructed at
a considerable saving in expense, while at the same time more favorable
gradients--an important consideration--would be secured.

It was, however, determined in the first place to proceed with the
works at those parts of the line where no deviation was proposed, and
the first rail of the Stockton and Darlington Railway was laid with
considerable ceremony, near Stockton, on the 23d of May, 1822.

It is worthy of note that Stephenson, in making his first estimate
of the cost of forming the railway according to the instructions of
the directors, set down, as part of the cost, £6200 for stationary
engines, not mentioning locomotives at all. It was the intention of the
directors, in the first place, to employ only horses for the haulage
of the coals, and fixed engines and ropes where horse-power was not
applicable. The whole question of steam-locomotive power was, in the
estimation of the public, as well as of practical and scientific men,
as yet in doubt. The confident anticipations of George Stephenson as
to the eventual success of locomotive engines were regarded as mere
speculations; and when he gave utterance to his views, as he frequently
took the opportunity of doing, it even had the effect of shaking the
confidence of some of his friends in the solidity of his judgment and
his practical qualities as an engineer.

When Mr. Pease discussed the question with Stephenson, his remark was,
"Come over and see my engines at Killingworth, and satisfy yourself
as to the efficiency of the locomotive. I will show you the colliery
books, that you may ascertain for yourself the actual cost of working.
And I must tell you that the economy of the locomotive engine is no
longer a matter of theory, but a matter of fact." So confident was
the tone in which Stephenson spoke of the success of his engines, and
so important were the consequences involved in arriving at a correct
conclusion on the subject, that Mr. Pease at length resolved on paying
a visit to Killingworth in the summer of 1822, in company with his
friend Thomas Richardson, a considerable subscriber to the Stockton and
Darlington undertaking,[52] to inspect the wonderful new power so much
vaunted by their engineer.

When Mr. Pease arrived at Killingworth village, he inquired for George
Stephenson, and was told that he must go over to the West Moor, and
seek for a cottage by the roadside with a dial over the door--"that
was where George Stephenson lived." They soon found the house with the
dial, and, on knocking, the door was opened by Mrs. Stephenson. In
answer to Mr. Pease's inquiry for her husband, she said he was not in
the house at present, but that she would send for him to the colliery.
And in a short time Stephenson appeared before them in his working
dress, just as he had come out of the pit.

He very soon had his locomotive brought up to the crossing close by the
end of the cottage, made the gentlemen mount it, and showed them its
paces. Harnessing it to a train of loaded wagons, he ran it along the
railroad, and so thoroughly satisfied his visitors of its power and
capabilities, that from that day Edward Pease was a declared supporter
of the locomotive engine. In preparing the Amended Stockton and
Darlington Act, at Stephenson's urgent request Mr. Pease had a clause
inserted, taking power to work the railway by means of locomotive
engines, and to employ them for the haulage of passengers as well as of
merchandise[53] The act was obtained in 1823, on which Stephenson was
appointed the company's engineer, at a salary of £300 per annum; and
it was determined that the line should be constructed and opened for
traffic as soon as practicable.

He at once proceeded, accompanied by his assistants, with the working
survey of the line, laying out every foot of the ground himself.
Railway surveying was as yet in its infancy, and was slow and difficult
work. It afterward became a separate branch of railway business,
and was intrusted to a special staff. Indeed, on no subsequent line
did George Stephenson take the sights through the spirit-level with
his own hands and eyes as he did on this railway. He started very
early--dressed in a blue tailed coat, breeches, and top-boots--and
surveyed until dusk. He was not at any time particular as to his
living; and, during the survey, he took his chance of getting a little
milk and bread at some cottager's house along the line, or occasionally
joined in a homely dinner at some neighboring farm-house. The country
people were accustomed to give him a hearty welcome when he appeared at
their door, for he was always full of cheery and homely talk, and, when
there were children about the house, he had plenty of humorous chat for
them as well as for their seniors.

After the day's work was over, George would drop in at Mr. Pease's
to talk over the progress of the survey, and discuss various matters
connected with the railway. Mr. Pease's daughters were usually present;
and, on one occasion, finding the young ladies learning the art of
embroidery, he volunteered to instruct them.[54] "I know all about it,"
said he, "and you will wonder how I learned it. I will tell you. When
I was a brakesman at Killingworth, I learned the art of embroidery
while working the pitmen's button-holes by the engine fire at nights."
He was never ashamed, but, on the contrary, rather proud, of reminding
his friends of these humble pursuits of his early life. Mr. Pease's
family were greatly pleased with his conversation, which was always
amusing and instructive; full of all sorts of experience, gathered in
the oddest and most out-of-the-way places. Even at that early period,
before he mixed in the society of educated persons, there was a dash of
speculativeness in his remarks which gave a high degree of originality
to his conversation; and he would sometimes, in a casual remark, throw
a flash of light upon a subject which called up a train of pregnant
suggestions.

One of the most important subjects of discussion at these meetings with
Mr. Pease was the establishment of a manufactory at Newcastle for the
building of locomotive engines. Up to this time all the locomotives
constructed after Stephenson's designs had been made by ordinary
mechanics working at the collieries in the North of England. But he had
long felt that the accuracy and style of their workmanship admitted
of great improvement, and that upon this the more perfect action of
the locomotive engine, and its general adoption, in a great measure
depended. One principal object that he had in view in establishing
the proposed factory was to concentrate a number of good workmen for
the purpose of carrying out the improvements in detail which he was
from time to time making in his engine; for he felt hampered by the
want of efficient help from skilled mechanics, who could work out
in a practical form the ideas of which his busy mind was always so
prolific. Doubtless, too, he believed that the manufactory would prove
a remunerative investment, and that, on the general adoption of the
railway system which he anticipated, he would derive solid advantages
from the fact of his establishment being the only one of the kind for
the special construction of locomotive engines.

Mr. Pease approved of his design, and strongly recommended him to carry
it into effect. But there was the question of means; and Stephenson
did not think he had capital enough for the purpose. He told Mr. Pease
that he could advance £1000--the amount of the testimonial presented
by the coal-owners for his safety-lamp invention, which he had still
left untouched; but he did not think this sufficient for the purpose,
and he thought that he should require at least another £1000. Mr.
Pease had been very much struck with the successful performances of
the Killingworth engine; and, being an accurate judge of character, he
believed that he could not go far wrong in linking a portion of his
fortune with the energy and industry of George Stephenson. He consulted
his friend Thomas Richardson in the matter, and the two consented to
advance £500 each for the purpose of establishing the engine factory at
Newcastle. A piece of land was accordingly purchased in Forth Street,
in August, 1823, on which a small building was erected--the nucleus of
the gigantic establishment which was afterward formed around it; and
active operations were begun early in 1824.

While the Stockton and Darlington Railway works were in progress, our
engineer had many interesting discussions with Mr. Pease on points
connected with its construction and working, the determination of
which in a great measure affected the formation and working of future
railways. The most important points were these: 1. The comparative
merits of cast and wrought iron rails. 2. The gauge of the railway. 3.
The employment of horse or engine power in working it when ready for
traffic.

The kind of rails to be laid down to form the permanent road was
a matter of considerable importance. A wooden tram-road had been
contemplated when the first act was applied for; but Stephenson having
advised that an iron road should be laid down, he was instructed to
draw up a specification of the rails. He went before the directors to
discuss with them the kind of material to be specified. He was himself
interested in the patent for cast-iron rails, which he had taken out
in conjunction with Mr. Losh in 1816, and, of course, it was to his
interest that his articles should be used. But when requested to give
his opinion on the subject, he frankly said to the directors, "Well,
gentlemen, to tell you the truth, although it would put £500 in my
pocket to specify my own patent rails, I can not do so after the
experience I have had. If you take my advice, you will not lay down a
single cast-iron rail." "Why?" asked the directors. "Because they will
not stand the weight, and you will be at no end of expense for repairs
and relays." "What kind of road, then," he was asked, "would you
recommend?" "Malleable rails, certainly," said he; "and I can recommend
them with the more confidence from the fact that at Killingworth we
have had some Swedish bars laid down--nailed to wooden sleepers--for a
period of fourteen years, the wagons passing over them daily, and there
they are, in use yet, whereas the cast rails are constantly giving
way."[55]

The price of malleable rails was, however, so high--being then worth
about £12 per ton as compared with cast-iron rails at about £5
10_s._--and the saving of expense was so important a consideration
with the subscribers, that Stephenson was directed to provide in the
specification that only one half of the rails required--or about 800
tons--should be of malleable iron, and the remainder of cast iron. The
malleable rails were of the kind called "fish-bellied," and weighed 28
lbs. to the yard, being 2-1/4 inches broad at the top, with the upper
flange 3/4 inch thick. They were only 2 inches in depth at the points
at which they rested on the chairs, and 3-1/4 inches in the middle or
bellied part.

When forming the road, the proper gauge had also to be determined. What
width was this to be? The gauge of the first tram-road laid down had
virtually settled the point. The gauge of wheels of the common vehicles
of the country--of the carts and wagons employed on common roads, which
were first used on the tram-roads--was about 4 feet 8-1/2 inches. And
so the first tram-roads were laid down of this gauge. The tools and
machinery for constructing coal-wagons and locomotives were formed
with this gauge in view. The Wylam wagon-way, afterward the Wylam
plate-way, the Killingworth railroad, and the Hetton railroad, were as
nearly as possible on the same gauge. Some of the earth-wagons used
to form the Stockton and Darlington road were brought from the Hetton
Railway; and others which were specially constructed were formed of the
same dimensions, these being intended to be afterward employed in the
working of the traffic.

As the period drew near for the opening of the line, the question of
the tractive power to be employed was anxiously discussed. At the
Brusselton incline, fixed engines must necessarily be made use of;
but with respect to the mode of working the railway generally, it was
decided that horses were to be largely employed, and arrangements were
made for their purchase.

Although locomotives had been regularly employed in hauling coal-wagons
on the Middleton Colliery Railway, near Leeds, for more than twelve
years, and on the Wylam and Killingworth Railways near Newcastle for
more than ten years, great skepticism still prevailed as to the economy
of employing them for the purpose in lieu of horses. In this case, it
would appear that seeing was _not_ believing. The popular skepticism
was as great at Newcastle, where the opportunities for accurate
observation were the greatest, as any where else. In 1824 the scheme of
a canal between that town and Carlisle again came up, and, though a few
timid voices were raised on behalf of a railway, the general opinion
was still in favor of a canal. The example of the Hetton Railway, which
had been successfully worked by Stephenson's locomotives for two years
past, was pointed to in proof of the practicability of a locomotive
line between the two places; but the voice of the press as well as of
the public was decidedly against the "new-fangled roads."

"There has been some talk," wrote the "Whitehaven Gazette," "from
a puff criticism in the 'Monthly Review,' of an improvement on the
principle of railways; but we suspect that this improvement will turn
out like the steam-carriages, of which we have been told so much, that
were to supersede the use of horses entirely, and travel _at a rate
almost equal to the speed of the fleetest horse_!" The idea was too
chimerical to be entertained, and the suggested railway was accordingly
rejected as impracticable.

The "Tyne Mercury" was equally decided against railways. "What person,"
asked the editor (November 16th, 1824), "would ever think of _paying
any thing_ to be conveyed from Hexham to Newcastle in something like a
coal-wagon, upon a dreary wagon-way, and to be dragged for the greater
part of the distance by a ROARING STEAM-ENGINE!" The very notion of
such a thing was preposterous, ridiculous, and utterly absurd.

When such was the state of public opinion as to railway locomotion,
some idea may be formed of the clearsightedness and moral courage of
the Stockton and Darlington directors in ordering three of Stephenson's
locomotive engines, at a cost of several thousand pounds, against the
opening of the railway.

These were constructed after Stephenson's most matured designs, and
embodied all the improvements which he had contrived up to that time.
No. 1 engine, the "Locomotion," which was first delivered, weighed
about eight tons. It had one large flue or tube through the boiler,
by which the heated air passed direct from the furnace at one end,
lined with fire-bricks, to the chimney at the other. The combustion
in the furnace was quickened by the adoption of the steam-blast in
the chimney. The heat raised was sometimes so great, and it was so
imperfectly abstracted by the surrounding water, that the chimney
became almost red-hot. Such engines, when put to their speed, were
found capable of running at the rate of from twelve to sixteen miles
an hour; but they were better adapted for the heavy work of hauling
coal-trains at low speeds--for which, indeed, they were specially
constructed--than for running at the higher speeds afterward adopted.
Nor was it contemplated by the directors as possible, at the time when
they were ordered, that locomotives could be made available for the
purposes of passenger traveling. Besides, the Stockton and Darlington
Railway did not run through a district in which passengers were
supposed to be likely to constitute any considerable portion of the
traffic.

We may easily imagine the anxiety felt by George Stephenson during the
progress of the works toward completion, and his mingled hopes and
doubts (though his doubts were but few) as to the issue of this great
experiment. When the formation of the line near Stockton was well
advanced, the engineer one day, accompanied by his son Robert and John
Dixon, made a journey of inspection of the works. The party reached
Stockton, and proceeded to dine at one of the inns there. After dinner,
Stephenson ventured on the very unusual measure of ordering in a bottle
of wine, to drink success to the railway. John Dixon relates with pride
the utterance of the master on the occasion. "Now, lads," said he to
the two young men, "I venture to tell you that I think you will live
to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods
of conveyance in this country--when mail-coaches will go by railway,
and railroads will become the great highways for the king and all his
subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man
to travel on a railway than to walk on foot. I know there are great and
almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered, but what I have
said will come to pass as sure as you now hear me. I only wish I may
live to see the day, though that I can scarcely hope for, as I know how
slow all human progress is, and with what difficulty I have been able
to get the locomotive introduced thus far, notwithstanding my more than
ten years' successful experiment at Killingworth." The result, however,
outstripped even George Stephenson's most sanguine anticipations; and
his son Robert, shortly after his return from America in 1827, saw his
father's locomotive adopted as the tractive power on railways generally.

Tuesday, the 27th of September, 1825, was a great day for Darlington.
The railway, after having been under construction for more than three
years, was at length about to be opened. The project had been the talk
of the neighborhood for so long that there were few people within a
range of twenty miles who did not feel more or less interested about
it. Was it to be a failure or a success? Opinions were pretty equally
divided as to the railway, but as regarded the locomotive the general
belief was that it would "never answer." However, there the locomotive
was--"No. 1"--delivered on to the line, and ready to draw the first
train of wagons on the opening day.

A great concourse of people assembled on the occasion. Some came from
Newcastle and Durham, many from the Aucklands, while Darlington held
a general holiday, and turned out all its population. To give _éclat_
to the opening, the directors of the company issued a programme of the
proceedings, intimating the times at which the procession of wagons
would pass certain points along the line. The proprietors assembled
as early as six in the morning at the Brusselton fixed engine, where
the working of the inclined planes was successfully rehearsed. A train
of wagons laden with coals and merchandise was drawn up the western
incline by the fixed engine, a length of 1960 yards, in seven and a
half minutes, and then lowered down the incline on the eastern side of
the hill, 880 yards, in five minutes.

At the foot of the incline the procession of vehicles was formed,
consisting of the locomotive engine No. 1, driven by George Stephenson
himself; after it six wagons loaded with coals and flour, then a
covered coach containing directors and proprietors, next twenty-one
coal-wagons fitted up for passengers (with which they were crammed),
and lastly six more wagons loaded with coals.

Strange to say, a man on a horse, carrying a flag, with the motto of
the company inscribed on it, _Periculum privatum utilitas publica_,
headed the procession! A lithographic view of the great event,
published shortly after, duly exhibits the horseman and his flag. It
was not thought so dangerous a place after all. The locomotive was only
supposed to be able to go at the rate of from four to six miles an
hour, and an ordinary horse could easily keep ahead of that.

Off started the procession, with the horseman at its head. A great
concourse of people stood along the line. Many of them tried to
accompany it by running, and some gentlemen on horseback galloped
across the fields to keep up with the train. The railway descending
with a gentle incline toward Darlington, the rate of speed was
consequently variable. At a favorable part of the road Stephenson
determined to try the speed of the engine, and he called upon the
horseman with the flag to get out of the way! Most probably, deeming
it unnecessary to carry his _Periculum privatum_ farther, the horseman
turned aside, and Stephenson "put on the steam." The speed was at once
raised to twelve miles an hour, and, at a favorable part of the road,
to fifteen. The runners on foot, the gentlemen on horseback, and the
horseman with the flag, were consequently soon left far behind. When
the train reached Darlington, it was found that four hundred and fifty
passengers occupied the wagons, and that the load of men, coals, and
merchandise amounted to about ninety tons.

[Illustration: PROCESSION AT THE OPENING OF THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON
RAILWAY.

[Fac-simile of a local lithograph.]]

At Darlington the procession was rearranged. The six loaded coal-wagons
were left behind, and other wagons were taken on with a hundred and
fifty more passengers, together with a band of music. The train then
started for Stockton--a distance of only twelve miles--which was
reached in about three hours. The day was kept throughout the district
as a holiday; and horses, gigs, carts, and other vehicles, filled with
people, stood along the railway, as well as crowds of persons on foot,
waiting to see the train pass. The whole population of Stockton turned
out to receive the procession, and, after a walk through the streets,
the inevitable dinner in the Town Hall wound up the day's proceedings.

All this, however, was but gala work. The serious business of the
company began on the following day. Upon the result of the experiment
now fairly initiated by the Stockton and Darlington Company the future
of railways in a great measure depended. If it failed, like the
Wandsworth, Croydon, and Merstham undertaking, then a great check would
unquestionably be given to speculation in railways. If it succeeded,
the Stockton and Darlington enterprise would mark the beginning of a
new era, and issue in neither more nor less than a complete revolution
of the means of communication in all civilized countries.

The circumstances were on the whole favorable, and boded success rather
than failure. Prudent, careful, thoughtful men were at the head of the
concern, interested in seeing it managed economically and efficiently;
and they had the advantage of the assistance of an engineer possessed
of large resources of mother wit, mechanical genius, and strong common
sense. There was an almost unlimited quantity of coal to be carried,
the principal difficulty being in accommodating it satisfactorily. Yet
it was only after the line had been at work for some time that the
extensive character of the coal traffic began to be appreciated. At
first it was supposed that the chief trade would be in coal for land
sale. But the clause inserted in the original act, at the instance of
Mr. Lambton, by which the company were limited to 1/2_d._ per ton per
mile for coal led to Stockton for shipment, led to the most unexpected
consequences. It was estimated that only about 10,000 tons a year would
be shipped, and that principally by way of ballast. Instead of which,
in the course of a very few years, the coal carried on the line for
export constituted the main bulk of the traffic, while that carried for
land sale was merely subsidiary.[56] The anticipations of the company
as to passenger-traffic were in like manner more than realized. At
first passengers were not thought of, and it was only while the works
were in progress that the starting of a passenger-coach was seriously
contemplated. Some eighty years since there was only one post-chaise in
Darlington, which ran on three wheels. There are people still living
who remember when a coach ran from Stockton three days in the week,
passing through Darlington and Barnard Castle; but it was starved off
the road for want of support. There was then very little intercourse
between the towns, though they were so near to each other, and
comparatively so populous; and it was not known whether people would
trust themselves to the iron road. Nevertheless, it was determined to
make trial of a railway coach, and George Stephenson was authorized to
have one built at Newcastle at the cost of the company. This was done
accordingly, and the first railway passenger-carriage was built after
our engineer's design. It was, however, a very modest, and, indeed,
a somewhat uncouth machine, more resembling a showman's caravan than
a passenger-coach of any extant form. A row of seats ran along each
side of the interior, and a long deal table was fixed in the centre,
the access being by means of a door at the back end, in the manner of
an omnibus. This coach arrived from Newcastle on the day before the
opening, and formed part of the procession above described. Stephenson
was consulted as to the name of the coach, and he at once suggested
the "Experiment;" and by this name it was called. Such was the sole
passenger-carrying stock of the Stockton and Darlington Company in
the year 1825. But "The Experiment" proved the forerunner of a mighty
traffic; and long time did not elapse before it was displaced, not only
by improved coaches (still drawn by horses), but afterward by long
trains of passenger-carriages drawn by locomotive engines.

The "Experiment" was fairly started as a passenger-coach on the 10th of
October, 1825, a fortnight after the opening of the line. It was drawn
by one horse, and performed a journey daily each way between the two
towns, accomplishing the distance of twelve miles in about two hours.
The fare charged was a shilling, without distinction of class; and each
passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of luggage free. The "Experiment"
was not, however, worked by the company, but was let to contractors,
who worked it under an arrangement whereby toll was paid for the use of
the line, rent of booking-cabins, etc.[57]

[Illustration: THE FIRST RAILWAY COACH.]

The speculation answered so well that several private coaching
companies were shortly after got up by innkeepers at Darlington and
Stockton for the purpose of running other coaches upon the railroad,
and an active competition for passenger-traffic sprang up. The
"Experiment," being found too heavy for one horse to draw, besides
being found an uncomfortable machine, was banished to the coal
district. Its place was then supplied by other and better vehicles,
though they were no other than old stage-coach bodies purchased by the
company, each mounted on an under-frame with flange wheels. These were
let on hire to the coaching companies, who horsed and managed them
under an arrangement as to tolls, in like manner as the "Experiment"
had been worked. Now began the distinction of inside and outside
passengers, equivalent to first and second class, paying different
fares. The competition with each other upon the railway, and with the
ordinary stage-coaches upon the road, soon brought up the speed, which
was increased to ten miles an hour--the mail-coach rate of traveling in
those days, and considered very fast.

Mr. Clephan, a native of the district, has communicated to the author
the following account of the competition between the rival coach
companies:

  "There were two separate coach companies in Stockton, and amusing
  collisions sometimes occurred between the drivers, who found on
  the rail a novel element for contention. Coaches can not pass each
  other on the rail as on the road, and, as the line was single, with
  four sidings in the mile, when two coaches met, or two trains, or
  coach and train, the question arose which of the drivers must go
  back. This was not always settled in silence. As to trains, it came
  to be a sort of understanding that empty should give way to loaded
  wagons; and as to trains and coaches, that passengers should have
  preference over coals; while coaches, when they met, must quarrel
  it out. At length, midway between sidings, a post was erected, and
  the rule was laid down that he who had passed the pillar must go
  on, and the 'coming man' go back. At the Goose Pool and Early Nook
  it was common for the coaches to stop, and there, as Jonathan would
  say, passengers and coachmen 'liquored.' One coach, introduced
  by an innkeeper, was a compound of two mourning-coaches--an
  approximation to the real railway-coach, which still adheres,
  with multiplying exceptions, to the stage-coach type. One Dixon,
  who drove the 'Experiment' between Darlington and Shildon, is
  the inventor of carriage-lighting on the rail. On a dark winter
  night, having compassion on his passengers, he would buy a penny
  candle, and place it lighted among them on the table of the
  'Experiment'--the first railway-coach (which, by the way, ended its
  days at Shildon as a railway cabin), being also the first coach on
  the rail (first, second, and third class jammed all into one) that
  indulged its customers with light in darkness."

The traffic of all sorts increased so steadily and so rapidly that
considerable difficulty was experienced in working it satisfactorily.
It had been provided by the first Stockton and Darlington Act that
the line should be free to all parties who chose to use it at certain
prescribed rates, and that any person might put horses and wagons
on the railway, and carry for himself. But this arrangement led to
increasing confusion and difficulty, and could not continue in the
face of a large and rapidly-increasing traffic. The goods trains got
so long that the carriers found it necessary to call in the aid of
the locomotive engine to help them on their way. Then mixed trains
of passengers and merchandise began to run; and the result was that
the Railway Company found it necessary to take the entire charge and
working of the traffic. In course of time new coaches were specially
built for the better accommodation of the public, until at length
regular passenger-trains were run, drawn by the locomotive engine,
though this was not until after the Liverpool and Manchester Company
had established this as a distinct branch of their traffic.

The three Stephenson locomotives were from the first regularly employed
to work the coal-trains, and their proved efficiency for this purpose
led to the gradual increase of the locomotive power. The speed of
the engine--slow though it seems now--was in those days regarded as
something marvelous. A race actually came off between No. 1 engine, the
"Locomotion," and one of the stage-coaches traveling from Darlington to
Stockton by the ordinary road, and it was regarded as a great triumph
of mechanical skill that the locomotive reached Stockton first, beating
the stage-coach by about a hundred yards! The same engine continued
in good working order in the year 1846, when it headed the railway
procession on the opening of the Middlesborough and Redcar Railway,
traveling at the rate of about fourteen miles an hour. This engine,
the first that traveled on the first public locomotive railway, has
recently been placed upon a pedestal in front of the railway station at
Darlington.

For some years, however, the principal haulage of the line was
performed by horses. The inclination of the gradients being toward the
sea, this was perhaps the cheapest mode of traction, so long as the
traffic was not very large. The horse drew the train along the level
road until, on reaching a descending gradient, down which the train ran
by its own gravity, the animal was unharnessed, when, wheeling round
to the other end of the wagons, to which a "dandy-cart" was attached,
its bottom being only a few inches from the rail, and bringing his
step into unison with the speed of the train, he leaped nimbly into
his place in the hind car, which was usually fitted with a well-filled
hay-rack.

[Illustration: THE NO. 1 ENGINE AT DARLINGTON.]

The details of the working were gradually perfected by experience,
the projectors of the line being scarcely conscious at first of the
importance and significance of the work which they had taken in hand,
and little thinking that they were laying the foundations of a system
which was yet to revolutionize the internal communications of the
world, and confer the greatest blessings on mankind. It is important
to note that the commercial results of the enterprise were considered
satisfactory from the opening of the railway. Besides conferring
a great public benefit upon the inhabitants of the district, and
throwing open entirely new markets for the almost boundless stores
of coal found in the Bishop Auckland district, the profits derived
from the traffic created by the railway enabled increasing dividends
to be paid to those who had risked their capital in the undertaking,
and thus held forth an encouragement to the projectors of railways
generally, which was not without an important effect in stimulating
the projection of similar enterprises in other districts. These
results, as displayed in the annual dividends, must have been eminently
encouraging to the astute commercial men of Liverpool and Manchester,
who were then engaged in the prosecution of their railway. Indeed, the
commercial success of the Stockton and Darlington Company may be justly
characterized as the turning-point of the railway system. With that
practical illustration daily in sight of the public, it was no longer
possible for Parliament to have prevented its eventual extension.

Before leaving the subject of the Stockton and Darlington Railway,
we can not avoid alluding to one of its most remarkable and direct
results--the creation of the town of Middlesborough-on-Tees. When
the railway was opened in 1825, the site of this future metropolis
of Cleveland was occupied by one solitary farm-house and its
out-buildings. All round was pasture-land or mud-banks; scarcely
another house was within sight. The corporation of the town of Stockton
being unwilling or unable to provide accommodation for the rapidly
increasing coal traffic, Mr. Edward Pease, in 1829, joined by a few of
his Quaker friends, bought about 500 or 600 acres of land five miles
lower down the river--the site of the modern Middlesborough--for the
purpose of there forming a new sea-port for the shipment of coals
brought to the Tees by the railway. The line was accordingly extended
thither; docks were excavated; a town sprang up; churches, chapels, and
schools were built, with a custom-house, mechanics' institute, banks,
ship-building yards, and iron factories, and in a few years the port
of Middlesborough became one of the most thriving on the northeast
coast of England. In ten years a busy population of some 6000 persons
(since swelled to about 25,000) occupied the site of the original
farm-house. More recently, the discovery of vast stores of ironstone in
the Cleveland Hills, close adjoining Middlesborough, has tended still
more rapidly to augment the population and increase the commercial
importance of the place.

It is pleasing to relate, in connection with this great work--the
Stockton and Darlington Railway, projected by Edward Pease and executed
by George Stephenson--that when Mr. Stephenson became a prosperous and
a celebrated man, he did not forget the friend who had taken him by the
hand, and helped him on in his early days. He continued to remember Mr.
Pease with gratitude and affection, and that gentleman, to the close
of his life, was proud to exhibit a handsome gold watch, received as a
gift from his celebrated _protégé_, bearing these words--"Esteem and
gratitude: from George Stephenson to Edward Pease."

[Illustration: MIDDLESBOROUGH-ON-TEES.]

FOOTNOTES:

[51] The act for constructing the Merthyr Tydvil Tram-road was obtained
from Parliament as early as 1794; that for the Sirhoway Railroad in
1801; the Carmarthenshire Railroad was sanctioned in the same year; and
the Oystermouth Railway in 1803.

[52] Mr. Richardson was founder of the afterward well-known
discount-house of Richardson, Overend, and Gurney, Lombard Street,
London.

[53] The first clause in any railway act empowering the employment of
locomotive engines for the working of passenger traffic.

[54] This incident, communicated to the author by the late Edward
Pease, has since been made the subject of a fine picture by Mr. A.
Rankley, A.R.A., exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1861.

[55] Stephenson's recommendation of wrought-iron instead of cast-iron
rails was the cause of a rupture between Mr. Losh and himself.
Stephenson thought his duty was to give his employers the best advice;
Losh thought his business was to push the patent cast-iron rails
wherever he could. Stephenson regarded this view as sordid; and the two
finally separated after a quarrel, in high dudgeon with each other.

[56] The rapid progress of the coal and merchandise traffic of the
Stockton and Darlington line, of which Middlesbro' is the principal
sea-port, may be inferred from the following brief statement of facts:
The original estimate assumed that 165,488 tons of coal would be
carried annually, and produce an income of £11,904. The revenue from
other sources was taken at £4104. In 1827, the first year in which the
coal and merchandise traffic was fully worked, the revenue from coal
was £14,455; from lime, merchandise, and sundries, £3285; and from
passengers (which had not been taken into account), £563. In 1860, when
the original line of 25 miles had become extended to 125 miles, and the
original capital of £150,000 had swelled to £3,800,000, the quantity
of coal carried had increased to 3,045,596 tons in the year, besides
1,484,409 tons of ironstone and other minerals, producing a revenue of
£280,375; while 1,484,409 tons of merchandise had been carried in the
same year, producing £63,478, and 687,728 passengers, producing £45,398.

[57] The coaches were not allowed to be run upon the line without
considerable opposition. We find Edward Pease writing to Joseph
Sandars, of Liverpool, on the 18th of June, 1827: "Our railway coach
proprietors have individually received notices of a process in the
Exchequer for various fines, to the amount of £150, in penalties of
£20 each, for neglecting to have the plates, with the numbers of their
licenses, on the coach doors, agreeably to the provision of the Act
95 George IV. In looking into the nature of this proceeding and its
consequences, it is clear, if the court shall confirm it by conviction,
that we are undone as to the conveyance of passengers." Mr. Pease
incidentally mentions the names of the several coach proprietors at
the time--"Pickersgill and Co., Richard Scott, and Martha Hewson." The
proceeding was eventually defeated, it being decided that the penalties
only applied to coaches traveling on common or turnpike roads.



CHAPTER IX.

THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY PROJECTED.


While the coal proprietors of the Bishop Auckland district were taking
steps to connect their collieries with the sea by means of an iron
railroad, the merchants of Liverpool and Manchester were considering
whether some better means could not be devised for bringing these
important centres of commerce and manufacture into more direct
connection.

There were canals as well as roads between the two places, but all
routes were alike tedious and costly, especially as regarded the
transit of heavy goods. The route by turnpike road was thirty-six
miles, by the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal fifty miles, by the Mersey
and Irwell navigation the same, and by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal
fifty-six miles.

These were all overburdened with traffic. The roads were bad, the
tolls heavy, and the haulage expensive. The journey by coach occupied
from five to six hours, and by wagon nearly a day. But very few heavy
goods went by road. The canals nearly monopolized this traffic, and,
having contrived to keep up the rates, the canal companies charged what
they liked. They conducted their business in a drowsy, sleepy, stupid
manner. If the merchant complained of delay, he was told to do better
if he could. If he objected to the rates, he was warned that if he did
not pay them promptly his goods might not be carried at all.

The canal companies were in a position to dictate their own terms, and
they did this in such a way as to disgust alike the senders and the
receivers of goods, so that both Liverpool and Manchester were up in
arms against them. Worse even than the heavy charges for goods was the
occasional entire stoppage of the canals. Sometimes they were frozen
up; sometimes they were blocked by the press of traffic, so that goods
lay on the wharves unmoved for weeks together; and at some seasons it
occupied a longer time to bring cotton from Liverpool to Manchester by
canal-boat than it had done to bring it from New York to Liverpool by
sailing ship.

Was there no way of remedying these great and admitted evils? Were the
commercial public to continue to be bound hand and foot, and left at
the mercy of the canal proprietors? Immense interests at Liverpool and
Manchester were at stake. The Liverpool merchants wanted new facilities
for sending raw material inland, and the Manchester manufacturers for
sending the manufactured products back to Liverpool for shipment. Vast
populations had become settled in the towns of South Lancashire, to
whom it was of vital importance that the communication with the sea
should be regular, constant, and economical.

These considerations early led to the discussion of some improved
mode of transit from Liverpool into the interior for heavy goods, and
one of the most favored plans was that of a tram-road. It was first
suggested by the corn-merchants of Liverpool, who had experienced the
great inconveniences resulting from the canal monopoly. One of the most
zealous advocates of the tram-road was Mr. Joseph Sandars, who took
considerable pains to ascertain the results of the working of the coal
lines in the North, both by horse and engine power, and he satisfied
himself that either method would, if adopted between Liverpool
and Manchester, afford the desired relief to the commercial and
manufacturing interests. The subject was ventilated by him in the local
papers, and in the course of the year 1821 Mr. Sandars succeeded in
getting together a committee of Liverpool gentlemen for the purpose of
farther considering the subject, and, if found practicable, of starting
a company with the object of forming a tram-road between the two towns.

While the project was still in embryo, the rumor of it reached the ears
of Mr. William James, then of West Bromwich, an enthusiastic advocate
of tram-roads and railways. As a land-surveyor and land-agent, as well
as coal-owner, he had already laid down many private railroads. He
had also laid out and superintended the execution and the working of
canals, projected extensive schemes of drainage and inclosure, and,
on the whole, was one of the most useful and active men of his time.
But a series of unfortunate speculations in mines having seriously
impaired his fortunes, he again reverted to his original profession of
land-surveyor, and was so occupied in the neighborhood of Liverpool
when he heard of the scheme set on foot for the construction of the
proposed tram-road to Manchester.

He at once called upon Mr. Sandars and offered his services as its
surveyor. We believe he at first offered to survey the line at his own
expense, to which Mr. Sandars could not object; but his means were too
limited to enable him to do this successfully, and Mr. Sandars and
several of his friends agreed to pay him £300 for the survey, or at the
rate of about £10 a mile. Mr. James's first interview with Mr. Sandars
was in the beginning of July, 1821, when it was arranged that he should
go over the ground and form a general opinion as to the practicability
of a tram-way.

A trial survey was then begun, but it was conducted with great
difficulty, the inhabitants of the district entertaining much prejudice
against the scheme. In some places Mr. James and his surveying party
had even to encounter personal violence. At St. Helen's one of the
chain-men was laid hold of by a mob of colliers, and threatened to
be hurled down a coal-pit. A number of men, women, and children
assembled, and ran after the surveyors wherever they made their
appearance, bawling nicknames and throwing stones at them. As one of
the chain-men was climbing over a gate one day, a laborer made at him
with a pitchfork, and ran it through his clothes into his back; other
watchers running up, the chain-man, who was more stunned than hurt,
took to his heels and fled. But that mysterious-looking instrument--the
theodolite--most excited the fury of the natives, who concentrated on
the man who carried it their fiercest execrations and most offensive
nicknames.

A powerful fellow, a noted bruiser, was hired by the surveyors to carry
the instrument, with a view to its protection against all assailants;
but one day an equally powerful fellow, a St. Helen's collier, cock
of the walk in his neighborhood, made up to the theodolite bearer to
wrest it from him by sheer force. A battle took place, the collier was
soundly pommeled, but the natives poured in volleys of stones upon the
surveyors and their instruments, and the theodolite was smashed in
pieces.

Met by these and other obstructions, it turned out that the survey
could not be completed in time for depositing the proper plans, and
the intended application to Parliament in the next session could not
be made. In the mean time, Mr. James proceeded to Killingworth to see
Stephenson's locomotives at work. Stephenson was not at home at the
time, but James saw his engines, and was very much struck by their
power and efficiency. He saw at a glance the magnificent uses to which
the locomotive might be applied. "Here," said he, "is an engine that
will, before long, effect a complete revolution in society." Returning
to Moreton-in-the-Marsh, he wrote to Mr. Losh (Stephenson's partner
in the patent) expressing his admiration of the Killingworth engine.
"It is," said he, "the greatest wonder of the age, and the forerunner,
as I firmly believe, of the most important changes in the internal
communications of the kingdom." Shortly after, Mr. James, accompanied
by his two sons, made a second journey to Killingworth, where he met
both Losh and Stephenson. The visitors were at once taken to where one
of the locomotives was working, and invited to "jump up." The uncouth
and extraordinary appearance of the machine, as it came snorting along,
was somewhat alarming to the youths, who expressed their fears lest it
should burst; and they were with some difficulty induced to mount.

[Illustration: MAP OF LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY. [Western Part.]]

The engine went through its usual performances, dragging a heavy load
of coal-wagons at about six miles an hour with apparent ease, at which
Mr. James expressed his extreme satisfaction, and declared to Mr. Losh
his opinion that Stephenson "was the greatest practical genius of the
age," and that, "if he developed the full powers of that engine (the
locomotive), his fame in the world would rank equal with that of Watt."
Mr. James informed Stephenson and Losh of his survey of the proposed
tram-road between Liverpool and Manchester, and did not hesitate to
state that he would thenceforward advocate the construction of a
locomotive railroad instead of the tram-road which had originally been
proposed.

[Illustration: MAP OF LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY. [Eastern Part.]]

Stephenson and Losh were naturally desirous of enlisting James's good
services on behalf of their patent locomotive, for as yet it had proved
comparatively unproductive. They believed that he might be able so to
advocate it in influential quarters as to insure its more extensive
adoption, and with that object they proposed to give him an interest in
the patent. Accordingly, they entered into an agreement by which they
assigned to him one fourth of any profits which might be derived from
the use of the patent locomotive on any railways constructed south of
a line drawn across England from Liverpool to Hull. The arrangement,
however, led to no beneficial results. Mr. James endeavored to
introduce the engine on the Moreton-on-Marsh Railway, but it was
opposed by the engineer of the line, and the attempt failed. He next
urged that a locomotive should be sent for trial upon the Merstham
tram-road; but, anxious though Stephenson was as to its extended
employment, he was too cautious to risk an experiment which might bring
discredit upon the engine; and the Merstham Road being only laid with
cast-iron plates which would not bear its weight, the invitation was
declined.

The first survey made of the Liverpool and Manchester line having been
found very imperfect, it was determined to have a second and more
complete one made in the following year. Robert Stephenson, though then
a lad of only nineteen, had already obtained some practical knowledge
of surveying, having been engaged on the preliminary survey of the
Stockton and Darlington Railway in the previous year, and he was sent
over to Liverpool by his father to give Mr. James such assistance as he
could. Robert Stephenson was present with Mr. James on the occasion on
which he tried to lay out the line across Chat Moss--a proceeding which
was not only difficult, but dangerous. The Moss was very wet at the
time, and only its edges could be ventured on. Mr. James was a heavy,
thick-set man; and one day, when endeavoring to obtain a stand for his
theodolite, he felt himself suddenly sinking. He immediately threw
himself down, and rolled over and over until he reached firm ground
again, in a sad mess. Other attempts which he subsequently made to
advance into the Moss for the same purpose were abandoned for the same
reason--the want of a solid stand for the theodolite.

As Mr. James proceeded with his survey, he found a host of opponents
springing up in all directions, some of whom he conciliated by
deviations, but others refused to be conciliated on any terms. Among
these last were Lords Derby and Wilton, Mr. Bradshaw, and the Strafford
family. The proposed line passed through their lands, and, regarding it
as a nuisance, without the slightest compensating advantage to them,
they determined to oppose it at every stage. Their agents drove the
surveyors off their land; the farmers set men at the gates armed with
pitchforks to resist their progress; and the survey proceeded with
great difficulty. Mr. James endeavored to avoid Lord Derby's Knowsley
estate, but as he had received instructions from Messrs. Ewart and
Gladstone to lay out the line so as to enable it to be extended to the
docks, he found it difficult to accomplish this object and at the same
time avert the hostility of the noble lord. The only large land-owners
who gave the scheme their support were Mr. Legh and Mr. Wyrley Birch,
who not only subscribed for shares, but attended several public
meetings, and spoke in favor of the proposed railroad. Public opinion
was, however, beginning to be roused, and the canal companies began at
length to feel alarmed.

  "At Manchester," Mr. James wrote to Mr. Sandars, "the subject
  engages all men's thoughts, and it is curious as well as amusing to
  hear their conjectures. The canal companies (southward) are alive
  to their danger. I have been the object of their persecution and
  hate; they would immolate me if they could; but if I can die the
  death of Samson, by pulling away the pillars, I am content to die
  with these Philistines. Be assured, my dear sir, that not a moment
  shall be lost, nor shall my attention for a day be diverted from
  this concern, which increases in importance every hour, as well as
  in the certainty of ultimate success."

Mr. James was one of the most enthusiastic of men, especially about
railways and locomotives. He believed, with Thomas Gray, who brought
out his book about this time, that railways were yet to become the
great high roads of civilization. The speculative character of the man
may be inferred from the following passage in one of his letters to Mr.
Sandars, written from London:

  "Every Parliamentary friend I have seen--and I have many of both
  houses--eulogizes our plan, and they are particularly anxious that
  engines should be introduced in the south. I am now negotiating
  about the Wandsworth Railroad. A fortune is to be made by buying
  the shares, and introducing the engine system upon it. I am
  confident capital will treble itself in two years. I do not choose
  to publish my views _here_, and I wish to God some of our Liverpool
  friends would take this advantage. I have bought some shares, but
  my capital is locked up in unproductive lands and mines."

As the survey of the Liverpool and Manchester line proceeded, Mr.
James's funds fell short, and he was under the necessity of applying
to Mr. Sandars and his friends from time to time for farther
contributions. It was also necessary for him to attend to his business
as a surveyor in other parts of the country, and he was at such times
under the necessity of leaving the work to be done by his assistants.
Thus the survey was necessarily imperfect, and when the time arrived
for lodging the plans, it was found that they were practically
worthless. Mr. James's pecuniary difficulties had also reached their
climax. "The surveys and plans," he wrote to Mr. Sandars, "can't be
completed, I see, till the end of the week. With illness, anguish of
mind, and inexpressible distress, I perceive I must sink if I wait any
longer; and, in short, I have so neglected the suit in Chancery I named
to you, that if I do not put in an answer I shall be outlawed."

Mr. James's embarrassments increased, and he was unable to shake
himself free from them. He was confined for many months in the Queen's
Bench Prison, during which time this indefatigable railway propagandist
wrote an essay illustrative of the advantages of direct inland
communication by a line of engine railroad between London, Brighton,
and Portsmouth. Meanwhile the Liverpool and Manchester scheme seemed to
have fallen to the ground. But it only slept. When its promoters found
that they could no longer rely on Mr. James's services, they determined
to employ another engineer.

Mr. Sandars had by this time visited George Stephenson at Killingworth,
and, like all who came within reach of his personal influence, was
charmed with him at first sight. The energy which he had displayed
in carrying on the works of the Stockton and Darlington Railway,
now approaching completion; his readiness to face difficulties, and
his practical ability in overcoming them; the enthusiasm which he
displayed on the subject of railways and railway locomotion, concurred
in satisfying Mr. Sandars that he was, of all men, the best calculated
to help forward the undertaking at this juncture; and having, on his
return to Liverpool, reported this opinion to the committee, they
approved his recommendation, and George Stephenson was unanimously
appointed engineer of the projected railway. On the 25th of May, 1824,
Mr. Sandars wrote to Mr. James as follows:

  "I think it right to inform you that the committee have engaged
  your friend George Stephenson. We expect him here in a few days.
  The subscription-list for £300,000 is filled, and the Manchester
  gentlemen have conceded to us the entire management. I very much
  regret that, by delays and promises, you have forfeited the
  confidence of the subscribers. I can not help it. I fear now
  that you will only have the fame of being connected with the
  commencement of this undertaking."

It will be observed that Mr. Sandars had held to his original purpose
with great determination and perseverance, and he gradually succeeded
in enlisting on his side an increasing number of influential merchants
and manufacturers both at Liverpool and Manchester. Early in 1824 he
published a pamphlet, in which he strongly urged the great losses
and interruptions to the trade of the district by the delays in the
forwarding of merchandise; and in the same year he had a Public
Declaration drawn up, and signed by upward of 150 of the principal
merchants of Liverpool, setting forth that they considered "the present
establishments for the transport of goods quite inadequate, and that a
new line of conveyance has become absolutely necessary to conduct the
increasing trade of the country with speed, certainty, and economy."

A public meeting was then held to consider the best plan to be adopted,
and resolutions were passed in favor of a railroad. A committee was
appointed to take the necessary measures; but, as if reluctant to enter
upon their arduous struggle with the "vested interests," they first
waited on Mr. Bradshaw, the Duke of Bridgewater's canal agent, in the
hope of persuading him to increase the means of conveyance, as well as
to reduce the charges; but they were met by an unqualified refusal.
He would not improve the existing means of conveyance; he would have
nothing to do with the proposed railway; and, if persevered in, he
would oppose it with all his power. The canal proprietors, confident in
their imagined security, ridiculed the proposed railway as a chimera.
It had been spoken about years before, and nothing had come of it then;
it would be the same now.

In order to form a better opinion as to the practicability of the
railroad, a deputation of gentlemen interested in the project proceeded
to Killingworth to inspect the engines which had been so long in use
there. They first went to Darlington, where they found the works of
the Stockton line in progress, though still unfinished. Proceeding
next to Killingworth with George Stephenson, they there witnessed the
performances of his locomotive engines. The result of their visit was,
on the whole, so satisfactory, that on their return to Liverpool it was
determined to form a company of the proprietors for the construction of
a double line of railway between Liverpool and Manchester.

The original promoters of the undertaking included men of the highest
standing and local influence in Liverpool and Manchester, with Charles
Lawrence as chairman, Lister Ellis, Robert Gladstone, John Moss, and
Joseph Sandars as deputy chairmen; while among the ordinary members of
the committee were Robert Benson, James Cropper, John Ewart, Wellwood
Maxwell, and William Rathbone, of Liverpool, and the brothers Birley,
Peter Ewart, William Garnett, John Kennedy, and William Potter, of
Manchester.

The committee also included another important name--that of Henry
Booth, then a corn-merchant of Liverpool, and afterward the secretary
and manager of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Mr. Booth was a
man of admirable business qualities, sagacious and far-seeing, shrewd
and practical, of considerable literary ability, and he also possessed
a knowledge of mechanics, which afterward proved of the greatest value
to the railway interest; for to him we owe the suggestion of the
multitubular boiler in the form in which it has since been employed
upon all railways, and the coupling-screw, as well as other important
mechanical appliances which have come into general use.

The first prospectus, issued in October, 1824, set forth in clear
and vigorous language the objects of the company, the urgent need of
additional means of communication between Liverpool and Manchester,
and the advantages offered by the railway over all other proposed
expedients. It was shown that the water-carriers not only exacted
the most arbitrary terms from the public, but were positively unable
to carry the traffic requiring accommodation. Against the indefinite
continuance or recurrence of those evils, said the prospectus, the
public have but one security: "It is competition that is wanted; and
the proof of this assertion may be adduced from the fact that shares in
the Old Quay Navigation, of which the original cost was £70, have been
sold as high as £1250 each!" The advantages of the railway over the
canals for the carriage of coals was also urged, and it was stated that
the charge for transit would be very materially reduced.

  "In the present state of trade and of commercial enterprise (the
  prospectus proceeded), dispatch is no less essential than economy.
  Merchandise is frequently brought across the Atlantic from New
  York to Liverpool in twenty-one days, while, owing to the various
  causes of delay above enumerated, goods have in some instances
  been longer on their passage from Liverpool to Manchester. But
  this reproach must not be perpetual. The advancement in mechanical
  science renders it unnecessary--the good sense of the community
  makes it impossible. Let it not, however, be imagined that, were
  England to be tardy, other countries would pause in the march
  of improvement. Application has been made, on behalf of the
  Emperor of Russia, for models of the locomotive engine; and other
  of the Continental governments have been duly apprised of the
  important schemes for the facilitating of inland traffic, now
  under discussion by the British public. In the United States of
  America, also, they are fully alive to the important results to be
  anticipated from the introduction of railroads; a gentleman from
  the United States having recently arrived in Liverpool, with whom
  it is a principal object to collect the necessary information in
  order to the establishment of a railway to connect the great rivers
  Potomac and Ohio."

It will be observed that the principal, indeed almost the sole, object
contemplated by the projectors of the undertaking was the improved
carriage of merchandise and coal, and that the conveyance of passengers
was scarcely calculated on, the only paragraph in the prospectus
relating to the subject being the following: "Moreover, as a cheap
and expeditious means of conveyance for travelers, the railway holds
out the fair prospect of a public accommodation, the magnitude and
importance of which can not be immediately ascertained." The estimated
expense of forming the line was set down at £400,000--a sum which was
eventually found quite inadequate. The subscription list, when opened,
was filled up without difficulty.

While the project was still under discussion, its promoters,
desirous of removing the doubts which existed as to the employment
of steam-power on the proposed railway, sent a second deputation
to Killingworth for the purpose of again observing the action of
Stephenson's engines. The cautious projectors of the railway were not
yet quite satisfied, and a third journey was made to Killingworth in
January, 1825, by several gentlemen of the committee, accompanied by
practical engineers, for the purpose of being personal eye-witnesses of
what steam-carriages were able to perform upon a railway. There they
saw a train, consisting of a locomotive and loaded wagons, weighing in
all 54 tons, traveling at the average rate of about 7 miles an hour,
the greatest speed being about 9-1/2 miles an hour. But when the engine
was run with only one wagon attached containing twenty gentlemen, five
of whom were engineers, the speed attained was from 10 to 12 miles an
hour.

In the mean time the survey was proceeded with, in the face of great
opposition on the part of the proprietors of the lands through which
the railway was intended to pass. The prejudices of the farming and
laboring classes were strongly excited against the persons employed
upon the ground, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the
levels could be taken. This opposition was especially manifested when
the attempt was made to survey the line through the properties of Lords
Derby and Sefton, and also where it crossed the Duke of Bridgewater's
Canal. At Knowsley, Stephenson and his surveyors were driven off the
ground by the keepers, and threatened with rough handling if found
there again. Lord Derby's farmers also turned out their men to watch
the surveying party, and prevent them entering on any lands where they
had the power of driving them off. Afterward Stephenson suddenly and
unexpectedly went upon the ground with a body of surveyors and their
assistants who outnumbered Lord Derby's keepers and farmers, hastily
collected to resist them, and this time they were only threatened with
the legal consequences of their trespass.

The same sort of resistance was offered by Lord Sefton's keepers
and farmers, with whom the following ruse was adopted. A minute was
concocted, purporting to be a resolution of the Old Quay Canal Company
to oppose the projected railroad by every possible means, and calling
upon land-owners and others to afford every facility for making such a
survey of the intended line as should enable the opponents to detect
errors in the scheme of the promoters, and thereby insure its defeat.
A copy of this minute, without any signature, was exhibited by the
surveyors who went upon the ground, and the farmers, believing them to
have the sanction of the landlords, permitted them to proceed with the
hasty completion of their survey.

The principal opposition, however, was experienced from Mr. Bradshaw,
the manager of the Duke of Bridgewater's canal property, who offered
a vigorous and protracted resistance to the survey in all its stages.
The duke's farmers obstinately refused permission to enter upon their
fields, although Stephenson offered to pay for any damage that might
be done. Mr. Bradshaw positively refused his sanction in any case; and
being a strict preserver of game, with a large staff of keepers in his
pay, he declared that he would order them to shoot or apprehend any
persons attempting a survey over his property. But one moonlight night
a survey was effected by the following ruse. Some men, under the orders
of the surveying party, were set to fire off guns in a particular
quarter, on which all the gamekeepers on the watch made off in that
direction, and they were drawn away to such a distance in pursuit of
the supposed poachers as to enable a rapid survey to be made during
their absence. Describing before Parliament the difficulties which he
encountered in making the survey, Stephenson said: "I was threatened to
be ducked in the pond if I proceeded, and, of course, we had a great
deal of the survey to take by stealth, at the time when the people were
at dinner. We could not get it done by night; indeed, we were watched
day and night, and guns were discharged over the grounds belonging to
Captain Bradshaw to prevent us. I can state farther that I was myself
twice turned off Mr. Bradshaw's grounds by his men, and they said if I
did not go instantly they would take me up and carry me off to Worsley."

The same kind of opposition had to be encountered all along the line
of the intended railway. Mr. Clay, one of the company's solicitors,
wrote to Mr. Sandars from the Bridgewater Arms, Prescott, on the 31st
of December, that the landlords, occupiers, trustees of turnpike
roads, proprietors of bleach-works, carriers and carters, and even the
coal-owners, were dead against the railroad. "In a word," said he, "the
country is up in arms against us." There were only three considerable
land-owners who remained doubtful; and "if these be against us," said
Mr. Clay, "then _the whole_ of the great proprietors along the whole
line are dissentient, excepting only Mr. Trafford."

The cottagers and small proprietors were equally hostile. "The trouble
we have with them," wrote Mr. Clay, "is beyond belief; and those
patches of gardens at the end of Manchester bordering on the Irwell,
and the tenants of Hulme Hall, who, though insignificant, must be
seen, give us infinite trouble, all of which, as I have reason to
believe, is by no means accidental." There was also the opposition of
the great Bradshaw, the duke's agent. "I wrote you this morning," said
Mr. Clay, in a wrathful letter of the same date, "since which we have
been into Bradshaw's warehouse, now called the Knot Mill, and, after
traversing two of the rooms, we got very _civilly_ turned out, which,
under all the circumstances, I thought very lucky, and more than we
deserved. However, we have seen more than half of his d--d cottagers."

There were also the canal companies, who made common cause, formed
a common purse, and determined to wage war to the knife against all
railways. The following circular, issued by the Liverpool Railroad
Company, with the name of Mr. Lawrence, the chairman, attached, will
serve to show the resolute spirit in which the canal proprietors were
preparing to resist the bill:

  "SIR,--The Leeds and Liverpool, the Birmingham, the Grand Trunk,
  and other canal companies having issued circulars, calling upon
  'every canal and navigation company in the kingdom' to oppose _in
  limine_ and by a united effort the establishment of railroads
  wherever contemplated, I have most earnestly to solicit your active
  exertions on behalf of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad
  Company, to counteract the avowed purpose of the canal proprietors,
  by exposing the misrepresentations of interested parties, by
  conciliating good will, and especially by making known, as far as
  you have opportunity, not only the general superiority of railroads
  over other modes of conveyance, but, in our peculiar case, the
  absolute necessity of a new and additional line of communication,
  in order to effect with economy and dispatch the transport of
  merchandise between this port and Manchester.

  "(Signed)
  CHARLES LAWRENCE, Chairman."

Such was the state of affairs and such the threatenings of war on both
sides immediately previous to the Parliamentary session of 1825.

When it became known that the promoters of the undertaking were
determined--imperfect though the plans were believed to be, from the
obstructions thrown in the way of the surveying parties--to proceed
with the bill in the next session of Parliament, the canal companies
appealed to the public through the press. Pamphlets were published
and newspapers hired to revile the railway. It was declared that its
formation would prevent the cows grazing and hens laying, while the
horses passing along the road would be driven distracted. The poisoned
air from the locomotives would kill the birds that flew over them, and
render the preservation of pheasants and foxes no longer possible.
Householders adjoining the projected line were told that their houses
would be burnt up by the fire thrown from the engine chimneys, while
the air around would be polluted by clouds of smoke. There would no
longer be any use for horses; and if railways extended, the species
would become extinguished, and oats and hay be rendered unsalable
commodities. Traveling by rail would be highly dangerous, and country
inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst and blow passengers to
atoms. But there was always this consolation to wind up with--that the
weight of the locomotive would completely prevent its moving, and that
railways, even if made, could _never_ be worked by steam-power.

Although the press generally spoke of the Liverpool and Manchester
project as a mere speculation--as only one of the many bubble schemes
of the period[58]--there were other writers who entertained different
views, and boldly and ably announced them. Among the most sagacious
newspaper articles of the day, calling attention to the application
of the locomotive engine to the purposes of rapid steam-traveling,
on railroads, was a series which appeared in 1824, in the "Scotsman"
newspaper, then edited by Mr. Charles Maclaren. In those publications
the wonderful powers of the locomotive were logically demonstrated,
and the writer, arguing from the experiments on friction made more
than half a century before by Vince and Coulomb, which scientific men
seemed to have altogether lost sight of, clearly showed that, by the
use of steam-power on railroads, the cheaper as well as more rapid
transit of persons and merchandise might be confidently anticipated.
Not many years passed before the anticipations of the writer, sanguine
and speculative though they were at that time regarded, were amply
realized. Even Mr. Nicholas Wood, in 1825, speaking of the powers
of the locomotive, and referring doubtless to the speculations of
the "Scotsman" as well as of his equally sanguine friend Stephenson,
observed: "It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the
ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic
speculist will be realized, and that we shall see engines traveling at
the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty miles an hour. Nothing
could do more harm toward their general adoption and improvement than
the promulgation of such nonsense."[59]

Among the papers left by Mr. Sandars we find a letter addressed to
him by Sir John Barrow, of the Admiralty, as to the proper method of
conducting the case in Parliament, which pretty accurately represents
the state of public opinion as to the practicability of locomotive
traveling on railroads at the time at which it was written, the 10th
of January, 1825. Sir John strongly urged Mr. Sandars to keep the
locomotive altogether in the background; to rely upon the proved
inability of the canals and common roads to accommodate the existing
traffic; and to be satisfied with proving the absolute necessity of a
new line of conveyance; above all, he recommended him not even to hint
at the intention of carrying passengers.

  "You will at once," said he, "raise a host of enemies in the
  proprietors of coaches, post-chaises, innkeepers, etc., whose
  interests will be attacked, and who, I have no doubt, will be
  strongly supported, and for what? Some thousands of passengers,
  _you_ say--but a few hundreds _I_ should say--in the year."

He accordingly urged that _passengers_ as well as _speed_ should be
kept entirely out of the act; but, if the latter were insisted on, then
he recommended that it should be kept as low as possible--say at five
miles an hour!

Indeed, when George Stephenson, at the interviews with counsel held
previous to the Liverpool and Manchester Bill going into Committee of
the House of Commons, confidently stated his expectation of being able
to run his locomotive at the rate of twenty miles an hour, Mr. William
Brougham, who was retained by the promoters to conduct their case,
frankly told him that if he did not moderate his views, and bring his
engine within a _reasonable_ speed, he would "inevitably damn the whole
thing, and be himself regarded as a maniac fit only for Bedlam."

The idea thrown out by Stephenson of traveling at a rate of speed
double that of the fastest mail-coach appeared at the time so
preposterous that he was unable to find any engineer who would risk
his reputation in supporting such "absurd views." Speaking of his
isolation at the time, he subsequently observed at a public meeting of
railway men in Manchester: "He remembered the time when he had very few
supporters in bringing out the railway system--when he sought England
over for an engineer to support him in his evidence before Parliament,
and could find only one man, James Walker, but was afraid to call that
gentleman, because he knew nothing about railways. He had then no one
to tell his tale to but Mr. Sandars, of Liverpool, who did listen
to him, and kept his spirits up; and his schemes had at length been
carried out only by dint of sheer perseverance."

George Stephenson's idea was at that time regarded as but the dream
of a chimerical projector. It stood before the public friendless,
struggling hard to gain a footing, scarcely daring to lift itself into
notice for fear of ridicule. The civil engineers generally rejected
the notion of a Locomotive Railway; and when no leading man of the
day could be found to stand forward in support of the Killingworth
mechanic, its chances of success must indeed have been pronounced but
small.

When such was the hostility of the civil engineers, no wonder the
Reviewers were puzzled. The "Quarterly," in an able article in support
of the projected Liverpool and Manchester Railway, while admitting its
_absolute necessity_, and insisting that there was no choice left but
a railroad, on which the journey between Liverpool and Manchester,
whether performed by horses or engines, would always be accomplished
"within the day," nevertheless scouted the idea of traveling at a
greater speed than eight or nine miles an hour. Adverting to a project
for forming a railway to Woolwich, by which passengers were to be
drawn by locomotive engines moving with twice the velocity of ordinary
coaches, the reviewer observed: "What can be more palpably absurd
and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling
_twice as fast_ as stage-coaches! We would as soon expect the people of
Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's
ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine
going at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the
Woolwich Railway for any sum. We trust that Parliament will, in all
railways it may sanction, limit the speed to _eight or nine miles an
hour_, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be
ventured on with safety."

[Illustration: SURVEYING ON CHAT MOSS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[58] "Many years ago I met in a public library with a bulky volume,
consisting of the prospectuses of various projects bound up together,
and labeled, 'Some of the Bubbles of 1825.' Among the projects thus
described was one that has since been productive of the greatest and
most rapid advance in the social condition of mankind effected since
the first dawn of civilization: it was the plan of the company for
constructing a railway between Liverpool and Manchester."--W. B. Hodge,
in "Journal of the Institute of Actuaries," No. 40, July, 1860.

[59] "Wood on Railroads," ed. 1825, p. 290.



CHAPTER X.

PARLIAMENTARY CONTEST ON THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER BILL.


The Liverpool and Manchester Bill went into Committee of the House of
Commons on the 21st of March, 1825. There was an extraordinary array
of legal talent on the occasion, but especially on the side of the
opponents to the measure. Their wealth and influence enabled them to
retain the ablest counsel at the bar; Mr. (afterward Baron) Alderson,
Mr. Stephenson, Mr. (afterward Baron) Parke, Mr. Rose, Mr. Macdonnell,
Mr. Harrison, Mr. Erle, and Mr. Cullen, appeared for various clients,
who made common cause with each other in opposing the bill, the case
for which was conducted by Mr. Adam, Mr. Sergeant Spankie, Mr. William
Brougham, and Mr. Joy.

Evidence was taken at great length as to the difficulties and delays
in forwarding raw goods of all kinds from Liverpool to Manchester,
as also in the conveyance of manufactured articles from Manchester
to Liverpool. The evidence adduced in support of the bill on these
grounds was overwhelming. The utter inadequacy of the existing modes
of conveyance to carry on satisfactorily the large and rapidly-growing
trade between the two towns was fully proved. But then came the main
difficulty of the promoters' case--that of proving the practicability
of constructing a railroad to be worked by locomotive power. Mr. Adam,
in his opening speech, referred to the cases of the Hetton and the
Killingworth railroads, where heavy goods were safely and economically
transported by means of locomotive engines. "None of the tremendous
consequences," he observed, "have ensued from the use of steam in land
carriage that have been stated. The horses have not started, nor the
cows ceased to give their milk, nor have ladies miscarried at the sight
of these things going forward at the rate of four miles and a half an
hour." Notwithstanding the petition of two ladies alleging the great
danger to be apprehended from the bursting of the locomotive boilers,
he urged the safety of the high-pressure engine when the boilers were
constructed of wrought iron; and as to the rate at which they could
travel, he expressed his full conviction that such engines "could
supply force to drive a carriage at the rate of five or six miles an
hour."

The taking of the evidence as to the impediments thrown in the way of
trade and commerce by the existing system extended over a month, and it
was the 21st of April before the committee went into the engineering
evidence, which was the vital part of the question.

On the 25th George Stephenson was called into the witness-box. It was
his first appearance before a committee of the House of Commons, and he
well knew what he had to expect. He was aware that the whole force of
the opposition was to be directed against him; and if they could break
down his evidence, the canal monopoly might yet be upheld for a time.
Many years afterward, when looking back at his position on this trying
occasion, he said: "When I went to Liverpool to plan a line from thence
to Manchester, I pledged myself to the directors to attain a speed of
ten miles an hour. I said I had no doubt the locomotive might be made
to go much faster, but that we had better be moderate at the beginning.
The directors said I was quite right; for that if, when they went to
Parliament, I talked of going at a greater rate than ten miles an hour,
I should put a cross upon the concern. It was not an easy task for me
to keep the engine down to ten miles an hour, but it must be done, and
I did my best. I had to place myself in that most unpleasant of all
positions--the witness-box of a Parliamentary committee. I was not long
in it before I began to wish for a hole to creep out at! I could not
find words to satisfy either the committee or myself. I was subjected
to the cross-examination of eight or ten barristers, purposely, as far
as possible, to bewilder me. Some member of the committee asked _if I
was a foreigner_,[60] and another hinted that _I was mad_. But I put
up with every rebuff, and went on with my plans, determined not to be
put down."

George Stephenson stood before the committee to prove what the public
opinion of that day held to be impossible. The self-taught mechanic
had to demonstrate the practicability of accomplishing that which the
most distinguished engineers of the time regarded as impracticable.
Clear though the subject was to himself, and familiar as he was with
the powers of the locomotive, it was no easy task for him to bring home
his convictions, or even to convey his meaning, to the less informed
minds of his hearers. In his strong Northumbrian dialect, he struggled
for utterance, in the face of the sneers, interruptions, and ridicule
of the opponents of the measure, and even of the committee, some of
whom shook their heads and whispered doubts as to his sanity when
he energetically avowed that he could make the locomotive go at the
rate of twelve miles an hour! It was so grossly in the teeth of all
the experience of honorable members, that the man "must certainly be
laboring under a delusion!"

And yet his large experience of railways and locomotives, as described
by himself to the committee, entitled this "untaught, inarticulate
genius," as he has been described, to speak with confidence on the
subject. Beginning with his experience as a brakesman at Killingworth
in 1803, he went on to state that he was appointed to take the
entire charge of the steam-engines in 1813, and had superintended
the railroads connected with the numerous collieries of the Grand
Allies from that time downward. He had laid down or superintended the
railways at Burradon, Mount Moor, Springwell, Bedlington, Hetton, and
Darlington, besides improving those at Killingworth, South Moor, and
Derwent Crook. He had constructed fifty-five steam-engines, of which
sixteen were locomotives. Some of these had been sent to France.
The engines constructed by him for the working of the Killingworth
Railroad, eleven years before, had continued steadily at work ever
since, and fulfilled his most sanguine expectations. He was prepared
to prove the safety of working high-pressure locomotives on a railroad,
and the superiority of this mode of transporting goods over all others.
As to speed, he said he had recommended eight miles an hour with
twenty tons, and four miles an hour with forty tons; but he was quite
confident that much more might be done. Indeed, he had no doubt they
might go at the rate of twelve miles. As to the charge that locomotives
on a railroad would so terrify the horses in the neighborhood that
to travel on horseback or to plow the adjoining fields would be
rendered highly dangerous, the witness said that horses learned to
take no notice of them, though there _were_ horses that would shy at a
wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to be more shied at by horses than
a locomotive. In the neighborhood of Killingworth, the cattle in the
fields went on grazing while the engines passed them, and the farmers
made no complaints.

Mr. Alderson, who had carefully studied the subject, and was well
skilled in practical science, subjected the witness to a protracted and
severe cross-examination as to the speed and power of the locomotive,
the stroke of the piston, the slipping of the wheels upon the rails,
and various other points of detail. Stephenson insisted that no
slipping took place, as attempted to be extorted from him by the
counsel. He said, "It is impossible for slipping to take place so long
as the adhesive weight of the wheel upon the rail is greater than the
weight to be dragged after it." There was a good deal of interruption
to the witness's answers by Mr. Alderson, to which Mr. Joy more than
once objected. As to accidents, Stephenson knew of none that had
occurred with his engines. There had been one, he was told, at the
Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, with a Blenkinsop engine. The driver
had been in liquor, and put a considerable load on the safety-valve,
so that upon going forward the engine blew up and the man was killed.
But he added, if proper precautions had been used with that boiler,
the accident could not have happened. The following cross-examination
occurred in reference to the question of speed:

"Of course," he was asked, "when a body is moving upon a road, the
greater the velocity the greater the momentum that is generated?"
"Certainly." "What would be the momentum of forty tons moving at the
rate of twelve miles an hour?" "It would be very great." "Have you seen
a railroad that would stand that?" "Yes." "Where?" "Any railroad that
would bear going four miles an hour: I mean to say, that if it would
bear the weight at four miles an hour, it would bear it at twelve."
"Taking it at four miles an hour, do you mean to say that it would not
require a stronger railway to carry the same weight twelve miles an
hour?" "I will give an answer to that. I dare say every person has been
over ice when skating, or seen persons go over, and they know that it
would bear them better at a greater velocity than it would if they went
slower; when they go quick, the weight in a measure ceases." "Is not
than upon the hypothesis that the railroad is perfect?" "It is; and I
mean to make it perfect."

It is not necessary to state that to have passed through his severe
ordeal scatheless needed no small amount of courage, intelligence,
and ready shrewdness on the part of the witness. Nicholas Wood, who
was present on the occasion, has since stated that the point on which
Stephenson was hardest pressed was that of speed. "I believe," he
says, "that it would have lost the company their bill if he had gone
beyond eight or nine miles an hour. If he had stated his intention of
going twelve or fifteen miles an hour, not a single person would have
believed it to be practicable." Mr. Alderson had, indeed, so pressed
the point of "twelve miles an hour," and the promoters were so alarmed
lest it should appear in evidence that they contemplated any such
extravagant rate of speed, that immediately on Mr. Alderson sitting
down, Mr. Joy proceeded to re-examine Stephenson, with the view of
removing from the minds of the committee an impression so unfavorable,
and, as they supposed, so damaging to their case. "With regard," asked
Mr. Joy, "to all those hypothetical questions of my learned friend,
they have been all put on the supposition of going twelve miles an
hour: now that is not the rate at which, I believe, any of the engines
of which you have spoken have traveled?" "No," replied Stephenson,
"except as an experiment for a short distance." "But what they have gone
has been three, five, or six miles an hour?" "Yes." "So that those
hypothetical cases of twelve miles an hour do not fall within your
general experience?" "They do not."

The committee also seem to have entertained some alarm as to the high
rate of speed which had been spoken of, and proceeded to examine the
witness farther on the subject. They supposed the case of the engine
being upset when going at nine miles an hour, and asked what, in such
a case, would become of the cargo astern. To which the witness replied
that it would not be upset. One of the members of the committee pressed
the witness a little farther. He put the following case: "Suppose,
now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of
nine or ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line
and get in the way of the engine; would not that, think you, be a very
awkward circumstance?" "Yes," replied the witness, with a twinkle in
his eye, "very awkward--_for the coo_!" The honorable member did not
proceed farther with his cross-examination; to use a railway phrase,
he was "shunted." Another asked if animals would not be very much
frightened by the engine passing at night, especially by the glare of
the red-hot chimney? "But how would they know that it wasn't painted?"
said the witness.

On the following day (the 26th of April) the engineer was subjected to
a most severe examination. On that part of the scheme with which he was
most practically conversant, his evidence was clear and conclusive.
Now, he had to give evidence on the plans made by his surveyors, and
the estimates which had been founded on those plans. So long as he was
confined to locomotive engines and iron railroads, with the minutest
details of which he was more familiar than any man living, he felt
at home and in his element. But when the designs of bridges and the
cost of constructing them had to be gone into, the subject being
comparatively new to him, his evidence was much less satisfactory.

He was cross-examined as to the practicability of forming a road on so
unstable a foundation as Chat Moss.

  "'Now, with respect to your evidence upon Chat Moss,' asked Mr.
  Alderson, 'did you ever walk on Chat Moss on the proposed line of
  the railway?' 'The greater part of it, I have.'

  "'Was it not extremely boggy?' 'In parts it was.'

  "'How deep did you sink in?' 'I could have gone with shoes; I do
  not know whether I had boots on.'

  "'If the depth of the Moss should prove to be 40 feet instead
  of 20, would not this plan of the railway over this Moss be
  impracticable?' 'No, it would not. If the gentleman will allow me,
  I will refer to a railroad belonging to the Duke of Portland, made
  over a moss; there are no levels to drain it properly, such as we
  have at Chat Moss, and it is made by an embankment over the moss,
  which is worse than making a cutting, for there is the weight of
  the embankment to press upon the moss.'

  "'Still, you must go to the bottom of the moss?' 'It is not
  necessary; the deeper you get, the more consolidated it is.'

  "'Would you put some hard materials on it before you commenced?'
  'Yes, perhaps I should.'

  "'What?' 'Brushwood, perhaps.'

  "'And you, then, are of opinion that it would be a solid
  embankment?' 'It would have a tremulous motion for a time, but
  would not give way, like clay.'"

Mr. Alderson also cross-examined him at great length on the plans of
the bridges, the tunnels, the crossings of the roads and streets,
and the details of the survey, which, it soon appeared, were in some
respects seriously at fault. It seems that, after the plans had been
deposited, Stephenson found that a much more favorable line might
be laid out, and he made his estimates accordingly, supposing that
Parliament would not confine the company to the precise plan which had
been deposited. This was felt to be a serious blot in the Parliamentary
case, and one very difficult to get over.

For three entire days was our engineer subjected to cross-examination
by Mr. Alderson, Mr. Cullen, and the other leading counsel for the
opposition. He held his ground bravely, and defended the plans and
estimates with remarkable ability and skill, but it was clear they were
imperfect, and the result was, on the whole, damaging to the bill. Mr.
(afterward Sir William) Cubitt was called by the promoters, Mr. Adam
stating that he proposed by this witness to correct some of the levels
as given by Stephenson. It seems a singular course to have been taken
by the promoters of the measure, for Mr. Cubitt's evidence went to
upset the statements made by Stephenson as to the survey. This adverse
evidence was, of course, made the most of by the opponents of the
scheme.

Mr. Sergeant Spankie then summed up for the bill on the 2d of May,
in a speech of great length, and the case of the opponents was next
gone into, Mr. Harrison opening with a long and eloquent speech on
behalf of his clients, Mrs. Atherton and others. He indulged in strong
vituperation against the witnesses for the bill, and especially dwelt
upon the manner in which Mr. Cubitt, for the promoters, had proved that
Stephenson's levels were wrong.

  "They got a person," said he, "whose character and skill I do not
  dispute, though I do not exactly know that I should have gone
  to the inventor of the treadmill as the fittest man to take the
  levels of Knowsley Moss and Chat Moss, which shook almost as much
  as a treadmill, as you recollect, for he (Mr. Cubitt) said Chat
  Moss trembled so much under his feet that he could not take his
  observations accurately.... In fact, Mr. Cubitt did not go on to
  Chat Moss, because he knew that it was an immense mass of pulp, and
  nothing else. It actually rises in height, from the rain swelling
  it like a sponge, and sinks again in dry weather, and if a boring
  instrument is put into it, it sinks immediately by its own weight.
  The making of an embankment out of this pulpy, wet moss is no very
  easy task. Who but Mr. Stephenson would have thought of entering
  into Chat Moss, carrying it out almost like wet dung? It is
  ignorance almost inconceivable. It is perfect madness, in a person
  called upon to speak on a scientific subject, to propose such a
  plan.... Every part of the scheme shows that this man has applied
  himself to a subject of which he has no knowledge, and to which he
  has no science to apply."

Then, adverting to the proposal to work the intended line by means of
locomotives, the learned gentleman proceeded:

  "When we set out with the original prospectus, we were to gallop
  I know not at what rate--I believe it was at the rate of twelve
  miles an hour. My learned friend, Mr. Adam, contemplated--possibly
  alluding to Ireland--that some of the Irish members would arrive in
  the wagons to a division. My learned friend says that they would go
  at the rate of twelve miles an hour with the aid of the devil in
  the form of a locomotive sitting as postillion on the fore horse,
  and an honorable member sitting behind him to stir up the fire,
  and keep it at full speed. But the speed at which these locomotive
  engines are to go has slackened: Mr. Adam does not go faster now
  than five miles an hour. The learned sergeant (Spankie) says he
  should like to have seven, but he would be content to go six. I
  will show he can not go six; and probably, for any practical
  purposes, I may be able to show that I can keep up with him _by the
  canal_.... Locomotive engines are liable to be operated upon by the
  weather. You are told they are affected by rain, and an attempt has
  been made to cover them; but the wind will affect them; and any
  gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey would
  render it _impossible_ to set off a locomotive engine, either by
  poking of the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam till
  the boiler was ready to burst."

How amusing it now is to read these extraordinary views as to the
formation of a railway over Chat Moss, and the impossibility of
starting a locomotive engine in the face of a gale of wind?

Evidence was called to show that the house property passed by the
proposed railway would be greatly deteriorated--in some places almost
destroyed; that the locomotive engines would be terrible nuisances,
in consequence of the fire and smoke vomited forth by them; and that
the value of land in the neighborhood of Manchester alone would be
deteriorated by no less than £20,000! Evidence was also given at great
length showing the utter impossibility of forming a road of any kind
upon Chat Moss. A Manchester builder, who was examined, could not
imagine the feat possible, unless by arching it across in the manner of
a viaduct from one side to the other. It was the old story of "nothing
like leather." But the opposition mainly relied upon the evidence of
the leading engineers--not, like Stephenson, self-taught men, but
regular professionals. Mr. Francis Giles, C.E., was their great card.
He had been twenty-two years an engineer, and could speak with some
authority. His testimony was mainly directed to the utter impossibility
of forming a railway over Chat Moss. "_No engineer in his senses_,"
said he, "would go through Chat Moss if he wanted to make a railroad
from Liverpool to Manchester. In my judgment, _a railroad certainly
can not be safely made over Chat Moss without going to the bottom of
the Moss_." The following may be taken as a specimen of Mr. Giles's
evidence:

  "'Tell us whether, in your judgment, a railroad can be safely made
  over Chat Moss without going to the bottom of the bog?' 'I say,
  _certainly not_.'

  "'Will it be necessary, therefore, in making a permanent railroad,
  to take out the whole of the moss to the bottom, along the whole
  line of road?' 'Undoubtedly.'

  "'Will that make it necessary to cut down the thirty-three or
  thirty-four feet of which you have been speaking?' 'Yes.'

  "'And afterward to fill it up with other soil?' 'To such height as
  the railway is to be carried; other soil mixed with a portion of
  the moss.'

  "'But suppose they were to work upon this stuff, could they get
  their carriages to this place?' '_No carriage can stand on the moss
  short of the bottom._'

  "'What could they do to make it stand--laying planks, or something
  of that sort?' 'Nothing would support it.'

  "'So that, if you would carry a railroad over this fluid stuff--if
  you could do it, it would still take a great number of men and a
  great sum of money. Could it be done, in your opinion, for £6000?'
  'I should say £200,000 would not get through it.'

  "'My learned friend wishes to know what it would cost to lay it
  with diamonds?'"

Mr. H. R. Palmer, C.E., gave evidence to prove that resistance to a
moving body going under four and a quarter miles an hour was _less_
upon a canal than upon a railroad; and that, when going against a
strong wind, the progress of a locomotive was retarded "very much."
Mr. George Leather, C.E., the engineer of the Croydon and Wandsworth
Railway, on which he said the wagons went at from two and a half to
three miles an hour, also testified against the practicability of
Stephenson's plan. He considered his estimate a "very wild" one. He had
no confidence in locomotive power. The Weardale Railway, of which he
was engineer, had given up the use of locomotive engines. He supposed
that, when used, they traveled at three and a half to four miles an
hour, because they were considered to be then more effective than at a
higher speed.

When these distinguished engineers had given their evidence, Mr.
Alderson summed up in a speech which extended over two days. He
declared Stephenson's plan to be "the most absurd scheme that ever
entered into the head of man to conceive:"

  "My learned friends," said he, "almost endeavored to stop my
  examination; they wished me to put in the plan, but I had rather
  have the exhibition of Mr. Stephenson in that box. I say he never
  had one--I believe he never had one--I do not believe he is capable
  of making one. His is a mind perpetually fluctuating between
  opposite difficulties: he neither knows whether he is to make
  bridges over roads or rivers of one size or of another, or to
  make embankments, or cuttings, or inclined planes, or in what way
  the thing is to be carried into effect. Whenever a difficulty is
  pressed, as in the case of a tunnel, he gets out of it at one end,
  and when you try to catch him at that, he gets out at the other."

Mr. Alderson proceeded to declaim against the gross ignorance of this
so-called engineer, who proposed to make "impossible ditches by the
side of an impossible railway" over Chat Moss; and he contrasted with
his evidence that given "by that most respectable gentleman we have
called before you, I mean Mr. Giles, who has executed a vast number
of works," etc. Then Mr. Giles's evidence as to the impossibility of
making any railway over the Moss that would stand short of the bottom
was emphatically dwelt upon; and Mr. Alderson proceeded:

  "Having now, sir, gone through Chat Moss, and having shown that Mr.
  Giles is right in his principle when he adopts a solid railway--and
  I care not whether Mr. Giles is right or wrong in his estimate,
  for whether it be effected by means of piers raised up all the
  way for four miles through Chat Moss, whether they are to support
  it on beams of wood or by erecting masonry, or whether Mr. Giles
  shall put a solid bank of earth through it--in all these schemes
  there is not one found like that of Mr. Stephenson's, namely,
  to cut impossible drains on the side of this road; and it is
  sufficient for me to suggest, and to show, that this scheme of Mr.
  Stephenson's is impossible or impracticable, and that no other
  scheme, if they proceed upon this line, can be suggested which will
  not produce enormous expense. I think that has been irrefragably
  made out. Every one knows Chat Moss--every one knows that Mr. Giles
  speaks correctly when he says the iron sinks immediately on its
  being put upon the surface. I have heard of culverts which have
  been put upon the Moss, which, after having been surveyed the day
  before, have the next morning disappeared; and that a house (a
  poet's house, who may be supposed in the habit of building castles
  even in the air), story after story, as fast as one is added, the
  lower one sinks! There is nothing, it appears, except long sedgy
  grass, and a little soil, to prevent its sinking into the shades of
  eternal night. I have now done, sir, with Chat Moss, and there I
  leave this railroad."

Mr. Alderson, of course, called upon the committee to reject the bill;
and he protested "against the despotism of the Exchange at Liverpool
striding across the land of this country. I do protest," he concluded,
"against a measure like this, supported as it is by such evidence, and
founded upon such calculations."

The case of the other numerous petitioners against the bill
still remained to be gone into. Witnesses were called to prove
the residential injury which would be caused by the "intolerable
nuisance" of the smoke and fire from the locomotives, and others to
prove that the price of coals and iron would "infallibly" be greatly
raised throughout the country. This was part of the case of the
Duke of Bridgewater's trustees, whose witnesses "proved" many very
extraordinary things. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company were so
fortunate as to pick up a witness from Hetton who was ready to furnish
some damaging evidence as to the use of Stephenson's locomotives on
that railway. This was Mr. Thomas Wood, one of the Hetton Company's
clerks, whose evidence was to the effect that the locomotives, having
been found ineffective, were about to be discontinued in favor of
fixed engines. The evidence of this witness, incompetent though he was
to give an opinion on the subject, and exaggerated as his statements
were afterward proved to be, was made the most of by Mr. Harrison when
summing up the case of the canal companies.

  "At length," he said, "we have come to this--having first set out
  at twelve miles an hour, the speed of these locomotives is reduced
  to six, and now comes down to two or two and a half. They must be
  content to be pulled along by horses and donkeys; and all those
  fine promises of galloping along at the rate of twelve miles an
  hour are melted down to a total failure; the foundation on which
  their case stood is cut from under them completely; for the Act
  of Parliament, the committee will recollect, prohibits any person
  using any animal power, of any sort, kind, or description, except
  the projectors of the railway themselves; therefore I say that the
  whole foundation on which this project exists is gone."

After farther personal abuse of Mr. Stephenson, whose evidence he spoke
of as "trash and confusion," Mr. Harrison closed the case of the canal
companies on the 30th of May. Mr. Adam replied for the promoters,
recapitulating the principal points of their case, and vindicating Mr.
Stephenson and the evidence which he had given before the committee.

The committee then divided on the preamble, which was carried by a
majority of only _one_--thirty-seven voting for it, and thirty-six
against it. The clauses were next considered, and on a division, the
first clause, empowering the company to make the railway, was lost by
a majority of nineteen to thirteen. In like manner, the next clause,
empowering the company to take land, was lost; on which Mr. Adam, on
the part of the promoters, withdrew the bill.

Thus ended this memorable contest, which had extended over two
months--carried on throughout with great pertinacity and skill,
especially on the part of the opposition, who left no stone unturned
to defeat the measure. The want of a new line of communication between
Liverpool and Manchester had been clearly proved; but the engineering
evidence in support of the proposed railway having been thrown almost
entirely upon George Stephenson, who fought this, the most important
part of the battle, single-handed, was not brought out so clearly as it
would have been had he secured more efficient engineering assistance,
which he was not able to do, as all the engineers of eminence of that
day were against the locomotive railway. The obstacles thrown in the
way of the survey by the land-owners and canal companies, by which
the plans were rendered exceedingly imperfect, also tended in a great
measure to defeat the bill.

Mr. Gooch says the rejection of the scheme was probably the most severe
trial George Stephenson underwent in the whole course of his life.
The circumstances connected with the defeat of the bill, the errors
in the levels, his severe cross-examination, followed by the fact of
his being superseded by another engineer, all told fearfully upon him,
and for some time he was as terribly weighed down as if a personal
calamity of the most serious kind had befallen him. It is also right
to add that he was badly served by his surveyors, who were unpracticed
and incompetent. On the 27th of September, 1824, we find him writing
to Mr. Sandars: "I am quite shocked with Auty's conduct; we must throw
him aside as soon as possible. Indeed, I have begun to fear that he has
been fee'd by some of the canal proprietors to make a botch of the job.
I have a letter from Steele,[61] whose views of Auty's conduct quite
agree with yours." The result of this first application to Parliament
was so far discouraging. Stephenson had been so terribly abused by the
leading counsel for the opposition in the course of the proceedings
before the committee--stigmatized by them as an ignoramus, a fool, and
a maniac--that even his friends seem for a time to have lost faith in
him and in the locomotive system, whose efficiency he continued to
uphold. Things never looked blacker for the success of the railway
system than at the close of this great Parliamentary struggle. And yet
it was on the very eve of its triumph.

The Committee of Directors appointed to watch the measure in Parliament
were so determined to press on the project of a railway, even though
it should have to be worked merely by horse-power, that the bill had
scarcely been defeated ere they met in London to consider their next
step. They called their Parliamentary friends together to consult as
to their future proceedings. Among those who attended the meeting of
gentlemen with this object in the Royal Hotel, St. James's Street,
on the 4th of June, were Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Spring Rice, and General
Gascoyne. Mr. Huskisson urged the promoters to renew their application
to Parliament. They had secured the first step by the passing of their
preamble; the measure was of great public importance; and, whatever
temporary opposition it might meet with, he conceived that Parliament
must ultimately give its sanction to the undertaking. Similar views
were expressed by other speakers; and the deputation went back to
Liverpool determined to renew their application to Parliament in the
ensuing season.

It was not considered desirable to employ George Stephenson in making
the new survey. He had not as yet established his reputation beyond
the boundaries of his own district, and the promoters of the bill
had doubtless felt the disadvantages of this in the course of their
Parliamentary struggle. They therefore resolved now to employ engineers
of the highest established reputation, as well as the best surveyors
that could be obtained. In accordance with these views, they engaged
Messrs. George and John Rennie to be the engineers of the railway; and
Mr. Charles Vignolles, on their behalf, was appointed to prepare the
plans and sections. The line which was eventually adopted differed
somewhat from that surveyed by Stephenson, entirely avoiding Lord
Sefton's property, and passing through only a few detached fields of
Lord Derby's at a considerable distance from the Knowsley domain. The
principal parks and game preserves of the district were also carefully
avoided. The promoters thus hoped to get rid of the opposition of
the most influential of the resident land-owners. The crossing of
certain of the streets of Liverpool was also avoided, and the entrance
contrived by means of a tunnel and an inclined plane. The new line
stopped short of the River Irwell at the Manchester end, and thus,
in some measure, removed the objections grounded on an anticipated
interruption to the canal or river traffic. And, with reference to the
use of the locomotive engine, the promoters, remembering with what
effect the objections to it had been urged by the opponents of the
measure, intimated, in their second prospectus, that, "as a guarantee
of their good faith toward the public, they will not require any clause
empowering them to use it; or they will submit to such restrictions in
the employment of it as Parliament may impose, for the satisfaction and
ample protection both of proprietors on the line of road and of the
public at large."

It was found that the capital required to form the line of railway,
as laid out by the Messrs. Rennie, was considerably beyond the amount
of Stephenson's estimate, and it became a question with the committee
in what way the new capital should be raised. A proposal was made to
the Marquis of Stafford, who was principally interested in the Duke
of Bridgewater's Canal, to become a shareholder in the undertaking. A
similar proposal had at an earlier period been made to Mr. Bradshaw,
the trustee for the property; but his answer was "all or none," and the
negotiation was broken off. The Marquis of Stafford, however, now met
the projectors of the railway in a more conciliatory spirit, and it was
ultimately agreed that he should become a subscriber to the extent of a
thousand shares.

The survey of the new line having been completed, the plans were
deposited, the standing orders duly complied with, and the bill went
before Parliament. The same counsel appeared for the promoters, but the
examination of witnesses was not nearly so protracted as on the former
occasion. Mr. Erle and Mr. Harrison led the case of the opposition.
The bill went into committee on the 6th of March, and on the 16th the
preamble was declared proved by a majority of forty-three to eighteen.
On the third reading in the House of Commons, an animated, and what now
appears a very amusing discussion, took place. The Hon. Edward Stanley
(since Earl of Derby, and prime minister) moved that the bill be read
that day six months. In the course of his speech he undertook to prove
that the railway trains would take _ten hours_ on the journey, and that
they could only be worked by horses; and he called upon the House to
stop the bill, "and prevent this mad and extravagant speculation from
being carried into effect." Sir Isaac Coffin seconded the motion, and
in doing so denounced the project as a most flagrant imposition. He
would not consent to see widows' premises and their strawberry-beds
invaded; and "what, he would like to know, was to be done with all
those who had advanced money in making and repairing turnpike roads?
What with those who may still wish to travel in their own or hired
carriages, after the fashion of their forefathers? What was to become
of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters and coachmen,
innkeepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? Was the House aware
of the smoke and the noise, the hiss and the whirl, which locomotive
engines, passing at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, would
occasion? Neither the cattle plowing in the fields or grazing in the
meadows could behold them without dismay. Iron would be raised in price
100 per cent., or more probably exhausted altogether! It would be the
greatest nuisance, the most complete disturbance of quiet and comfort
in all parts of the kingdom that the ingenuity of man could invent!"

Mr. Huskisson and other speakers, though unable to reply to such
arguments as these, strongly supported the bill, and it was carried on
the third reading by a majority of eighty-eight to forty-one. The bill
passed the House of Lords almost unanimously, its only opponents being
the Earl of Derby and his relative the Earl of Wilton. The cost of
obtaining the act amounted to the enormous sum of £27,000.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] George's Northumberland "burr" was so strong that it rendered
him almost unintelligible to persons who were unfamiliar with it;
and he had even thoughts of going to school again, for the purpose,
if possible, of getting rid of it. In the year 1823, when Stephenson
was forty-two years of age, we find his friend Thomas Richardson, of
Lombard Street, writing to Samuel Thoroughgood, a schoolmaster at
Peckham, as follows: "DEAR FRIEND,--My friend George Stephenson, a man
of first-rate abilities as an engineer, but of little or no education,
wants to consult thee or some other person to see if he can not improve
himself--he has so much Northumberland dialect, etc. He will be at my
house on sixth day next, about five o'clock, if thou could make it
convenient to see him. Thy assured friend, THOS. RICHARDSON."

[61] Hugh Steele and Elijah Galloway afterward proceeded with the
survey at one part of the line, and Messrs. Oliver and Blackett at
another. The former couple seem to have made some grievous blunder in
the levels on Chat Moss, and the circumstance weighed so heavily on
Steele's mind that, shortly after hearing of the rejection of the bill,
he committed suicide in Stephenson's office at Newcastle. Mr. Gooch
informs us that this unhappy affair served to impress upon the minds of
Stephenson's other pupils the necessity of insuring greater accuracy
and attention in future, and that the lesson, though sad, was not lost
upon them.



CHAPTER XI.

CHAT MOSS--CONSTRUCTION OF THE RAILWAY.


The appointment of principal engineer of the railway was taken into
consideration at the first meeting of the directors held at Liverpool
subsequent to the passing of the act of incorporation. The magnitude
of the proposed works, and the vast consequences involved in the
experiment, were deeply impressed on their minds, and they resolved to
secure the services of a resident engineer of proved experience and
ability. Their attention was naturally directed to George Stephenson;
at the same time, they desired to have the benefit of the Messrs.
Rennie's professional assistance in superintending the works. Mr.
George Rennie had an interview with the board on the subject, at which
he proposed to undertake the chief superintendence, making six visits
in each year, and stipulating that he should have the appointment
of the resident engineer. But the responsibility attaching to the
direction in the matter of the efficient carrying on of the works
would not admit of their being influenced by ordinary punctilios on
the occasion, and they accordingly declined Mr. Rennie's proposal, and
proceeded to appoint George Stephenson principal engineer at a salary
of £1000 per annum.

He at once removed his residence to Liverpool, and made arrangements to
commence the works. He began with the "impossible thing"--to do that
which some of the principal engineers of the day had declared that "no
man in his senses would undertake to do"--namely, to make the road
over Chat Moss! It was, indeed, a most formidable undertaking, and the
project of carrying a railway along, under, or over such a material as
that of which it consisted would certainly never have occurred to an
ordinary mind. Michael Drayton supposed the Moss to have had its origin
at the Deluge. Nothing more impassable could have been imagined than
that dreary waste; and Mr. Giles only spoke the popular feeling of the
day when he declared that no carriage could stand on it "short of the
bottom." In this bog, singular to say, Mr. Roscoe, the accomplished
historian of the Medicis, buried his fortune in the hopeless attempt to
cultivate a portion of it which he had bought.

Chat Moss is an immense peat-bog of about twelve square miles in
extent. Unlike the bogs or swamps of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, which
consist principally of soft mud or silt, this bog is a vast mass of
spongy vegetable pulp, the result of the growth and decay of ages.
Spagni, or bog-mosses, cover the entire area; one year's growth rising
over another, the older growths not entirely decaying, but remaining
partially preserved by the antiseptic properties peculiar to peat.
Hence the remarkable fact that, though a semifluid mass, the surface
of Chat Moss rises above the level of the surrounding country. Like a
turtle's back, it declines from the summit in every direction, having
from thirty to forty feet gradual slope to the solid land on all sides.
From the remains of trees, chiefly alder and birch, which have been dug
out of it, and which must have previously flourished on the surface of
the soil now deeply submerged, it is probable that the sand and clay
base on which the bog rests is saucer-shaped, and so retains the entire
mass in position. In rainy weather, such is its capacity for water that
it sensibly swells, and rises in those parts where the moss is the
deepest. This occurs through the capillary attraction of the fibres of
the submerged moss, which is from twenty to thirty feet in depth, while
the growing plants effectually check evaporation from the surface. This
peculiar character of the Moss has presented an insuperable difficulty
in the way of draining on any extensive system--such as by sinking
shafts in its substance, and pumping up the water by steam-power, as
has been proposed by some engineers. For, supposing a shaft of thirty
feet deep to be sunk, it has been calculated that this would only be
effectual for draining a circle of about one hundred yards, the water
running down an incline of about 5 to 1; indeed, it was found, in the
course of draining the bog, that a ditch three feet deep only served to
drain a space of less than five yards on either side, and two ditches
of this depth, ten feet apart, left a portion of the Moss between them
scarcely affected by the drains.

The three resident engineers selected by Mr. Stephenson to superintend
the construction of the line were Mr. Joseph Locke, Mr. Allcard, and
Mr. John Dixon. The last was appointed to that portion which included
the proposed road across the Moss, the other two being any thing but
desirous of exchanging posts with him. On Mr. Dixon's arrival, about
the month of July, 1826, Mr. Locke proceeded to show him over the
length he was to take charge of, and to instal him in office. When
they reached Chat Moss, Mr. Dixon found that the line had already been
staked out and the levels taken in detail by the aid of planks laid
upon the bog. The cutting of the drains along each side of the proposed
road had also been commenced, but the soft pulpy stuff had up to this
time flowed into the drains and filled them up as fast as they were
cut. Proceeding across the Moss on his first day's inspection, the new
resident, when about half way over, slipped off the plank on which he
walked, and sank to his knees in the bog. Struggling only sent him the
deeper, and he might have disappeared altogether but for the workmen,
who hastened to his assistance upon planks, and rescued him from his
perilous position. Much disheartened, he desired to return, and even
for the moment thought of giving up the job; but Mr. Locke assured
him that the worst part was now past; so the new resident plucked up
heart again, and both floundered on until they reached the farther
edge of the Moss, wet and plastered over with bog sludge. Mr. Dixon's
assistants endeavored to comfort him by the assurance that he might
in future avoid similar perils by walking upon "pattens," or boards
fastened to the soles of his feet, as they had done when taking the
levels, and as the workmen did when engaged in making drains in the
softest parts of the Moss. Still the resident engineer could not help
being puzzled by the problem of how to construct a road for a heavy
locomotive, with a train of passengers or goods, upon a bog which he
had found to be incapable of supporting his own individual weight!

Stephenson's idea was that such a road might be made to _float_ upon
the bog simply by means of a sufficient extension of the bearing
surface. As a ship, or a raft capable of sustaining heavy loads,
floated in water, so, in his opinion, might a light road be floated
upon a bog which was of considerably greater consistency than water.
Long before the railway was thought of, Mr. Roscoe had adopted the
remarkable expedient of fitting his plow-horses with flat wooden
soles or pattens, to enable them to walk upon the Moss land which he
had brought into cultivation. These pattens were fitted on by means
of a screw apparatus, which met in front of the foot and was easily
fastened. The mode by which these pattens served to sustain the horse
is capable of easy explanation, and it will be observed that the
_rationale_ alike explains the floating of a railway. The foot of an
ordinary farm-horse presents a base of about five inches diameter, but
if this base be enlarged to seven inches--the circles being to each
other as the squares of the diameters--it will be found that, by this
slight enlargement of the base, a circle of nearly double the area has
been secured, and consequently the pressure of the foot upon every unit
of ground on which the horse stands has been reduced one half. In fact,
this contrivance has an effect tantamount to setting the horse upon
eight feet instead of four.

Apply the same reasoning to the ponderous locomotive, and it will be
found that even such a machine may be made to stand upon a bog by means
of a similar extension of the bearing surface. Suppose the engine to
be twenty feet long and five feet wide, thus covering a surface of a
hundred square feet, and, provided the bearing has been extended by
means of cross sleepers supported upon a matting of heath and branches
of trees covered with a few inches of gravel, the pressure of an engine
of twenty tons will be only equal to about three pounds per inch over
the whole surface on which it stands. Such was George Stephenson's
idea in contriving his floating road--something like an elongated
raft--across the Moss; and we shall see that he steadily kept it in
view in carrying the work into execution.

The first thing done was to form a footpath of ling or heather along
the proposed road, on which a man might walk without risk of sinking.
A single line of temporary railway was then laid down, formed of
ordinary cross-bars about three feet long and an inch square, with
holes punched through them at the end and nailed down to temporary
sleepers. Along this way ran the wagons in which were conveyed the
materials requisite to form the permanent road. These wagons carried
about a ton each, and they were propelled by boys running behind them
along the narrow bar of iron. The boys became so expert that they would
run the four miles across at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour
without missing a step; if they had done so, they would have sunk in
many places up to their middle.[62] The slight extension of the bearing
surface was sufficient to enable the bog to bear this temporary line,
and the circumstance was a source of increased confidence and hope to
our engineer in proceeding with the formation of the permanent road
alongside.

The digging of drains had been proceeding for some time along each
side of the intended railway, but they filled up almost as soon as
dug, the sides flowing in and the bottom rising up, and it was only in
some of the drier parts of the bog that a depth of three or four feet
could be reached. The surface-ground between the drains, containing
the intertwined roots of heather and long grass, was left untouched,
and upon this were spread branches of trees and hedge-cuttings; in
the softest places rude gates or hurdles, some eight or nine feet
long by four feet wide, interwoven with heather, were laid in double
thicknesses, their ends overlapping each other; and upon this floating
bed was spread a thin layer of gravel, on which the sleepers, chairs,
and rails were laid in the usual manner. Such was the mode in which the
road was formed upon the Moss.

It was found, however, after the permanent road had been thus laid,
that there was a tendency to sinking at those parts where the bog was
the softest. In ordinary cases, where a bank subsides, the sleepers
are packed up with ballast or gravel, but in this case the ballast was
dug away and removed in order to lighten the road, and the sleepers
were packed instead with cakes of dry turf or bundles of heath. By
these expedients the subsided parts were again floated up to the level,
and an approach was made toward a satisfactory road. But the most
formidable difficulties were encountered at the centre and toward the
edges of the Moss, and it required no small degree of ingenuity and
perseverance on the part of the engineer successfully to overcome them.

The Moss, as has been already observed, was highest in the centre,
and it there presented a sort of hunchback with a rising and falling
gradient. At that point it was found necessary to cut deeper drains in
order to consolidate the ground between them on which the road was to
be formed. But, as at other parts of the Moss, the deeper the cutting
the more rapid was the flow of fluid bog into the drain, the bottom
rising up almost as fast as it was removed. To meet this emergency, a
quantity of empty tar-barrels was brought from Liverpool, and, as soon
as a few yards of drain were dug, the barrels were laid down end to
end, firmly fixed to each other by strong slabs laid over the joints,
and nailed; they were then covered over with clay, and thus formed an
underground sewer of wood instead of bricks. This expedient was found
to answer the purpose intended, and the road across the centre of the
Moss having thus been prepared, it was then laid with the permanent
materials.

The greatest difficulty was, however, experienced in forming an
embankment on the edge of the bog at the Manchester end. Moss, as dry
as it could be cut, was brought up in small wagons by men and boys, and
emptied so as to form an embankment; but the bank had scarcely been
raised three or four feet in height when the stuff broke through the
heathery surface of the bog and sunk overhead. More moss was brought up
and emptied in with no better result, and for many weeks the filling
was continued without any visible embankment having been made. It
was the duty of the resident engineer to proceed to Liverpool every
fortnight to obtain the wages for the workmen employed under him, and
on these occasions he was required to color up, on a section drawn to
a working scale suspended against the wall of the directors' room, the
amount of excavation, embankment, etc., executed from time to time. But
on many of these occasions Mr. Dixon had no progress whatever to show
for the money expended on the Chat Moss embankment. Sometimes, indeed,
the visible work done was _less_ than it had appeared a fortnight or a
month before!

The directors now became seriously alarmed, and feared that the evil
prognostications of the eminent engineers were about to be fulfilled.
The resident himself was greatly disheartened, and he was even called
upon to supply the directors with an estimate of the cost of filling up
the Moss with solid stuff from the bottom, as also the cost of piling
the roadway, and, in effect, constructing a four-mile viaduct of timber
across the Moss, from twenty to thirty feet high. But the expense
appalled the directors, and the question then arose whether the work
was to be proceeded with or _abandoned_!

Stephenson himself afterward described the alarming position of affairs
at a public dinner given at Birmingham on the 23d of December, 1837,
on the occasion of a piece of plate being presented to his son after
the completion of the London and Birmingham Railway. He related the
anecdote, he said, for the purpose of impressing upon the minds of
those who heard him the necessity of perseverance.

  "After working for weeks and weeks," said he, "in filling in
  materials to form the road, there did not yet appear to be the
  least sign of our being able to raise the solid embankment one
  single inch; in short, we went on filling in without the slightest
  apparent effect. Even my assistants began to feel uneasy, and to
  doubt of the success of the scheme. The directors, too, spoke of it
  as a hopeless task; and at length they became seriously alarmed,
  so much so, indeed, that a board meeting was held on Chat Moss to
  decide whether I should proceed any farther. They had previously
  taken the opinion of other engineers, who reported unfavorably.
  There was no help for it, however, but to go on. An immense outlay
  had been incurred, and great loss would have been occasioned had
  the scheme been then abandoned, and the line taken by another
  route. So the directors were _compelled_ to allow me to go on with
  my plans, of the ultimate success of which I myself never for one
  moment doubted."

During the progress of this part of the works, the Worsley and
Trafford men, who lived near the Moss, and plumed themselves upon
their practical knowledge of bog-work, declared the completion of the
road to be utterly impracticable. "If you knew as much about Chat Moss
as we do," they said, "you would never have entered on so rash an
undertaking; and depend upon it, all you have done and are doing will
prove abortive. You must give up altogether the idea of a floating
railway, and either fill the Moss up with hard material from the
bottom, or else deviate the line so as to avoid it altogether." Such
were the conclusions of science and experience.

In the midst of all these alarms and prophecies of failure, Stephenson
never lost heart, but held to his purpose. His motto was "Persevere!"
"You must go on filling in," he said; "there is no other help for it.
The stuff emptied in is doing its work out of sight, and if you will
but have patience, it will soon begin to show." And so the filling
in went on; several hundreds of men and boys were employed to skin
the Moss all round for many thousand yards, by means of sharp spades,
called by the turf-cutters "tommy-spades;" and the dried cakes of
turf were afterward used to form the embankment, until at length, as
the stuff sank and rested upon the bottom, the bank gradually rose
above the surface, and slowly advanced onward, declining in height and
consequently in weight, until it became joined to the floating road
already laid upon the Moss. In the course of forming the embankment,
the pressure of the bog turf tipped out of the wagons caused a copious
stream of bog-water to flow from the end of it, in color resembling
Barclay's double stout; and when completed, the bank looked like a long
ridge of tightly-pressed tobacco-leaf. The compression of the turf may
be understood from the fact that 670,000 cubic yards of raw moss formed
only 277,000 cubic yards of embankment at the completion of the work.

At the western, or Liverpool end of the Chat Moss, there was a like
embankment; but, as the ground there was solid, little difficulty was
experienced in forming it, beyond the loss of substance caused by the
oozing out of the water held by the moss-earth.

At another part of the Liverpool and Manchester line, Parr Moss was
crossed by an embankment about a mile and a half in extent. In the
immediate neighborhood was found a large excess of cutting, which it
would have been necessary to "put out in spoil-banks" (according to the
technical phrase) but for the convenience of Parr Moss, into which the
surplus clay, stone, and shale were tipped, wagon after wagon, until a
solid but congealed embankment, from fifteen to twenty feet high, was
formed, although to the eye it appears to be laid upon the level of the
adjoining surface, as at Chat Moss.

The road across Chat Moss was finished by the 1st of January, 1830,
when the first experimental train of passengers passed over it, drawn
by the "Rocket;" and it turned out that, instead of being the most
expensive part of the line, it was about the cheapest. The total cost
of forming the line over the Moss was £28,000, whereas Mr. Giles's
estimate was £270,000! It also proved to be one of the best portions
of the railway. Being a floating road, it was as smooth and easy to
run upon as Dr. Arnott's water-bed is soft and easy to lie upon--the
pressure being equal at all points. There was, and still is, a sort of
springiness in the road over the Moss, such as is felt when passing
along a suspended bridge; and those who looked along the Moss as a
train passed over it said they could observe a waviness, such as
precedes and follows a skater upon ice.

During the progress of the works the most ridiculous rumors were set
afloat. The drivers of the stage-coaches, who feared for their calling,
brought the alarming intelligence into Manchester from time to time
that "Chat Moss was blown up!" "Hundreds of men and horses had sunk
in the bog; and the works were completely abandoned!" The engineer
himself was declared to have been swallowed up in the Serbonian bog;
and "railways were at an end forever!"

In the construction of the railway, George Stephenson's capacity for
organizing and directing the labors of a large number of workmen of all
kinds eminently displayed itself. A vast quantity of ballast-wagons
had to be constructed for the purposes of the work, and implements and
materials had to be collected, before the mass of labor to be employed
could be efficiently set in motion at the various points of the line.
There were not at that time, as there are now, large contractors,
possessed of railway plant, capable of executing earthworks on a large
scale. Our engineer had, therefore, not only to contrive the plant,
but to organize the labor, and direct it in person. The very laborers
themselves had to be trained to their work by him; and it was on the
Liverpool and Manchester line that Mr. Stephenson organized the staff
of that formidable band of railway navvies, whose handiworks will be
the wonder and admiration of succeeding generations. Looking at their
gigantic traces, the men of some future age may be found to declare, of
the engineer and of his workmen, that "there were giants in those days."

Although the works of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway are of
a much less formidable character than those of many lines that have
since been constructed, they were then regarded as of a stupendous
kind. Indeed, few works of such magnitude had before been executed in
England. It had been the engineer's original intention to carry the
railway from the north end of Liverpool round the red sandstone ridge
on which the upper part of the town is built, and also round the higher
rise of the coal formation at Rainhill, by following the natural levels
to the north of Knowsley. But the opposition of the land-owners having
forced the line more to the south, it was rendered necessary to cut
through the hills, and go over the high grounds instead of round them.
The first consequence of this alteration in the plans was the necessity
for constructing a tunnel under the town of Liverpool a mile and a
half in length, from the docks at Wapping to the top of Edgehill; the
second was the necessity for forming a long and deep cutting through
the red sandstone rock at Olive Mount; and the third and worst of all
was the necessity for ascending and descending the Whiston and Sutton
hills by means of inclined planes of 1 in 96. The line was also, by
the same forced deviation, prevented passing through the Lancashire
coal-field, and the engineer was compelled to carry the works across
the Sankey valley at a point where the waters of the brook had dug out
an excessively deep channel through the marl-beds of the district.

The principal difficulty was experienced in pushing on the works
connected with the formation of the tunnel under Liverpool, 2200
yards in length. The blasting and hewing of the rock were vigorously
carried on night and day; and the engineer's practical experience in
the collieries here proved of great use to him. Many obstacles had to
be encountered and overcome in the formation of the tunnel, the rock
varying in hardness and texture at different parts. In some places
the miners were deluged by water, which surged from the soft blue
shale found at the lowest level of the tunnel. In other places beds
of wet sand were cut through, and there careful propping and pinning
were necessary to prevent the roof from tumbling in until the masonry
to support it could be erected. On one occasion, while Stephenson
was absent from Liverpool, a mass of loose moss-earth and sand fell
from the roof, which had been insufficiently propped. The miners
withdrew from the work; and on the engineer's return he found them in
a refractory state, refusing to re-enter the tunnel. He induced them,
however, by his example, to return to their labors; and when the roof
had been secured, the work went on again as before. When there was
danger, he was always ready to share it with the men; and, gathering
confidence from his fearlessness, they proceeded vigorously with the
undertaking, boring and mining their way toward the light.

[Illustration: OLIVE MOUNT CUTTING. [By Percival Skelton.]]

The Olive Mount cutting was the first extensive stone cutting executed
on any railway, and to this day it is one of the most formidable. It is
about two miles long, and in some parts more than a hundred feet deep.
It is a narrow ravine or defile cut out of the solid rock, and not less
than four hundred and eighty thousand cubic yards of stone were removed
from it. Mr. Vignolles, afterward describing it, said it looked as if
it had been dug out by giants.

[Illustration: SANKEY VIADUCT. [By Percival Skelton.]]

The crossing of so many roads and streams involved the necessity
for constructing an unusual number of bridges. There were not fewer
than sixty-three, under or over the railway, on the thirty miles
between Liverpool and Manchester. Up to this time bridges had been
applied generally to high roads, where inclined approaches were of
comparatively small importance, and in determining the rise of his
arch the engineer selected any headway he thought proper. Every
consideration was indeed made subsidiary to constructing the bridge
itself, and the completion of one large structure of this sort was
regarded as an epoch in engineering history. Yet here, in the course
of a few years, no fewer than sixty-three bridges were constructed
on one line of railway! Mr. Stephenson early found that the ordinary
arch was inapplicable in certain cases, where the headway was limited,
and yet the level of the railway must be preserved. In such cases he
employed simple cast-iron beams, by which he safely bridged gaps of
moderate width, economizing headway, and introducing the use of a new
material of the greatest possible value to the engineer. The bridges
of masonry upon the line were of many kinds; several of them were skew
bridges, while others, such as those at Newton and over the Irwell
at Manchester, were straight and of considerable dimensions. But the
principal piece of masonry on the line was the Sankey viaduct.

This fine work is principally of brick, with stone facings. It consists
of nine arches of fifty feet span each. The massive piers are supported
on two hundred piles driven deep into the soil; and they rise to a
great height--the coping of the parapet being seventy feet above the
level of the valley, in which flow the Sankey brook and Canal. Its
total cost was about £45,000.

By the end of 1828 the directors found they had expended £460,000 on
the works, and that they were still far from completion. They looked
at the loss of interest on this large investment, and began to grumble
at the delay. They desired to see their capital becoming productive;
and in the spring of 1829 they urged the engineer, to push on the works
with increased vigor. Mr. Cropper, one of the directors, who took an
active interest in their progress, said to Stephenson one day, "Now,
George, thou must get on with the railway, and have it finished without
farther delay: thou must really have it ready for opening by the first
day of January next." "Consider the heavy character of the works,
sir, and how much we have been delayed by the want of money, not to
speak of the wetness of the weather: it is impossible." "Impossible!"
rejoined Cropper; "I wish I could get Napoleon to thee--he would tell
thee there is no such word as 'impossible' in the vocabulary." "Tush!"
exclaimed Stephenson, with warmth, "don't speak to me about Napoleon!
Give me men, money, and materials, and I will do what Napoleon couldn't
do--drive a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester over Chat Moss!"
And truly the formation of a high road over that bottomless bog was
apparently a more difficult task than the making even of Napoleon's
far-famed road across the Simplon.

The directors had more than once been embarrassed by want of funds to
meet the heavy expenditure. The country had scarcely yet recovered
from the general panic and crash of 1825, and it was with difficulty
that the calls could be raised from the shareholders. A loan of
£100,000 was obtained from the Exchequer Loan Commissioners in 1826;
and in 1829 an act was passed enabling the company to raise farther
capital, to provide working plant for the railway. Two acts were also
obtained during the progress of the undertaking, enabling deviations
and alterations to be made; one to improve the curves and shorten the
line near Rainhill, and the other to carry the line across the Irwell
into the town of Manchester. Thanks to the energy of the engineer,
the industry of his laborers, and the improved supply of money by the
directors, the railway made rapid progress in the course of the year
1829. Double sets of laborers were employed on Chat Moss and at other
places in carrying on the works by night and day, the night shifts
working by torch and fire light; and at length, the work advancing at
all points, the directors saw their way to the satisfactory completion
of the undertaking.

It may well be supposed that Stephenson's time was fully occupied
in superintending the extensive and for the most part novel works
connected with the railway, and that even his extraordinary powers of
labor and endurance were taxed to the utmost during the four years that
they were in progress. Almost every detail in the plans was directed
and arranged by himself. Every bridge, from the simplest to the most
complicated, including the then novel structure of the "skew bridge,"
iron girders, siphons, fixed engines, and the machinery for working
the tunnel at the Liverpool end, had all to be thought out by his
own head, and reduced to definite plans under his own eyes. Besides
all this, he had to design the working plant in anticipation of the
opening of the railway. He must be prepared with wagons, trucks, and
carriages, himself superintending their manufacture. The permanent
road, turn-tables, switches, and crossings--in short, the entire
structure and machinery of the line, from the turning of the first
sod to the running of the first train of carriages on the railway,
went on under his immediate supervision. And it was in the midst of
this vast accumulation of work and responsibility that the battle of
the locomotive engine had to be fought--a battle not merely against
material difficulties, but against the still more trying obstructions
of deeply-rooted mistrust and prejudice on the part of a considerable
minority of the directors.

He had no staff of experienced assistants--not even a staff of
draughtsmen in his office--but only a few pupils learning their
business, and he was frequently without even their help. The time
of his engineering inspectors was fully occupied in the actual
superintendence of the works at different parts of the line, and he
took care to direct all their important operations in person. The
principal draughtsman was Mr. Thomas Gooch, a pupil he had brought
with him from Newcastle. "I may say," writes Mr. Gooch, "that nearly
the whole of the working and other drawings, as well as the various
land-plans for the railway, were drawn by my own hand. They were
done at the company's office in Clayton Square during the day, from
instructions supplied in the evenings by Mr. Stephenson, either by
word of mouth, or by little rough hand sketches on letter-paper. The
evenings were also generally devoted to my duties as secretary, in
writing (mostly from his own dictation) his letters and reports, or
in making calculations and estimates. The mornings before breakfast
were not unfrequently spent by me in visiting and lending a helping
hand in the tunnel and other works near Liverpool--the untiring zeal
and perseverance of George Stephenson never for an instant flagging,
and inspiring with a like enthusiasm all who were engaged under him in
carrying forward the works."[63]

[Illustration: STEPHENSON'S BAITING-PLACE AT SANKEY.]

The usual routine of his life at this time--if routine it could be
called--was to rise early, by sunrise in summer and before it in
winter, and "break the back of the day's work" by midday. While the
tunnel under Liverpool was in progress, one of his first duties in
the morning before breakfast was to go over the various shafts,
clothed in a suitable dress, and inspect the progress of the work at
different points; on other days he would visit the extensive workshops
at Edgehill, where most of the "plant" for the line was manufactured.
Then, returning to his house in Upper Parliament Street, Windsor, after
a hurried breakfast, he would ride along the works to inspect their
progress, and push them on with greater energy where needful. On other
days he would prepare for the much less congenial engagement of meeting
the board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him;
for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, some of which were
not of the most generous kind. On such occasions he might be seen with
his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his
coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit
when laboring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would
take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress of the
Sankey viaduct. He had a favorite horse, brought by him from Newcastle,
called "Bobby"--so tractable that, with his rider on his back, he would
walk up to a locomotive with the steam blowing off, and put his nose
against it without shying. "Bobby," saddled and bridled, was brought
to Stephenson's door betimes in the morning, and, mounting him, he
would ride the fifteen miles to Sankey, putting up at a little public
house which then stood upon the banks of the canal. There he had his
breakfast of "crowdie," which he made with his own hands. It consisted
of oatmeal stirred into a basin of hot water--a sort of porridge--which
was supped with cold sweet milk. After this frugal breakfast he would
go upon the works, and remain there, riding from point to point for the
greater part of the day. If he returned home before midday it would be
to examine the pay-sheets in the different departments sent in by the
assistant engineers, or by the foremen of the workshops; all this he
did himself with the greatest care, requiring a full explanation of
every item.

After a late dinner, which occupied very short time and was always of
a plain and frugal description,[64] he would proceed to dispose of his
correspondence, or prepare sketches of drawings, and give instructions
as to their completion. He would occasionally refresh himself for this
evening work by a short doze, which, however, he would never admit had
exceeded the limits of "winking," to use his own term. Mr. Frederick
Swanwick, who officiated as his secretary after the appointment of
Mr. Gooch as resident engineer to the Bolton and Leigh Railway, has
informed us that he then remarked--what in after years he could better
appreciate--the clear, terse, and vigorous style of Stephenson's
dictation; there was nothing superfluous in it, but it was close,
direct, and to the point--in short, thoroughly business-like. And if,
in passing through the pen of the amanuensis, his meaning happened in
any way to be distorted or modified, it did not fail to escape his
detection, though he was always tolerant of any liberties taken with
his own form of expression, so long as the words written down conveyed
his real meaning. His strong natural acumen showed itself even in
such matters as grammar and composition--a department of knowledge in
which, it might be supposed, he could scarcely have had either time
or opportunity to acquire much information. But here, as in all other
things, his shrewd common sense came to his help, and his simple,
vigorous English might almost be cited as a model of composition.

His letters and reports written, and his sketches of drawings made
and explained, the remainder of the evening was usually devoted to
conversation with his wife and those of his pupils who lived under
his roof, and constituted, as it were, part of the family. He then
delighted to test the knowledge of his young companions, and to
question them upon the principles of mechanics. If they were not quite
"up to the mark" on any point, there was no escaping detection by
evasive or specious explanations on their part. These always met with
the verdict of, "Ah! you know naught about it now; but think it over
again, and tell me the answer when you understand it." If there was
even partial success in the reply, it would at once be acknowledged,
and a full explanation was given, to which the master would add
illustrative examples for the purpose of impressing the principle more
deeply upon the pupil's mind.

It was not so much his object and purpose to "cram" the minds of the
young men committed to his charge with the _results_ of knowledge as to
stimulate them to educate themselves--to induce them to develop their
mental and moral powers by the exercise of their own free energies, and
thus acquire that habit of self-thinking and self-reliance which is the
spring of all true manly action. In a word, he sought to bring out and
invigorate the _character_ of his pupils. He felt that he himself had
been made stronger and better through his encounters with difficulty,
and he would not have the road of knowledge made too smooth and easy
for them. "Learn for yourselves--think for yourselves," he would say:
"make yourselves masters of principles--persevere--be industrious--and
there is then no fear of you." And not the least emphatic proof of
the soundness of this system of education, as conducted by George
Stephenson, was afforded by the after history of the pupils themselves.
There was not one of those trained under his eye who did not rise to
eminent usefulness and distinction as an engineer. He sent them forth
into the world braced with the spirit of self-help--inspired by his own
noble example; and they repeated in their after career the lessons of
earnest effort and persistent industry which his daily life had taught
them.

Mr. Stephenson's evenings at home were not, however, exclusively
devoted either to business or to the graver exercises above referred
to. He would often indulge in cheerful conversation and anecdote,
falling back from time to time upon the struggles and difficulties of
his early life. The not unfrequent winding up of his story, addressed
to those about him, was, "Ah! ye young fellows don't know what _wark_
is in these days!" Mr. Swanwick delights recalling to mind how seldom,
if ever, a cross or captious word, or an angry look, marred the
enjoyment of those evenings. The presence of Mrs. Stephenson gave them
an additional charm: amiable, kind-hearted, and intelligent, she shared
quietly in the pleasure of the party; and the atmosphere of comfort
which always pervaded her home contributed in no small degree to render
it a centre of cheerful, hopeful intercourse, and of earnest, honest
industry.

[Illustration: CHAT MOSS--WORKS IN PROGRESS.]

When Stephenson retired for the night, it was not always that he
permitted himself to sink into slumber. Like Brindley, he worked out
many a difficult problem in bed; and for hours he would turn over in
his mind and study how to overcome some obstacle, or to mature some
project, on which his thoughts were bent. Some remark inadvertently
dropped by him at the breakfast-table in the morning served to show
that he had been stealing some hours from the night in reflection and
study. Yet he would rise at his accustomed early hour, and there was no
abatement of his usual energy in carrying on the business of the day.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] When the Liverpool directors went to inspect the works in progress
on the Moss, they were run along the temporary rails in the little
three-feet gauge wagons used for forming the road. They were being thus
impelled one day at considerable speed when the wagon suddenly ran off
the road, and Mr. Moss, one of the directors, was thrown out in a soft
place, from which, however, he was speedily extricated, not without
leaving a deep mark. George used afterward laughingly to refer to the
circumstance as "the meeting of the Mosses."

[63] Mr. Gooch's letter to the author, December 13th, 1861. Referring
to the preparation of the plans and drawings, Mr. Gooch adds, "When
we consider the extensive sets of drawings which most engineers have
since found it right to adopt in carrying out similar works, it is not
the least surprising feature in George Stephenson's early professional
career that he should have been able to confine himself to so limited
a number as that which could be supplied by the hands of one person in
carrying out the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway;
and this may still be said, after full allowance is made for the
alteration of system involved by the adoption of the large contract
system."

[64] While at Liverpool Stephenson had very little time for "company;"
but on one particular occasion he invited his friend Mr. Sandars to
dinner, and, as that gentleman was a connoisseur in port wine, his
host determined to give him a special treat of that drink. Stephenson
accordingly went to the small merchant with whom he usually dealt, and
ordered "half a dozen of his very best port wine," which was promised
of first-rate quality. After dinner the wine was produced; and when
Mr. Sandars had sipped a glass, George, after waiting a little for the
expected eulogium, at length asked, "Well, Sandars, how d'ye like the
port?" "Poor stuff!" said the guest, "poor stuff!" George was very much
shocked, and with difficulty recovered his good humor. But he lived to
be able to treat Mr. Sandars to a better article at Tapton House, when
he used to laugh over his first futile attempt at Liverpool to gain a
reputation for his port.



CHAPTER XII.

ROBERT STEPHENSON'S RESIDENCE IN COLOMBIA, AND RETURN--THE BATTLE OF
THE LOCOMOTIVE--"THE ROCKET."


We return to the career of Robert Stephenson, who was absent from
England during the construction of the Liverpool Railway, but was
now about to rejoin his father and take part in "the battle of the
locomotive" which was impending.

We have seen that, on his return from Edinburg College at the end of
1821, he had assisted in superintending the works of the Hetton Railway
until its opening in 1822, after which he proceeded to Liverpool to
take part with Mr. James in surveying the proposed railway there. In
the following year we found him assisting his father in the working
survey of the Stockton and Darlington Railway; and when the Locomotive
Engine Works were started in Forth Street, Newcastle, he took an active
part in that concern. "The factory," he says, "was in active operation
in 1824; I left England for Colombia in June of that year, having
finished drawing the designs of the Brusselton stationary engines for
the Stockton and Darlington Railway before I left."[65]

Speculation was very rife at the time, and among the most promising
adventures were the companies organized for the purpose of working
the gold and silver mines of South America. Great difficulty was
experienced in finding mining engineers capable of carrying out those
projects, and young men of even the most moderate experience were
eagerly sought after. The Colombian Mining Association of London
offered an engagement to young Stephenson to go out to Mariquita and
take charge of the engineering operations of that company. Robert
was himself desirous of accepting it, but his father said it would
first be necessary to ascertain whether the proposed change would
be for his good. His health had been very delicate for some time,
partly occasioned by his rapid growth, but principally because of
his close application to work and study. Father and son proceeded
together to call upon Dr. Headlam, the eminent physician of Newcastle,
to consult him on the subject. During the examination which ensued,
Robert afterward used to say that he felt as if he were upon trial
for life or death. To his great relief, the doctor pronounced that a
temporary residence in a warm climate was the very thing likely to be
most beneficial to him. The appointment was accordingly accepted, and,
before many weeks had passed, Robert Stephenson had set sail for South
America.

After a tolerably prosperous voyage he landed at La Guayra, on the
north coast of Venezuela, on the 23d of July, from thence proceeding
to Caraccas, the capital of the district, about fifteen miles inland.
There he remained for two months, unable to proceed in consequence of
the wretched state of the roads in the interior. He contrived, however,
to make occasional excursions in the neighborhood with an eye to the
mining business on which he had come. About the beginning of October
he set out for Bogotá, the capital of Colombia or New Granada. The
distance was about twelve hundred miles, through a very difficult
region, and it was performed entirely upon mule-back, after the fashion
of the country.

In the course of the journey Robert visited many of the districts
reported to be rich in minerals, but he met with few traces except of
copper, iron, and coal, with occasional indications of gold and silver.
He found the people ready to furnish information, which, however, when
tested, usually proved worthless. A guide, whom he employed for weeks,
kept him buoyed up with the hope of finding richer mining places than
he had yet seen; but when he professed to be able to show him mines of
"brass, steel, alcohol, and pinchbeck," Stephenson discovered him to
be an incorrigible rogue, and immediately dismissed him. At length our
traveler reached Bogotá, and after an interview with Mr. Illingworth,
the commercial manager of the Mining Company, he proceeded to Honda,
crossed the Magdalena, and shortly after reached the site of his
intended operations on the eastern slope of the Andes.

Mr. Stephenson used afterward to speak in glowing terms of this his
first mule-journey in South America. Every thing was entirely new to
him. The variety and beauty of the indigenous plants, the luxurious
tropical vegetation, the appearance, manners, and dress of the people,
and the mode of traveling, were altogether different from every thing
he had before seen. His own traveling garb also must have been strange
even to himself. "My hat," he says, "was of plaited grass, with a crown
nine inches in height, surrounded by a brim of six inches; a white
cotton suit; and a _ruana_ of blue and crimson plaid, with a hole
in the centre for the head to pass through. This cloak is admirably
adapted for the purpose, amply covering the rider and mule, and at
night answering the purpose of a blanket in the net-hammock, which is
made from the fibres of the aloe, and which every traveler carries
before him on his mule, and suspends to the trees or in houses, as
occasion may require."

The part of the journey which seems to have made the most lasting
impression on his mind was that between Bogotá and the mining district
in the neighborhood of Mariquita. As he ascended the slopes of the
mountain range, and reached the first step of the table-land, he was
struck beyond expression with the noble view of the valley of Magdalena
behind him, so vast that he failed in attempting to define the point
at which the course of the river blended with the horizon. Like all
travelers in the district, he noted the remarkable changes of climate
and vegetation as he rose from the burning plains toward the fresh
breath of the mountains. From an atmosphere as hot as that of an oven
he passed into delicious cool air, until, in his onward and upward
journey, a still more temperate region was reached, the very perfection
of climate. Before him rose the majestic Cordilleras, forming a rampart
against the western sky, and at certain times of the day looking black,
sharp, and even at their summit almost like a wall.

Our engineer took up his abode for a time at Mariquita, a fine old
city, though then greatly fallen into decay. During the period of
the Spanish dominion it was an important place, most of the gold and
silver convoys passing through it on their way to Cartagena, there to
be shipped in galleons for Europe. The mountainous country to the west
was rich in silver, gold, and other metals, and it was Mr. Stephenson's
object to select the best site for commencing operations for the
company. With this object he "prospected" about in all directions,
visiting long-abandoned mines, and analyzing specimens obtained from
many quarters. The mines eventually fixed upon as the scene of his
operations were those of La Manta and Santa Anna, long before worked by
the Spaniards, though, in consequence of the luxuriance and rapidity of
the vegetation, all traces of the old workings had become completely
overgrown and lost. Every thing had to be begun anew. Roads had to be
cut to open a way to the mines, machinery had to be erected, and the
ground opened up, when some of the old adits were eventually hit upon.
The native peons or laborers were not accustomed to work, and they
usually contrived to desert when they were not watched, so that very
little progress could be made until the arrival of the expected band of
miners from England. The authorities were by no means helpful, and the
engineer was driven to an old expedient with the object of overcoming
this difficulty. "We endeavor all we can," he says, in one of his
letters, "to make ourselves popular, and this we find most effectually
accomplished by 'regaling the venal beasts.'" He also gave a ball at
Mariquita, which passed off with éclat, the governor from Honda, with
a host of friends, honoring it with their presence. It was, indeed,
necessary to "make a party" in this way, as other schemers were already
trying to undermine the Colombian Company in influential directions.
The engineer did not exaggerate when he said, "The uncertainty of
transacting business in this country is perplexing beyond description."
In the mean time laborers had been attracted to Santa Anna, which
became, the engineer wrote, "like an English fair on Sundays: people
flock to it from all quarters to buy beef and chat with their friends.
Sometimes three or four torros are slaughtered in a day. The people now
eat more beef in a week than they did in two months before, and they
are consequently getting fat."[66]

At last Stephenson's party of miners arrived from England, but they
gave him even more trouble than the peons had done. They were rough,
drunken, and sometimes ungovernable. He set them to work at the Santa
Anna mine without delay, and at the same time took up his abode among
them, "to keep them," he said, "if possible, from indulging in the
detestable vice of drunkenness, which, if not put a stop to, will
eventually destroy themselves, and involve the mining association in
ruin." To add to his troubles, the captain of the miners displayed a
very hostile and insubordinate spirit, quarreled and fought with the
men, and was insolent to the engineer himself. The captain and his
gang, being Cornishmen, told Robert to his face that because he was a
North-country man, and not brought up in Cornwall, it was impossible
that he should know any thing of mining. Disease also fell upon
him--first fever, and then visceral derangement, followed by a return
of his "old complaint, a feeling of oppression in the breast." No
wonder that in the midst of these troubles he should longingly speak of
returning to his native land. But he stuck to his post and his duty,
kept up his courage, and by a mixture of mildness and firmness, and
the display of great coolness and judgment, he contrived to keep the
men to their work, and gradually to carry forward the enterprise which
he had undertaken. By the beginning of July, 1826, quietness and order
had been restored, and the works were proceeding more satisfactorily,
though the yield of silver was not as yet very promising, the engineer
being of opinion that at least three years' diligent and costly
operations would be necessary to render the mines productive.

In the mean time he removed to the dwelling which had been erected
for his accommodation at Santa Anna. It was a structure speedily
raised after the fashion of the country. The walls were of split
and flattened bamboo, tied together with the long fibres of a dried
climbing plant; the roof was of palm-leaves, and the ceiling of
reeds. When an earthquake shook the district--for earthquakes were
frequent--the inmates of such a fabric merely felt as if shaken in a
basket, without sustaining any harm. In front of the cottage lay a
woody ravine, extending almost to the base of the Andes, gorgeously
clothed in primeval vegetation--magnolias, palms, bamboos, tree-ferns,
acacias, cedars; and towering over all were the great almendrons, with
their smooth, silvery stems, bearing aloft noble clusters of pure
white blossom. The forest was haunted by myriads of gay insects,
butterflies with wings of dazzling lustre, birds of brilliant plumage,
humming-birds, golden orioles, toucans, and a host of solitary
warblers. But the glorious sunsets seen from his cottage-porch more
than all astonished and delighted the young engineer, and he was
accustomed to say that, after having witnessed them, he was reluctant
to accuse the ancient Peruvians of idolatry.

[Illustration: ROBERT STEPHENSON'S COTTAGE AT SANTA ANNA.]

But all these natural beauties failed to reconcile him to the harassing
difficulties of his position, which continued to increase rather than
diminish. He was hampered by the action of the board at home, who gave
ear to hostile criticisms on his reports; and although they afterward
made handsome acknowledgment of his services, he felt his position to
be altogether unsatisfactory. He therefore determined to leave at the
expiry of his three years' engagement, and communicated his decision
to the directors accordingly.[67] On receiving his letter, the board,
through Mr. Richardson, of Lombard Street, one of the directors,
communicated with his father at Newcastle, representing that if he
would allow his son to remain in Colombia the company would make it
"worth his while." To this the father gave a decided negative, and
intimated that he himself urgently needed his son's assistance, and
that he must return at the expiry of his three years' term--a decision,
Robert wrote, "at which I feel much gratified, as it is clear that he
is as anxious to have me back in England as I am to get there."

At the same time, Edward Pease, a principal partner in the Newcastle
firm, privately wrote Robert to the following effect, urging his return
home: "I can assure thee that the business at Newcastle, as well as thy
father's engineering, have suffered very much from thy absence, and,
unless thou soon return, the former will be given up, as Mr. Longridge
is not able to give it that attention it requires; and what _is_ done
is not done with credit to the house." The idea of the manufactory
being given up, which Robert had labored so hard to establish before
leaving England, was painful to him in the extreme, and he wrote to
Mr. Illingworth, strongly urging that arrangements should be made for
enabling him to leave without delay. In the mean time he was laid
prostrate by another violent attack of aguish fever; and when able to
write, in June, 1827, he expressed himself as "completely wearied and
worn down with vexation."

At length, when he was sufficiently recovered from his attack and
able to travel, he set out on his voyage homeward in the beginning of
August. At Mompox, on his way down the River Magdalena, he met Mr.
Bodmer, his successor, with a fresh party of miners from England, on
their way up the country to the quarters which he had just quitted.
Next day, six hours after leaving Mompox, a steam-boat was met
ascending the river, with Bolivar the Liberator on board, on his way to
St. Bogotá; and it was a mortification to our engineer that he had only
a passing sight of that distinguished person. It was his intention, on
leaving Mariquita, to visit the Isthmus of Panamá on his way home, for
the purpose of inquiring into the practicability of cutting a canal to
unite the Atlantic and Pacific--a project which then formed the subject
of considerable public discussion; but Mr. Bodmer having informed him
at Mompox that such a visit would be inconsistent with the statements
made to the London Board that his presence was so anxiously desired at
home, he determined to embrace the first opportunity of proceeding to
New York.

Arrived at the port of Cartagena, he found himself under the necessity
of waiting some time for a ship. The delay was very irksome to him,
the more so as the place was then desolated by the ravages of the
yellow fever. While sitting one day in the large, bare, comfortless
public room of the miserable hotel at which he put up, he observed
two strangers, whom he at once perceived to be English. One of the
strangers was a tall, gaunt man, shrunken and hollow-looking, shabbily
dressed, and apparently poverty-stricken. On making inquiry, he found
it was Trevithick, the builder of the first railroad locomotive! He
was returning home from the gold mines of Peru penniless. Robert
Stephenson lent him £50 to enable him to reach England; and though he
was afterward heard of as an inventor there, he had no farther part in
the ultimate triumph of the locomotive.

But Trevithick's misadventures on this occasion had not yet ended, for
before he reached New York he was wrecked, and Robert Stephenson with
him. The following is the account of the voyage, "big with adventures,"
as given by the latter in a letter to his friend Illingworth:

  "At first we had very little foul weather, and, indeed, were
  for several days becalmed among the islands, which was so far
  fortunate, for a few degrees farther north the most tremendous
  gales were blowing, and they appear (from our future information)
  to have wrecked every vessel exposed to their violence. We had two
  examples of the effects of the hurricane; for, as we sailed north,
  we took on board the remains of two crews found floating about on
  dismantled hulls. The one had been nine days without food of any
  kind except the carcasses of two of their companions who had died
  a day or two previously from fatigue and hunger. The other crew
  had been driven about for six days, and were not so dejected, but
  reduced to such a weak state that they were obliged to be drawn on
  board our vessel by ropes. A brig bound for Havana took part of the
  men, and we took the remainder. To attempt any description of my
  feelings on witnessing such scenes would be in vain. You will not
  be surprised to learn that I felt somewhat uneasy at the thought
  that we were so far from England, and that I also might possibly
  suffer similar shipwreck; but I consoled myself with the hope that
  fate would be more kind to us. It was not so much so, however, as
  I had flattered myself; for on voyaging toward New York, after we
  had made the land, we ran aground about midnight. The vessel soon
  filled with water, and, being surrounded by the breaking surf, the
  ship shortly split up, and before morning our situation became
  perilous. Masts and all were cut away to prevent the hull rocking,
  but all we could do was of no avail. About eight o'clock on the
  following morning, after a most miserable night, we were taken off
  the wreck, and were so fortunate as to reach the shore. I saved my
  minerals, but Empson lost part of his botanical collection. Upon
  the whole, we got off well; and, had I not been on the American
  side of the Atlantic, I 'guess' I would not have gone to sea again."

After a short tour in the United States and Canada, Robert Stephenson
and his friend took ship for Liverpool, where they arrived at the end
of November, and at once proceeded to Newcastle. The factory, we have
seen, was by no means in a prosperous state. During the time Robert
had been in America it had been carried on at a considerable loss; and
Edward Pease, very much disheartened, wished to retire from it, but
George Stephenson being unable to raise the requisite money to buy him
out, the establishment was of necessity carried on by its then partners
until the locomotive could be established in public estimation as a
practicable and economical working power. Robert Stephenson immediately
instituted a rigid inquiry into the working of the concern, unraveled
the accounts, which had been allowed to fall into confusion during his
father's absence at Liverpool, and very shortly succeeded in placing
the affairs of the factory in a more healthy condition. In all this he
had the hearty support of his father, as well as of the other partners.

The works of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were now approaching
completion. But, strange to say, the directors had not yet decided as
to the tractive power to be employed in working the line when opened
for traffic. The differences of opinion among them were so great as
apparently to be irreconcilable. It was necessary, however, that they
should come to some decision without farther loss of time, and many
board meetings were accordingly held to discuss the subject. The
old-fashioned and well-tried system of horse-haulage was not without
its advocates; but, looking at the large amount of traffic which there
was to be conveyed, and at the probable delay in the transit from
station to station if this method were adopted, the directors, after
a visit made by them to the Northumberland and Durham railways in
1828, came to the conclusion that the employment of horse-power was
inadmissible.

Fixed engines had many advocates; the locomotive very few: it stood
as yet almost in a minority of one--George Stephenson. The prejudice
against the employment of the latter power had even increased since the
Liverpool and Manchester Bill underwent its first ordeal in the House
of Commons. In proof of this, it may be mentioned that the Newcastle
and Carlisle Railway Act was conceded in 1829 on the express condition
that it should _not_ be worked by locomotives, but by horses only.

Grave doubts still existed as to the practicability of working a
large traffic by means of traveling engines. The most celebrated
engineers offered no opinion on the subject. They did not believe in
the locomotive, and would scarcely take the trouble to examine it.
The ridicule with which George Stephenson had been assailed by the
barristers before the Parliamentary Committee had not been altogether
distasteful to them. Perhaps they did not relish the idea of a man who
had picked up his experience in Newcastle coal-pits appearing in the
capacity of a leading engineer before Parliament, and attempting to
establish a new system of internal communication in the country.

The directors could not disregard the adverse and conflicting views
of the professional men whom they consulted. But Stephenson had so
repeatedly and earnestly urged upon them the propriety of making a
trial of the locomotive before coming to any decision against it, that
they at length authorized him to proceed with the construction of one
of his engines by way of experiment. In their report to the proprietors
at their annual meeting on the 27th of March, 1828, they state that
they had, after due consideration, authorized the engineer "to prepare
a locomotive engine, which, from the nature of its construction and
from the experiments already made, he is of opinion will be effective
for the purposes of the company, without proving an annoyance to the
public." The locomotive thus ordered was placed upon the line in 1829,
and was found of great service in drawing the wagons full of marl from
the two great cuttings.

In the mean time the discussion proceeded as to the kind of power to
be permanently employed for the working of the railway. The directors
were inundated with schemes of all sorts for facilitating locomotion.
The projectors of England, France, and America seemed to be let loose
upon them. There were plans for working the wagons along the line by
water-power. Some proposed hydrogen, and others carbonic acid gas.
Atmospheric pressure had its eager advocates. And various kinds of
fixed and locomotive steam-power were suggested. Thomas Gray urged
his plan of a greased road with cog-rails; and Messrs. Vignolles and
Ericsson recommended the adoption of a central friction-rail, against
which two horizontal rollers under the locomotive, pressing upon the
sides of this rail, were to afford the means of ascending the inclined
planes.

The directors felt themselves quite unable to choose from amid this
multitude of projects. Their engineer expressed himself as decidedly
as heretofore in favor of smooth rails and locomotive engines, which,
he was confident, would be found the most economical and by far the
most convenient moving power that could be employed. The Stockton and
Darlington Railway being now at work, another deputation went down
personally to inspect the fixed and locomotive engines on that line,
as well as at Hetton and Killingworth. They returned to Liverpool with
much information; but their testimony as to the relative merits of the
two kinds of engines was so contradictory, that the directors were as
far from a decision as ever.

They then resolved to call to their aid two professional engineers
of high standing, who should visit the Darlington and Newcastle
railways, carefully examine both modes of working--the fixed and the
locomotive--and report to them fully on the subject. The gentlemen
selected were Mr. Walker, of Limehouse, and Mr. Rastrick, of
Stourbridge. After carefully examining the working of the Northern
lines, they made their report to the directors in the spring of 1829.
They concurred in the opinion that the cost of an establishment of
fixed engines would be somewhat greater than that of locomotives to
do the same work, but they thought the annual charge would be less if
the former were adopted. They calculated that the cost of moving a
ton of goods thirty miles by fixed engines would be 6·40_d._, and by
locomotives, 8·36_d_., assuming a profitable traffic to be obtained
both ways. At the same time, it was admitted that there appeared more
grounds for expecting improvements in the construction and working of
locomotives than of stationary engines. "On the whole, however, and
looking especially at the computed annual charge of working the road on
the two systems on a large scale, Messrs. Walker and Rastrick were of
opinion that fixed engines were preferable, and accordingly recommended
their adoption to the directors."[68] And in order to carry the system
recommended by them into effect, they proposed to divide the railroad
between Liverpool and Manchester into nineteen stages of about a mile
and a half each, with twenty-one engines fixed at the different points
to work the trains forward.

Such was the result, so far, of George Stephenson's labors. The
two best practical engineers of the day concurred in reporting
substantially in favor of the employment of fixed engines. Not a
single professional man of eminence could be found to coincide with
the engineer of the railway in his preference for locomotive over
fixed engine power. He had scarcely a supporter, and the locomotive
system seemed on the eve of being abandoned. Still he did not despair.
With the profession against him, and public opinion against him--for
the most frightful stories went abroad respecting the dangers,
the unsightliness, and the nuisance which the locomotive would
create--Stephenson held to his purpose. Even in this, apparently the
darkest hour of the locomotive, he did not hesitate to declare that
locomotive railroads would, before many years had passed, be "the great
highways of the world."

He urged his views upon the directors in all ways, in season, and,
as some of them thought, out of season. He pointed out the greater
convenience of locomotive power for the purposes of a public highway,
likening it to a series of short unconnected chains, any one of which
could be removed and another substituted without interruption to the
traffic; whereas the fixed-engine system might be regarded in the light
of a continuous chain extending between the two termini, the failure
of any link of which would derange the whole.[69] But the fixed-engine
party were very strong at the board, and, led by Mr. Cropper, they
urged the propriety of forthwith adopting the report of Messrs. Walker
and Rastrick. Mr. Sandars and Mr. William Rathbone, on the other
hand, desired that a fair trial should be given to the locomotive;
and they with reason objected to the expenditure of the large capital
necessary to construct the proposed engine-houses, with their fixed
engines, ropes, and machinery, until they had tested the powers of the
locomotive as recommended by their own engineer. George Stephenson
continued to urge upon them that the locomotive was yet capable of
great improvements, if proper inducements were held out to inventors
and machinists to make them; and he pledged himself that, if time were
given him, he would construct an engine that should satisfy their
requirements, and prove itself capable of working heavy loads along
the railway with speed, regularity, and safety. At length, influenced
by his persistent earnestness not less than by his arguments, the
directors, at the suggestion of Mr. Harrison, determined to offer a
prize of £500 for the best locomotive engine, which, on a certain
day, should be produced on the railway, and perform certain specified
conditions in the most satisfactory manner.[70]

The requirements of the directors as to speed were not excessive. All
that they asked for was that ten miles an hour should be maintained.
Perhaps they had in mind the animadversions of the "Quarterly Reviewer"
on the absurdity of traveling at a greater velocity, and also the
remarks published by Mr. Nicholas Wood, whom they selected to be one
of the judges of the competition, in conjunction with Mr. Rastrick, of
Stourbridge, and Mr. Kennedy, of Manchester.

It was now felt that the fate of railways in a great measure depended
upon the issue of this appeal to the mechanical genius of England. When
the advertisement of the prize for the best locomotive was published,
scientific men began more particularly to direct their attention to the
new power which was thus struggling into existence. In the mean time
public opinion on the subject of railway working remained suspended,
and the progress of the undertaking was watched with intense interest.

During the progress of this important controversy with reference to the
kind of power to be employed in working the railway, George Stephenson
was in constant communication with his son Robert, who made frequent
visits to Liverpool for the purpose of assisting his father in the
preparation of his reports to the board on the subject. Mr. Swanwick
remembers the vivid interest of the evening discussions which then took
place between father and son as to the best mode of increasing the
powers and perfecting the mechanism of the locomotive. He wondered at
their quick perception and rapid judgment on each other's suggestions;
at the mechanical difficulties which they anticipated and provided for
in the practical arrangement of the machine; and he speaks of these
evenings as most interesting displays of two actively ingenious and
able minds stimulating each other to feats of mechanical invention, by
which it was ordained that the locomotive engine should become what
it now is. These discussions became more frequent, and still more
interesting, after the public prize had been offered for the best
locomotive by the directors of the railway, and the working plans of
the engine which they proposed to construct had to be settled.

One of the most important considerations in the new engine was the
arrangement of the boiler and the extension of its heating surface
to enable steam enough to be raised rapidly and continuously for the
purpose of maintaining high rates of speed--the effect of high-pressure
engines being ascertained to depend mainly upon the quantity of steam
which the boiler can generate, and upon its degree of elasticity when
produced. The quantity of steam so generated, it will be obvious, must
chiefly depend upon the quantity of fuel consumed in the furnace, and,
by necessary consequence, upon the high rate of temperature maintained
there.

It will be remembered that in Stephenson's first Killingworth engines
he invited and applied the ingenious method of stimulating combustion
in the furnace by throwing the waste steam into the chimney after
performing its office in the cylinders, thereby accelerating the ascent
of the current of air, greatly increasing the draught, and consequently
the temperature of the fire. This plan was adopted by him, as we have
seen, as early as 1815, and it was so successful that he himself
attributed to it the greater economy of the locomotive as compared with
horse-power. Hence the continuance of its use upon the Killingworth
Railway.

Though the adoption of the steam-blast greatly quickened combustion
and contributed to the rapid production of high-pressure steam, the
limited amount of heating surface presented to the fire was still
felt to be an obstacle to the complete success of the locomotive
engine. Mr. Stephenson endeavored to overcome this by lengthening the
boilers and increasing the surface presented by the flue-tubes. The
"Lancashire Witch," which he built for the Bolton and Leigh Railway,
and used in forming the Liverpool and Manchester Railway embankments,
was constructed with a double tube, each of which contained a fire,
and passed longitudinally through the boiler. But this arrangement
necessarily led to a considerable increase in the weight of those
engines, which amounted to about twelve tons each; and as six tons was
the limit allowed for engines admitted to the Liverpool competition,
it was clear that the time was come when the Killingworth engine must
undergo a farther important modification.

For many years previous to this period, ingenious mechanics had been
engaged in attempting to solve the problem of the best and most
economical boiler for the production of high-pressure steam.

The use of tubes in boilers for increasing the heating surface had long
been known. As early as 1780, Matthew Boulton employed copper tubes
longitudinally in the boiler of the Wheal Busy engine in Cornwall--the
fire passing _through_ the tubes--and it was found that the production
of steam was thereby considerably increased.[71] The use of tubular
boilers afterward became common in Cornwall. In 1803, Woolf, the
Cornish engineer, patented a boiler with tubes, with the same object
of increasing the heating surface. The water was _inside_ the tubes,
and the fire of the boiler outside. Similar expedients were proposed by
other inventors. In 1815 Trevithick invented his light high-pressure
boiler for portable purposes, in which, to "expose a large surface to
the fire," he constructed the boiler of a number of small perpendicular
tubes "opening into a common reservoir at the top." In 1823 W. H.
James contrived a boiler composed of a series of annular wrought-iron
tubes, placed side by side and bolted together, so as to form by
their union a long cylindrical boiler, in the centre of which, at the
end, the fireplace was situated. The fire played round the tubes,
which contained the water. In 1826 James Neville took out a patent
for a boiler with vertical tubes surrounded by the water, through
which the heated air of the furnace passed, explaining also in his
specification that the tubes might be horizontal or inclined, according
to circumstances. Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, the persevering adaptor of
steam-carriages to traveling on common roads, applied the tubular
principle in the boiler of his engine, in which the steam was generated
_within_ the tubes; while the boiler invented by Messrs. Summers and
Ogle for their turnpike-road steam-carriage consisted of a series of
tubes placed vertically over the furnace, through which the heated air
passed before reaching the chimney.

About the same time George Stephenson was trying the effect of
introducing small tubes in the boilers of his locomotives, with the
object of increasing their evaporative power. Thus, in 1829, he sent
to France two engines constructed at the Newcastle works for the Lyons
and St. Etienne Railway, in the boilers of which tubes were placed
containing water. The heating surface was thus considerably increased;
but the expedient was not successful, for the tubes, becoming furred
with deposit, shortly burned out and were removed. It was then that M.
Seguin, the engineer of the railway, pursuing the same idea, is said
to have adopted his plan of employing horizontal tubes through which
the heated air passed in streamlets, and for which he took out a French
patent.

In the mean time Mr. Henry Booth, secretary to the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway, whose attention had been directed to the subject
on the prize being offered for the best locomotive to work that line,
proposed the same method, which, unknown to him, Matthew Boulton had
employed, but not patented, in 1780, and James Neville had patented,
but not employed, in 1826; and it was carried into effect by Robert
Stephenson in the construction of the "Rocket," which won the prize at
Rainhill in October, 1829. The following is Mr. Booth's account in a
letter to the author:

  "I was in almost daily communication with Mr. Stephenson at
  the time, and I was not aware that he had any intention of
  competing for the prize till I communicated to him my scheme of
  a multitubular boiler. This new plan of boiler comprised the
  introduction of numerous small tubes, two or three inches in
  diameter, and less than one eighth of an inch thick, through which
  to carry the fire, instead of a single tube or flue eighteen inches
  in diameter, and about half an inch thick, by which plan we not
  only obtain a very much larger heating surface, but the heating
  surface is much more effective, as there intervenes between the
  fire and the water only a thin sheet of copper or brass, not an
  eighth of an inch thick, instead of a plate of iron of four times
  the substance, as well as an inferior conductor of heat.

  "When the conditions of trial were published, I communicated my
  multitubular plan to Mr. Stephenson, and proposed to him that we
  should jointly construct an engine and compete for the prize. Mr.
  Stephenson approved the plan, and agreed to my proposal. He settled
  the mode in which the fire-box and tubes were to be mutually
  arranged and connected, and the engine was constructed at the works
  of Messrs. Robert Stephenson and Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne.

  "I am ignorant of M. Seguin's proceedings in France, but I claim to
  be the inventor in England, and feel warranted in stating, without
  reservation, that until I named my plan to Mr. Stephenson, with a
  view to compete for the prize at Rainhill, it had not been tried,
  and was not known in this country."

From the well-known high character of Mr. Booth, we believe his
statement to be made in perfect good faith, and that he was as much in
ignorance of the plan patented by Neville as he was of that of Seguin.
As we have seen, from the many plans of tubular boilers invented during
the preceding thirty years, the idea was not by any means new; and we
believe Mr. Booth to be entitled to the merit of inventing the method
by which the multitubular principle was so effectually applied in the
construction of the famous "Rocket" engine.

The principal circumstances connected with the construction of the
"Rocket," as described by Robert Stephenson to the author, may be
briefly stated. The tubular principle was adopted in a more complete
manner than had yet been attempted. Twenty-five copper tubes, each
three inches in diameter, extended from one end of the boiler to the
other, the heated air passing through them on its way to the chimney;
and the tubes being surrounded by the water of the boiler, it will
be obvious that a large extension of the heating surface was thus
effectually secured. The principal difficulty was in fitting the
copper tubes in the boiler-ends so as to prevent leakage. They were
manufactured by a Newcastle coppersmith, and soldered to brass screws
which were screwed into the boiler-ends, standing out in great knobs.
When the tubes were thus fitted, and the boiler was filled with water,
hydraulic pressure was applied; but the water squirted out at every
joint, and the factory floor was soon flooded. Robert went home in
despair; and in the first moment of grief he wrote to his father that
the whole thing was a failure. By return of post came a letter from
his father, telling him that despair was not to be thought of--that he
must "try again;" and he suggested a mode of overcoming the difficulty,
which his son had already anticipated and proceeded to adopt. It was,
to bore clean holes in the boiler-ends, fit in the smooth copper tubes
as tightly as possible, solder up, and then raise the steam. This plan
succeeded perfectly, the expansion of the copper tubes completely
filling up all interstices, and producing a perfectly water-tight
boiler, capable of withstanding extreme external pressure.

The mode of employing the steam-blast for the purpose of increasing the
draught in the chimney was also the subject of numerous experiments.
When the engine was first tried, it was thought that the blast in the
chimney was not sufficiently strong for the purpose of keeping up the
intensity of the fire in the furnace, so as to produce high-pressure
steam with the required velocity. The expedient was therefore adopted
of hammering the copper tubes at the point at which they entered the
chimney, whereby the blast was considerably sharpened; and on a farther
trial it was found that the draught was increased to such an extent as
to enable abundance of steam to be raised. The rationale of the blast
may be simply explained by referring to the effect of contracting
the pipe of a water-hose, by which the force of the jet of water is
proportionately increased. Widen the nozzle of the pipe, and the jet is
in like manner diminished. So is it with the steam-blast in the chimney
of the locomotive.

Doubts were, however, expressed whether the greater draught obtained
by the contraction of the blast-pipe was not counterbalanced in some
degree by the negative pressure upon the piston. Hence a series of
experiments was made with pipes of different diameters, and their
efficiency was tested by the amount of vacuum that was produced in the
smoke-box. The degree of rarefaction was determined by a glass tube
fixed to the bottom of the smoke-box, and descending into a bucket
of water, the tube being open at both ends. As the rarefaction took
place, the water would of course rise in the tube, and the height to
which it rose above the surface of the water in the bucket was made the
measure of the amount of rarefaction. These experiments proved that a
considerable increase of draught was obtained by the contraction of the
orifice; accordingly, the two blast-pipes opening from the cylinders
into either side of the "Rocket" chimney, and turned up within it, were
contracted slightly below the area of the steam-ports; and before the
engine left the factory, the water rose in the glass tube three inches
above the water in the bucket.

The other arrangements of the "Rocket" were briefly these: the boiler
was cylindrical, with flat ends, six feet in length, and three feet
four inches in diameter. The upper half of the boiler was used as
a reservoir for the steam, the lower half being filled with water.
Through the lower part the copper tubes extended, being open to the
fire-box at one end, and to the chimney at the other. The fire-box, or
furnace, two feet wide and three feet high, was attached immediately
behind the boiler, and was also surrounded with water. The cylinders
of the engine were placed on each side of the boiler, in an oblique
position, one end being nearly level with the top of the boiler at its
after end, and the other pointing toward the centre of the foremost
or driving pair of wheels, with which the connection was directly
made from the piston-rod to a pin on the outside of the wheel. The
engine, together with its load of water, weighed only four tons and a
quarter; and it was supported on four wheels, not coupled. The tender
was four-wheeled, and similar in shape to a wagon--the foremost part
holding the fuel, and the hind part a water-cask.

[Illustration: THE "ROCKET."]

When the "Rocket" was finished, it was placed upon the Killingworth
Railway for the purpose of experiment. The new boiler arrangement
was found perfectly successful. The steam was raised rapidly and
continuously, and in a quantity which then appeared marvelous. The
same evening Robert dispatched a letter to his father at Liverpool,
informing him, to his great joy, that the "Rocket" was "all right,"
and would be in complete working trim by the day of trial. The engine
was shortly after sent by wagon to Carlisle, and thence shipped for
Liverpool.

The time so much longed for by George Stephenson had now arrived, when
the merits of the passenger locomotive were about to be put to the
test. He had fought the battle for it until now almost single-handed.
Engrossed by his daily labors and anxieties, and harassed by
difficulties and discouragements which would have crushed the spirit
of a less resolute man, he had held firmly to his purpose through good
and through evil report. The hostility which he experienced from some
of the directors opposed to the adoption of the locomotive was the
circumstance that caused him the greatest grief of all; for where he
had looked for encouragement, he found only carping and opposition. But
his pluck never failed him; and now the "Rocket" was upon the ground to
prove, to use his own words, "whether he was a man of his word or not."

Great interest was felt at Liverpool, as well as throughout the
country, in the approaching competition. Engineers, scientific men, and
mechanics arrived from all quarters to witness the novel display of
mechanical ingenuity on which such great results depended. The public
generally were no indifferent spectators either. The populations of
Liverpool, Manchester, and the adjacent towns felt that the successful
issue of the experiment would confer upon them individual benefits and
local advantages almost incalculable, while populations at a distance
waited for the result with almost equal interest.

On the day appointed for the great competition of locomotives at
Rainhill the following engines were entered for the prize:

  1. Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson's[72] "Novelty."
  2. Mr. Timothy Hackworth's "Sanspareil."
  3. Messrs. R. Stephenson and Co.'s "Rocket."
  4. Mr. Burstall's "Perseverance."

Another engine was entered by Mr. Brandreth, of Liverpool--the
"Cycloped," weighing three tons, worked by a horse in a frame, but
it could not be admitted to the competition. The above were the only
four exhibited, out of a considerable number of engines constructed in
different parts of the country in anticipation of this contest, many
of which could not be satisfactorily completed by the day of trial.

The ground on which the engines were to be tried was a level piece of
railroad, about two miles in length. Each was required to make twenty
trips, or equal to a journey of seventy miles, in the course of the
day, and the average rate of traveling was to be not under ten miles an
hour. It was determined that, to avoid confusion, each engine should be
tried separately, and on different days.

The day fixed for the competition was the 1st of October, but, to
allow sufficient time to get the locomotives into good working order,
the directors extended it to the 6th. On the morning of the 6th the
ground at Rainhill presented a lively appearance, and there was as much
excitement as if the St. Leger were about to be run. Many thousand
spectators looked on, among whom were some of the first engineers and
mechanicians of the day. A stand was provided for the ladies; the
"beauty and fashion" of the neighborhood were present, and the side of
the railroad was lined with carriages of all descriptions.

It was quite characteristic of the Stephensons that, although their
engine did not stand first on the list for trial, it was the first that
was ready, and it was accordingly ordered out by the judges for an
experimental trip. Yet the "Rocket" was by no means the "favorite" with
either the judges or the spectators. Nicholas Wood has since stated
that the majority of the judges were strongly predisposed in favor of
the "Novelty," and that "nine tenths, if not ten tenths, of the persons
present were against the 'Rocket' because of its appearance."[73]
Nearly every person favored some other engine, so that there was
nothing for the "Rocket" but the practical test. The first trip
made by it was quite successful. It ran about twelve miles, without
interruption, in about fifty-three minutes.

The "Novelty" was next called out. It was a light engine, very compact
in appearance, carrying the water and fuel upon the same wheels as the
engine. The weight of the whole was only three tons and one hundred
weight. A peculiarity of this engine was that the air was driven or
_forced_ through the fire by means of bellows. The day being now far
advanced, and some dispute having arisen as to the method of assigning
the proper load for the "Novelty," no particular experiment was made
farther than that the engine traversed the line by way of exhibition,
occasionally moving at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour. The
"Sanspareil," constructed by Mr. Timothy Hackworth, was next exhibited,
but no particular experiment was made with it on this day. This engine
differed but little in its construction from the locomotive last
supplied by the Stephensons to the Stockton and Darlington Railway, of
which Mr. Hackworth was the locomotive foreman.

[Illustration: LOCOMOTIVE COMPETITION AT RAINHILL.]

The contest was postponed until the following day; but, before the
judges arrived on the ground, the bellows for creating the blast in
the "Novelty" gave way, and it was found incapable of going through
its performance. A defect was also detected in the boiler of the
"Sanspareil," and some farther time was allowed to get it repaired. The
large number of spectators who had assembled to witness the contest
were greatly disappointed at this postponement; but, to lessen it,
Stephenson again brought out the "Rocket," and, attaching to it a coach
containing thirty persons, he ran them along the line at the rate of
from twenty-four to thirty miles an hour, much to their gratification
and amazement. Before separating, the judges ordered the engine to be
in readiness by eight o'clock on the following morning, to go through
its definitive trial according to the prescribed conditions.

On the morning of the 8th of October the "Rocket" was again ready for
the contest. The engine was taken to the extremity of the stage, the
fire-box was filled with coke, the fire lighted, and the steam raised
until it lifted the safety-valve loaded to a pressure of fifty pounds
to the square inch. This proceeding occupied fifty-seven minutes. The
engine then started on its journey, dragging after it about thirteen
tons' weight in wagons, and made the first ten trips backward and
forward along the two miles of road, running the thirty-five miles,
including stoppages, in an hour and forty-eight minutes. The second ten
trips were in like manner performed in two hours and three minutes.
The maximum velocity attained during the trial trip was twenty-nine
miles an hour, or about three times the speed that one of the judges
of the competition had declared to be the limit of possibility. The
average speed at which the whole of the journeys were performed was
fifteen miles an hour, or five miles beyond the rate specified in the
conditions published by the company. The entire performance excited the
greatest astonishment among the assembled spectators; the directors
felt confident that their enterprise was now on the eve of success;
and George Stephenson rejoiced to think that, in spite of all false
prophets and fickle counselors, the locomotive system was now safe.
When the "Rocket," having performed all the conditions of the contest,
arrived at the "grand stand" at the close of its day's successful
run, Mr. Cropper--one of the directors favorable to the fixed engine
system--lifted up his hands, and exclaimed, "Now has George Stephenson
at last delivered himself."

Neither the "Novelty" nor the "Sanspareil" was ready for trial until
the 10th, on the morning of which day an advertisement appeared,
stating that the former engine was to be tried on that day, when it
would perform more work than any engine on the ground. The weight of
the carriages attached to it was only about seven tons. The engine
passed the first post in good style; but, in returning, the pipe
from the forcing-pump burst and put an end to the trial. The pipe
was afterward repaired, and the engine made several trips by itself,
in which it was said to have gone at the rate of from twenty-four to
twenty-eight miles an hour.

The "Sanspareil" was not ready until the 13th; and when its boiler
and tender were filled with water, it was found to weigh four hundred
weight beyond the weight specified in the published conditions as
the limit of four-wheeled engines; nevertheless, the judges allowed
it to run on the same footing as the other engines, to enable them to
ascertain whether its merits entitled it to favorable consideration. It
traveled at the average speed of about fourteen miles an hour, with its
load attached; but at the eighth trip the cold-water pump got wrong,
and the engine could proceed no farther.

It was determined to award the premium to the successful engine on
the following day, the 14th, on which occasion there was an unusual
assemblage of spectators. The owners of the "Novelty" pleaded for
another trial, and it was conceded. But again it broke down. Then
Mr. Hackworth requested the opportunity for making another trial of
his "Sanspareil." But the judges had now had enough of failures, and
they declined, on the ground that not only was the engine above the
stipulated weight, but that it was constructed on a plan which they
could not recommend for adoption by the directors of the company.
One of the principal practical objections to this locomotive was the
enormous quantity of coke consumed or wasted by it--about 692 lbs. per
hour when traveling--caused by the sharpness of the steam-blast in the
chimney, which blew a large proportion of the burning coke into the air.

The "Perseverance" of Mr. Burstall was found unable to move at more
than five or six miles an hour, and it was withdrawn from the contest
at an early period. The "Rocket" was thus the only engine that had
performed, and more than performed, all the stipulated conditions,
and it was declared to be entitled to the prize of £500, which was
awarded to the Messrs. Stephenson and Booth accordingly. And farther to
show that the engine had been working quite within its powers, George
Stephenson ordered it to be brought upon the ground and detached from
all incumbrances, when, in making two trips, it was found to travel at
the astonishing rate of thirty-five miles an hour.

The "Rocket" had thus eclipsed the performances of all locomotive
engines that had yet been constructed, and outstripped even the
sanguine expectations of its constructors. It satisfactorily answered
the report of Messrs. Walker and Rastrick, and established the
efficiency of the locomotive for working the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, and, indeed, all future railways. The "Rocket" showed
that a new power had been born into the world, full of activity and
strength, with boundless capability of work. It was the simple but
admirable contrivance of the steam-blast, and its combination with the
multitubular boiler, that at once gave locomotion a vigorous life,
and secured the triumph of the railway system.[74] As has been well
observed, this wonderful ability to increase and multiply its powers of
performance with the emergency that demands them has made this giant
engine the noblest creation of human wit, the very lion among machines.
The success of the Rainhill experiment, as judged by the public, may be
inferred from the fact that the shares of the company immediately rose
ten per cent., and nothing farther was heard of the proposed twenty-one
fixed engines, engine-houses, ropes, etc. All this cumbersome apparatus
was thenceforward effectually disposed of.

Very different now was the tone of those directors who had
distinguished themselves by the persistency of their opposition to
George Stephenson's plans. Coolness gave way to eulogy, and hostility
to unbounded offers of friendship, after the manner of many men who
run to the help of the strong. Deeply though the engineer had felt
aggrieved by the conduct exhibited toward him during this eventful
struggle by some from whom forbearance was to have been expected, he
never entertained toward them in after life any angry feelings; on
the contrary, he forgave all. But, though the directors afterward
passed unanimous resolutions eulogizing "the great skill and unwearied
energy" of their engineer, he himself, when speaking confidentially
to those with whom he was most intimate, could not help pointing
out the difference between his "foul-weather and fair-weather
friends." Mr. Gooch says that, though naturally most cheerful and
kind-hearted in disposition, the anxiety and pressure which weighed
upon his mind during the construction of the railway had the effect
of making him occasionally impatient and irritable, like a spirited
horse touched by the spur, though his original good nature from time
to time shone through it all. When the line had been brought to a
successful completion, a very marked change in him became visible.
The irritability passed away, and when difficulties and vexations
arose they were treated by him as matters of course, and with perfect
composure and cheerfulness.

[Illustration: RAILWAY _versus_ ROAD.]

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Letter to the author.

[66] Letter to Mr. Illingworth, September 25th, 1825. The reports made
to the directors and officers of the company, which we have seen,
contain the details of the operations carried on at the mines, but they
are as dry and uninteresting as such reports usually are, and furnish
no materials calculated to illustrate the subject of the text.

[67] In a letter to Mr. Illingworth, then resident at Bogotá, dated
the 24th of March, 1826, Robert wrote as follows: "Nothing but the
fullest consent of my partners in England could induce me to stay in
this country, and the assurance that no absolute necessity existed
to call me home. I must also have the consent of my father. I know
that he must have suffered severely from my absence, but that having
been extended so far beyond the period he was led to expect, may have
induced him to curtail his plans, which, had they been accomplished,
as they would have been by my assistance, would have placed us both
in a situation far superior to any thing that I can hope for as the
servant of an association however wealthy and liberal. What I might
do in England is perhaps known to myself only; it is difficult,
therefore, for the association to calculate upon rewarding me to the
full extent of my prospects at home. My prosperity is involved in that
of my father, whose property was sacrificed in laying the foundations
of an establishment for me; his capital being invested in a concern
which requires the greatest attention, and which, with our personal
superintendence, could not fail to secure that independence which forms
so principally the object of all our toil."

[68] Mr. Booth's Account, p. 70-1. While concurring with Mr. Rastrick
in recommending "the stationary reciprocating system as the best" if it
was the directors' intention to make the line complete at once, so as
to accommodate the traffic expected by them, or a quantity approaching
to it (_i.e._, 3750 tons of goods and passengers from Liverpool toward
Manchester, and 3950 tons from Manchester toward Liverpool), Mr.
Walker added, "but if any circumstances should induce the directors to
proceed by degrees, and to proportion the power of conveyance to the
demand, then we recommend locomotive engines upon the line generally;
and two fixed engines upon Rainhill and Sutton planes, to draw up the
locomotive engines as well as the goods and carriages;" and "if on
any occasion the trade should get beyond the supply of locomotives,
the horse might form a temporary substitute." As, however, it was
the directors' determination, with a view to the success of their
experiment, to open the line complete for working, they felt that it
would be unadvisable to adopt this partial experiment; and it was
still left for them to decide whether they would adopt or not the
substantial recommendation of the reporting engineers in favor of the
stationary-engine system for the complete accommodation of the expected
traffic.

[69] The arguments used by Mr. Stephenson with the directors in favor
of the locomotive engine were afterward collected and published in 1830
by Robert Stephenson and Joseph Locke, as "compiled from the Reports of
Mr. George Stephenson." The pamphlet was entitled "Observations on the
Comparative Merits of Locomotive and Fixed Engines." Robert Stephenson,
speaking of the authorship many years after, said, "I believe I
furnished the facts and the arguments, and Locke put them into shape.
Locke was a very flowery writer, whereas my style was rather bald and
unattractive; so he was the editor of the pamphlet, which excited a
good deal of attention among engineers at the time."

[70] The conditions were these:

1. The engine must effectually consume its own smoke.

2. The engine, if of six tons' weight, must be able to draw after it,
day by day, twenty tons' weight (including the tender and water-tank)
at ten miles an hour, with a pressure of steam on the boiler not
exceeding fifty pounds to the square inch.

3. The boiler must have two safety valves, neither of which must be
fastened down, and one of them be completely out of the control of the
engine-man.

4. The engine and boiler must be supported on springs, and rest on six
wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding fifteen feet to the top
of the chimney.

5. The engine, with water, must not weigh more than six tons; but an
engine of less weight would be preferred on its drawing a proportionate
load behind it; if of only four and a half tons, then it might be put
on only four wheels. The company to be at liberty to test the boiler,
etc., by a pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch.

6. A mercurial gauge must be affixed to the machine, showing the steam
pressure above forty-five pounds per square inch.

7. The engine must be delivered, complete and ready for trial, at the
Liverpool end of the railway, not later than the 1st of October, 1829.

8. The price of the engine must not exceed £550.

Many persons of influence declared the conditions published by the
directors of the railway chimerical in the extreme. One gentleman of
some eminence in Liverpool, Mr. P. Ewart, who afterward filled the
office of Government Inspector of Post-office Steam Packets, declared
that only a parcel of charlatans would ever have issued such a set
of conditions; that it had been _proved_ to be impossible to make a
locomotive engine go at ten miles an hour; but if it ever was done, he
would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel for his breakfast!

[71] Some correspondence took place between Boulton and Watt on
the subject, when the latter was scheming the application of the
steam-engine to locomotive purposes. In a letter to Boulton, dated the
27th of August, 1784, Watt said, "Perhaps some means may be hit upon to
make the boiler cylindrical _with a number of tubes passing through_,
like the organ-pipe condenser, whereby it might be thinner and lighter;
but," he added, "I fear this would be too subject to accidents."

[72] The inventor of this engine was a Swede, who afterward proceeded
to the United States, and there achieved considerable distinction as
an engineer. His caloric engine has so far proved a failure, but his
iron cupola vessel, the "Monitor," must be admitted to have been a
remarkable success in its way.

[73] Mr. Wood's speech at Newcastle, 26th of October, 1858.

[74] When heavier and more powerful engines were brought upon the road,
the old "Rocket," becoming regarded as a thing of no value, was sold
in 1837. It was purchased by Mr. Thompson, of Kirkhouse, the lessee of
the Earl of Carlisle's coal and lime works, near Carlisle. He worked
the engine on the Midgeholme Railway for five or six years, during
which it hauled coals from the pits to the town. There was wonderful
vitality in the old engine, as the following circumstance proves. When
the great contest for the representation of East Cumberland took place,
and Sir James Graham was superseded by Major Aglionby, the "Rocket"
was employed to convey the Alston express with the state of the poll
from Midgeholme to Kirkhouse. On that occasion the engine was driven by
Mr. Mark Thompson, and it ran the distance of upward of four miles in
four and a half minutes, thus reaching a speed of nearly sixty miles an
hour, proving its still admirable qualities as an engine. But again it
was superseded by heavier engines; for it only weighed about four tons,
whereas the new engines were at least three times that weight. The
"Rocket" was consequently laid up in ordinary in the yard at Kirkhouse,
from whence it has since been transferred to the Museum of Patents at
Kensington, where it is still to be seen.



CHAPTER XIII.

OPENING OF THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY, AND EXTENSION OF THE
RAILWAY SYSTEM.


The directors of the railway now began to see daylight, and they
derived encouragement from the skillful manner in which their
engineer had overcome the principal difficulties of the undertaking.
He had formed a solid road over Chat Moss, and thus achieved one
"impossibility;" and he had constructed a locomotive that could run
at a speed of thirty miles an hour, thus vanquishing a still more
formidable difficulty.

A single line of way was completed over Chat Moss by the 1st of
January, 1830, and on that day the "Rocket," with a carriage full of
directors, engineers, and their friends, passed along the greater part
of the road between Liverpool and Manchester. Mr. Stephenson continued
to direct his close attention to the improvement of the details of the
locomotive, every successive trial of which proved more satisfactory.
In this department he had the benefit of the able and unremitting
assistance of his son, who, in the workshops at Newcastle, directly
superintended the construction of the engines required for the public
working of the railway. He did not by any means rest satisfied with
the success, decided though it was, which had been achieved by the
"Rocket." He regarded it but in the light of a successful experiment;
and every successive engine placed upon the railway exhibited some
improvement on its predecessors. The arrangement of the parts, and the
weight and proportion of the engines, were altered as the experience of
each successive day, or week, or month suggested; and it was soon found
that the performances of the "Rocket" on the day of trial had been
greatly within the powers of the improved locomotive.

The first entire trip between Liverpool and Manchester was performed
on the 14th of June, 1830, on the occasion of a board meeting being
held at the latter town. The train was on this occasion drawn by
the "Arrow," one of the new locomotives, in which the most recent
improvements had been adopted. George Stephenson himself drove the
engine, and Captain Scoresby, the circumpolar navigator, stood beside
him on the foot-plate, and minuted the speed of the train. A great
concourse of people assembled at both termini, as well as along the
line, to witness the novel spectacle of a train of carriages drawn
by an engine at the speed of seventeen miles an hour. On the return
journey to Liverpool in the evening, the "Arrow" crossed Chat Moss at a
speed of nearly twenty-seven miles an hour, reaching its destination in
about an hour and a half.

In the mean time Mr. Stephenson and his assistant, Mr. Gooch, were
diligently occupied in making the necessary preliminary arrangements
for the conduct of the traffic against the time when the line should
be ready for opening. The experiments made with the object of carrying
on the passenger traffic at quick velocities were of an especially
harassing and anxious character. Every week, for nearly three months
before the opening, trial trips were made to Newton and back, generally
with two or three trains following each other, and carrying altogether
from two to three hundred persons. These trips were usually made on
Saturday afternoons, when the works could be more conveniently stopped
and the line cleared for the occasion. In these experiments Mr.
Stephenson had the able assistance of Mr. Henry Booth, the secretary of
the company, who contrived many of the arrangements in the passenger
carriages, not the least valuable of which was his invention of the
coupling screw, still in use on all passenger railways.

At length the line was finished and ready for the public opening,
which took place on the 15th of September, 1830, and attracted a vast
number of spectators from all parts of the country. The completion
of the railway was justly regarded as an important national event,
and the ceremony of its opening was celebrated accordingly. The Duke
of Wellington, then prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, Secretary of
State, Mr. Huskisson, one of the members for Liverpool and an earnest
supporter of the project from its commencement, were among the number
of distinguished public personages present.

Eight locomotive engines, constructed at the Stephenson works, had
been delivered and placed upon the line, the whole of which had been
tried and tested, weeks before, with perfect success. The several
trains of carriages accommodated in all about six hundred persons. The
"Northumbrian" engine, driven by George Stephenson himself, headed
the line of trains; then followed the "Phoenix," driven by Robert
Stephenson; the "North Star," by Robert Stephenson senior (brother of
George); the "Rocket," by Joseph Locke; the "Dart," by Thomas L. Gooch;
the "Comet," by William Allcard; the "Arrow," by Frederick Swanwick;
and the "Meteor," by Anthony Harding. The procession was cheered in its
progress by thousands of spectators--through the deep ravine of Olive
Mount; up the Sutton incline; over the great Sankey viaduct, beneath
which a multitude of persons had assembled--carriages filling the
narrow lanes, and barges crowding the river; the people below gazing
with wonder and admiration at the trains which sped along the line, far
above their heads, at the rate of some twenty-four miles an hour.

At Parkside, about seventeen miles from Liverpool, the engines stopped
to take in water. Here a deplorable accident occurred to one of the
illustrious visitors, which threw a deep shadow over the subsequent
proceedings of the day. The "Northumbrian" engine, with the carriage
containing the Duke of Wellington, was drawn up on one line, in order
that the whole of the trains on the other line might pass in review
before him and his party. Mr. Huskisson had alighted from the carriage,
and was standing on the opposite road, along which the "Rocket" was
observed rapidly coming up. At this moment the Duke of Wellington,
between whom and Mr. Huskisson some coolness had existed, made a sign
of recognition, and held out his hand. A hurried but friendly grasp
was given; and before it was loosened there was a general cry from the
by-standers of "Get in, get in!" Flurried and confused, Mr. Huskisson
endeavored to get round the open door of the carriage, which projected
over the opposite rail, but in so doing he was struck down by the
"Rocket," and falling with his leg doubled across the rail, the limb
was instantly crushed. His first words, on being raised, were, "I
have met my death," which unhappily proved true, for he expired that
same evening in the parsonage of Eccles. It was cited at the time as
a remarkable fact that the "Northumbrian" engine, driven by George
Stephenson himself, conveyed the wounded body of the unfortunate
gentleman a distance of about fifteen miles in twenty-five minutes, or
at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour. This incredible speed burst
upon the world with the effect of a new and unlooked-for phenomenon.

The accident threw a gloom over the rest of the day's proceedings.
The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel expressed a wish that the
procession should return to Liverpool. It was, however, represented to
them that a vast concourse of people had assembled at Manchester to
witness the arrival of the trains; that report would exaggerate the
mischief if they did not complete the journey; and that a false panic
on that day might seriously affect future railway traveling and the
value of the company's property. The party consented accordingly to
proceed to Manchester, but on the understanding that they should return
as soon as possible, and refrain from farther festivity.

As the trains approached Manchester, crowds of people were found
covering the banks, the slopes of the cuttings, and even the railway
itself. The multitude, become impatient and excited by the rumors
which reached them, had outflanked the military, and all order was
at an end. The people clambered about the carriages, holding on by
the door-handles, and many were tumbled over; but, happily, no fatal
accident occurred. At the Manchester station the political element
began to display itself; placards about "Peterloo," etc., were
exhibited, and brickbats were thrown at the carriage containing the
duke. On the trains coming to a stand in the Manchester station, the
duke did not descend, but remained seated, shaking hands with the women
and children who were pushed forward by the crowd. Shortly after, the
trains returned to Liverpool, which they reached, after considerable
delays, late at night.

On the following morning the railway was opened for public traffic. The
first train of 140 passengers was booked and sent on to Manchester,
reaching it in the allotted time of two hours; and from that time the
traffic has regularly proceeded from day to day until now.

It is scarcely necessary that we should speak at any length of
the commercial results of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
Suffice it to say that its success was complete and decisive. The
anticipations of its projectors were, however, in many respects at
fault. They had based their calculations almost entirely on the heavy
merchandise traffic--such as coal, cotton, and timber--relying little
upon passengers; whereas the receipts derived from the conveyance of
passengers far exceeded those derived from merchandise of all kinds,
which for a time continued a subordinate branch of the traffic. In
the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons, the
promoters stated their expectation of obtaining about one half of the
whole number of passengers which the coaches then running could carry,
or about 400 a day. But the railway was scarcely opened before it
carried on an average about 1200 passengers daily; and five years after
the opening, it carried nearly half a million of persons yearly. So
successful, indeed, was the passenger traffic, that it engrossed the
whole of the company's small stock of engines.

For some time after the public opening of the line, Mr. Stephenson's
ingenuity continued to be employed in devising improved methods for
securing the safety and comfort of the traveling public. Few are
aware of the thousand minute details which have to be arranged--the
forethought and contrivance that have to be exercised--to enable the
traveler by railway to accomplish his journey in safety. After the
difficulties of constructing a level road over bogs, across valleys,
and through deep cuttings have been overcome, the maintenance of the
way has to be provided for with continuous care. Every rail, with its
fastenings, must be complete, to prevent risk of accident, and the
road must be kept regularly ballasted up to the level to diminish
the jolting of vehicles passing over it at high speeds. Then the
stations must be protected by signals observable from such a distance
as to enable the train to be stopped in event of an obstacle, such
as a stopping or shunting train being in the way. For some years the
signals employed on the Liverpool Railway were entirely given by men
with flags of different colors stationed along the line; there were no
fixed signals nor electric telegraphs; but the traffic was nevertheless
worked quite as safely as under the more elaborate and complicated
system of telegraphing which has since been established.

From an early period it became obvious that the iron road, as
originally laid down, was quite insufficient for the heavy traffic
which it had to carry. The line was in the first place laid with
fish-bellied rails of only thirty-five pounds to the yard, calculated
only for horse-traffic, or, at most, for engines like the "Rocket," of
very light weight. But as the power and the weight of the locomotives
were increased, it was found that such rails were quite insufficient
for the safe conduct of the traffic, and it therefore became necessary
to relay the road with heavier and stronger rails at considerable
expense.

The details of the carrying stock had in like manner to be settled
by experience. Every thing had, as it were, to be begun from the
beginning. The coal-wagon, it is true, served in some degree as a
model for the railway-truck; but the railway passenger-carriage was an
entirely novel structure. It had to be mounted upon strong framing,
of a peculiar kind, supported on springs to prevent jolting. Then
there was the necessity for contriving some method of preventing hard
bumping of the carriage-ends when the train was pulled up, and hence
the contrivance of buffer-springs and spring-frames. For the purpose
of stopping the train, brakes on an improved plan were also contrived,
with new modes of lubricating the carriage-axles, on which the wheels
revolved at an unusually high velocity. In all these contrivances
Mr. Stephenson's inventiveness was kept constantly on the stretch;
and though many improvements in detail have been effected since his
time, the foundations were then laid by him of the present system of
conducting railway traffic. As a curious illustration of the inventive
ingenuity which he displayed in contriving the working of the Liverpool
line, we may mention his invention of the Self-acting Brake. He early
entertained the idea that the momentum of the running train might
itself be made available for the purpose of checking its speed. He
proposed to fit each carriage with a brake which should be called
into action immediately on the locomotive at the head of the train
being pulled up. The impetus of the carriages carrying them forward,
the buffer-springs would be driven home, and, at the same time, by a
simple arrangement of the mechanism, the brakes would be called into
simultaneous action; thus the wheels would be brought into a state
of sledge, and the train speedily stopped. This plan was adopted by
Mr. Stephenson before he left the Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
though it was afterward discontinued; and it is a remarkable fact,
that this identical plan, with the addition of a centrifugal apparatus,
was recently revived by M. Guérin, a French engineer, and extensively
employed on foreign railways.

Finally, Mr. Stephenson had to attend to the improvement of the power
and speed of the locomotive--always the grand object of his study--with
a view to economy as well as regularity in the working of the railway.
In the "Planet" engine, delivered upon the line immediately subsequent
to the public opening, all the improvements which had up to this time
been contrived by him and his son were introduced in combination--the
blast-pipe, the tubular boiler, horizontal cylinders inside the
smoke-box, the cranked axle, and the fire-box firmly fixed to the
boiler. The first load of goods conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester
by the "Planet" was eighty tons in weight, and the engine performed
the journey against a strong head wind in two hours and a half. On
another occasion, the same engine brought up a cargo of voters from
Manchester to Liverpool, during a contested election, within a space of
sixty minutes. The "Samson," delivered in the following year, exhibited
still farther improvements, the most important of which was that of
_coupling_ the fore and hind wheels of the engine. By this means the
adhesion of the wheels on the rails was more effectually secured, and
thus the full hauling power of the locomotive was made available. The
"Samson," shortly after it was placed upon the line, dragged after it a
train of wagons weighing a hundred and fifty tons at a speed of about
twenty miles an hour, the consumption of coke being reduced to only
about a third of a pound per ton per mile.

The rapid progress thus made will show that the inventive faculties of
Mr. Stephenson and his son were kept fully on the stretch; but their
labors were amply repaid by the result. They were, doubtless, to some
extent stimulated by the number of competitors who about the same time
appeared as improvers of the locomotive engine. But the superiority
of Stephenson's locomotives over all others that had yet been tried
induced the directors of the railway to require that the engines
supplied to them by other builders should be constructed after the same
model. Mr. Stephenson himself always had the greatest faith in the
superiority of his own engines over all others, and did not hesitate
strongly to declare it. When it was once proposed to introduce the
engines of another maker on the Manchester and Leeds line, he said,
"Very well; I have no objection; but put them to this fair test. Hang
one of ----'s engines on to one of mine, back to back. Then let them go
at it; and whichever walks away with the other, _that's the engine_."

The engineer had also to seek out the proper men to maintain and
watch the road, and more especially to work the locomotive engines.
Steadiness, sobriety, common sense, and practical experience were the
qualities which he especially valued in those selected by him for that
purpose. But where were the men of experience to be found? Very few
railways were yet at work, and these were almost exclusively confined
to the northern coal counties; hence a considerable proportion of
the drivers and firemen employed on the Liverpool line were brought
from the neighborhood of Newcastle. But he could not always find
skilled workmen enough for the important and responsible duties to be
performed. It was a saying of his that "he could engineer matter very
well, and make it bend to his purpose, but his greatest difficulty was
in engineering _men_." He often wished that he could contrive heads and
hands on which he might rely, as easily as he could construct railways
and manufacture locomotives. As it was, Stephenson's mechanics were in
request all over England--the Newcastle workshops continuing for many
years to perform the part of a training-school for engineers, and to
supply locomotive superintendents and drivers, not only for England,
but for nearly every country in Europe--preference being given to them
by the directors of railways, in consequence of their previous training
and experience, as well as because of their generally excellent
qualities as steady and industrious workmen.

The success of the Liverpool and Manchester experiment naturally
excited great interest. People flocked to Lancashire from all quarters
to see the steam-coach running upon a railway at three times the speed
of a mail-coach, and to enjoy the excitement of actually traveling
in the wake of an engine at that incredible velocity. The travelers
returned to their respective districts full of the wonders of the
locomotive, considering it to be the greatest marvel of the age.
Railways are familiar enough objects now, and our children who grow up
in their midst may think little of them; but thirty years since it was
an event in one's life to see a locomotive, and to travel for the first
time upon a public railroad.

In remote districts, however, the stories told about the benefits
conferred by the Liverpool Railway were received with considerable
incredulity, and the proposal to extend such roads in all directions
throughout the country caused great alarm. In the districts through
which stage-coaches ran, giving employment to large numbers of persons,
it was apprehended that, if railways were established, the turnpike
roads would become deserted and grown over with grass, country inns
and their buxom landladies would be ruined, the race of coach-drivers
and hostlers would become extinct, and the breed of horses be entirely
destroyed. But there was hope for the coaching interest in the
fact that the government were employing their engineers to improve
the public high roads so as to render railways unnecessary. It was
announced in the papers that a saving of thirty miles would be effected
by the new road between London and Holyhead, and an equal saving
between London and Edinburg. And to show what the speed of horses could
accomplish, we find it set forth as an extraordinary fact that the
"Patent Tally-ho Coach," in the year 1830 (when the Birmingham line
had been projected), performed the entire journey of 109 miles between
London and Birmingham--breakfast included--in seven hours and fifty
minutes! Great speed was also recorded on the Brighton road, the "Red
Rover" doing the distance between London and Brighton in four hours and
a half. These speeds were not, however, secured without accidents, for
there was scarcely a newspaper of the period that did not contain one
or more paragraphs headed "Another dreadful coach accident."

The practicability of railway locomotion being now proved, and its
great social and commercial advantages ascertained, the extension
of the system was merely a question of time, money, and labor. A
fine opportunity presented itself for the wise and judicious action
of the government in the matter, the improvement of the internal
communications of a country being really one of its most important
functions. But the government of the day, though ready enough to spend
money in improving the old turnpike roads, regarded the railroads with
hostility, and met them with obstructions of all kinds. They seemed
to think it their duty to protect the turnpike trusts, disregarding
the paramount interest of the public. This may possibly account for
the singular circumstance that, at the very time they were manifesting
indifference or aversion to the locomotive on the railroad, they were
giving every encouragement to the locomotive on turnpike roads. In
1831, we find a Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire
into and report upon--not the railway system, but--the applicability
of the steam-carriage to common roads; and, after investigation, the
committee were so satisfied with the evidence taken, that they reported
decidedly in favor of the road locomotive system. Though they ignored
the railway, they recognized the steam-carriage.

But even a Report of the House of Commons, powerful though it be, can
not alter the laws of gravity and friction; and the road locomotive
remained, what it ever will be, an impracticable machine. Not that
it is impossible to work a locomotive upon a common road, but to
work it to any profit at all as compared with the locomotive upon a
railway. Numerous trials of steam-carriages were made at the time by
Sir Charles Dance, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Gurney, Sir James Anderson, and
other distinguished gentlemen of influence. Journalists extolled their
utility, compared with "the much-boasted application on railroads."[75]
But, notwithstanding all this, and the House of Commons' Report in its
favor, Stephenson's first verdict, pronounced on the road locomotive
many years before, when he was only an engine-wright at Killingworth,
was fully borne out by the result, and it became day by day clearer
that the attempt to introduce the engine into general use upon turnpike
roads could only prove a delusion and a snare.

Although the Legislature took no initiative step in the direction of
railway extension, the public spirit and enterprise of the country
did not fail it at this juncture. The English people, though they
may be defective in their capacity for organization, are strong in
individualism, and not improbably their admirable qualities in the
latter respect detract from their efficiency in the former. Thus, in
all times, their greatest national enterprises have not been planned by
officialism and carried out upon any regular system, but have sprung,
like their Constitution, their laws, and their entire industrial
arrangements, from the force of circumstances and the individual
energies of the people. Hence railway extension, like so many other
great English enterprises, was now left to be carried out by the genius
of English engineers, backed by the energy of the British public.

The mode of action was characteristic and national. The execution of
the new lines was undertaken entirely by joint-stock associations of
proprietors, after the manner of the Stockton and Darlington, and
Liverpool and Manchester companies. These associations are conformable
to our national habits, and fit well into our system of laws. They
combine the power of vast resources with individual watchfulness and
motives of self-interest; and by their means gigantic undertakings,
which elsewhere would be impossible to any but kings and emperors
with great national resources at command, were carried out by the
co-operation of private persons. And the results of this combination
of means and of enterprise have been truly marvelous. Within the life
of the present generation, the private citizens of England engaged in
railway extension have, in the face of government obstructions, and
without taking a penny from the public purse, executed a system of
communications involving works of the most gigantic kind, which, in
their total mass, their cost, and their public utility, far exceed the
most famous national undertakings of any age or country.

Mr. Stephenson was, of course, actively engaged in the construction
of the numerous railways now projected by the joint-stock companies.
During the formation of the Manchester and Liverpool line he had been
consulted respecting many projects of a similar kind. One of these was
a short railway between Canterbury and Whitstable, about six miles in
length. He was too much occupied with the works at Liverpool to give
this scheme much of his personal attention; but he sent his assistant,
Mr. John Dixon, to survey the line, and afterward Mr. Locke to
superintend the execution of the works. The act was obtained in 1826,
and the line was opened for traffic in 1830. It was partly worked by
fixed engine-power, and partly by Stephenson's locomotives, similar to
the engines used upon the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

But the desire for railway extension principally pervaded the
manufacturing districts, especially after the successful opening of the
Liverpool and Manchester line. The commercial classes of the larger
towns soon became eager for a participation in the good which they
had so recently derided. Railway projects were set on foot in great
numbers, and Manchester became a centre from which main lines and
branches were started in all directions. The interest, however, which
attaches to these later schemes is of a much less absorbing kind than
that which belongs to the early history of the railway and the steps by
which it was mainly established. We naturally sympathize more with the
early struggles of a great principle, its trials and its difficulties,
than with its after stages of success; and, however gratified and
astonished we may be at its results, the interest is in a great measure
gone when its triumph has become a matter of certainty.

The commercial results of the Liverpool and Manchester line were so
satisfactory, and, indeed, so greatly exceeded the expectations of its
projectors, that many of the abandoned projects of the speculative year
1825 were forthwith revived. An abundant crop of engineers sprang up,
ready to execute railways of any extent. Now that the Liverpool and
Manchester line had been made, and the practicability of working it
by locomotive power had been proved, it was as easy for engineers to
make railways and to work them as it was for navigators to find America
after Columbus had made the first voyage. Mr. Francis Giles himself
took the field as a locomotive railway engineer, attaching himself to
the Newcastle and Carlisle and London and Southampton projects. Mr.
Brunel appeared, in like manner, as the engineer of the line projected
between London and Bristol; and Mr. Braithwaite, the builder of the
"Novelty" engine, as the engineer of a line from London to Colchester.

The first lines, however, which were actually constructed subsequent to
the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were in connection
with it, and principally in the county of Lancaster. Thus a branch was
formed from Bolton to Leigh, and another from Leigh to Kenyon, where it
formed a junction with the main line between Liverpool and Manchester.
Branches to Wigan on the north, and to Runcorn Gap and Warrington on
the south of the same line, were also formed; and a continuation of
the latter, as far south as Birmingham, was shortly after projected,
under the name of the Grand Junction Railway.

The last-mentioned line was projected as early as the year 1824,
when the Liverpool and Manchester scheme was under discussion, and
Mr. Stephenson then published a report on the subject. The plans
were deposited, but the bill was thrown out on the opposition of the
land-owners and canal proprietors. When engaged in making the survey,
Stephenson called upon some of the land-owners in the neighborhood
of Nantwich to obtain their assent, and was greatly disgusted to
learn that the agents of the canal companies had been before him, and
described the locomotive to the farmers as a most frightful machine,
emitting a breath as poisonous as the fabled dragon of old; and
telling them that if a bird flew over the district when one of these
engines passed, it would inevitably drop down dead! The application
for the bill was renewed in 1826, and again failed; and at length
it was determined to wait the issue of the Liverpool and Manchester
experiment. The act was eventually obtained in 1833, by which time
the projectors of railways had learned the art of "conciliating" the
landlords--and a very expensive process it proved. But it was the only
mode of avoiding a still more expensive Parliamentary opposition.

When it was proposed to extend the advantages of railways to the
population of the midland and southern counties of England, an immense
amount of alarm was created in the minds of the country gentlemen. They
did not relish the idea of private individuals, principally residents
in the manufacturing districts, invading their domains, and they
every where rose up in arms against the "new-fangled roads." Colonel
Sibthorpe openly declared his hatred of the "infernal railroads," and
said that he "would rather meet a highwayman, or see a burglar on his
premises, than an engineer!" Mr. Berkeley, the member for Cheltenham,
at a public meeting in that town, re-echoed Colonel Sibthorpe's
sentiments, and "wished that the concoctors of every such scheme,
with their solicitors and engineers, were at rest in Paradise!" The
impression prevailed among the rural classes that fox-covers and
game-preserves would be seriously prejudiced by the formation of
railroads; that agricultural communications would be destroyed, land
thrown out of cultivation, land-owners and farmers reduced to beggary,
the poor-rates increased through the number of persons thrown out of
employment by the railways, and all this in order that Liverpool,
Manchester, and Birmingham shop-keepers and manufacturers might
establish a monstrous monopoly in railway traffic.

The inhabitants of even some of the large towns were thrown into
a state of consternation by the proposal to provide them with the
accommodation of a railway. The line from London to Birmingham would
naturally have passed close to the handsome town of Northampton, and
was so projected. But the inhabitants of the place, urged on by the
local press, and excited by men of influence and education, opposed the
project, and succeeded in forcing the promoters, in their survey of the
line, to pass the town at a distance. The necessity was thus involved
of distorting the line, by which the enormous expense of constructing
the Kilsby Tunnel was incurred. Not many years elapsed before the
inhabitants of Northampton became clamorous for railway accommodation,
and a special branch was constructed for them. The additional cost
involved by this forced deviation of the line could not have amounted
to less than half a million sterling; the loss falling, not upon the
shareholders only, but upon the public.

Other towns in the south followed the example of Northampton in
howling down the railways. When the first railway through Kent was
projected, the line was laid out so as to pass by Maidstone, the
county town. But it had not a single supporter among the townspeople,
while the land-owners for many miles round continued to oppose it. A
few years later the Maidstone burgesses, like those of Northampton,
became clamorous for a railway, and a branch was formed for their
accommodation. In like manner, the London and Bristol (afterward the
Great Western) Railway was vehemently opposed by the people of the
towns through which the line was projected to pass; and when the bill
was thrown out by the Lords--after £30,000 had been expended by the
promoters--the inhabitants of Eton assembled, under the presidency of
the Marquis of Chandos, to rejoice and congratulate themselves and the
country upon its defeat. Eton, however, has now the convenience of two
railways to the metropolis.

During the time that the works of the Liverpool and Manchester line
were in progress, our engineer was consulted respecting a short
railway proposed to be formed between Leicester and Swannington, for
the purpose of opening up a communication between the town of Leicester
and the coal-fields in the western part of the county. Mr. Ellis, the
projector of this undertaking, had some difficulty in getting the
requisite capital subscribed for, the Leicester townspeople who had
money being for the most part interested in canals. George Stephenson
was invited to come upon the ground and survey the line. He did so,
and then the projector told him of the difficulty he had in finding
subscribers to the concern. "Give me a sheet," said Stephenson, "and
I will raise the money for you in Liverpool." The engineer was as
good as his word, and in a short time the sheet was returned with the
subscription complete. Mr. Stephenson was then asked to undertake the
office of engineer for the line, but his answer was that he had thirty
miles of railway in hand, which was enough for any engineer to attend
to properly. Was there any person he could recommend? "Well," said he,
"I think my son Robert is competent to undertake the thing." Would
Mr. Stephenson be answerable for him? "Oh yes, certainly." And Robert
Stephenson, at twenty-seven years of age, was installed engineer of the
line accordingly.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE LEICESTER AND SWANNINGTON RAILWAY.]

The requisite Parliamentary powers having been obtained, Robert
Stephenson proceeded with the construction of the railway, about
sixteen miles in length, toward the end of 1830. The works were
comparatively easy, excepting at the Leicester end, where the young
engineer encountered his first stiff bit of tunneling. The line
passed under ground for a mile and three quarters, and 500 yards
of its course lay through loose running sand. The presence of this
material rendered it necessary for the engineer, in the first place,
to construct a wooden tunnel to support the soil while the brick-work
was being executed. This measure proved sufficient, and the whole was
brought to a successful termination within a reasonable time. While
the works were in progress, Robert kept up a regular correspondence
with his father at Liverpool, consulting him on all points in which
his greater experience was likely to be of service. Like his father,
Robert was very observant, and always ready to seize opportunity
by the forelock. It happened that the estate of Snibston, near
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, was advertised for sale, and the young engineer's
experience as a coal-viewer and practical geologist suggested to
his mind that coal was most probably to be found underneath. He
communicated his views to his father on the subject. The estate lay
in the immediate neighborhood of the railway; and if the conjecture
proved correct, the finding of the coal must necessarily prove a most
fortunate circumstance for the purchasers of the land. He accordingly
requested his father to come over to Snibston and look at the property,
which he did; and after a careful inspection of the ground, he arrived
at the same conclusion as his son.

The large manufacturing town of Leicester, about fourteen miles
distant, had up to that time been exclusively supplied with coal
brought by canal from Derbyshire, and the Stephensons saw that the
railway under construction from Swannington to Leicester would furnish
a ready market for any coals which might be found at Snibston. Having
induced two of his Liverpool friends to join him in the venture, the
Snibston estate was purchased in 1831, and shortly after Stephenson
removed his home from Liverpool to Alton Grange, for the purpose of
superintending the sinking of the pit.

Sinking operations were immediately begun, and proceeded satisfactorily
until the old enemy, water, burst in upon the workmen, and threatened
to drown them out. But by means of efficient pumping-engines, and the
skillful casing of the shaft with segments of cast iron--a process
called "tubbing,"[76] which Stephenson was the first to adopt in
the Midland Counties--it was eventually made water-tight, and the
sinking proceeded. When a depth of 166 feet had been reached, a still
more formidable difficulty presented itself--one which had baffled
former sinkers in the neighborhood, and deterred them from farther
operations. This was a remarkable bed of whinstone or greenstone, which
had originally been poured out as a sheet of burning lava over the
denuded surface of the coal measures; indeed, it was afterward found
that it had turned to cinders one part of the seam of coal with which
it had come in contact. The appearance of this bed of solid rock was
so unusual a circumstance in coal-mining that some experienced sinkers
urged Stephenson to proceed no farther, believing the occurrence of the
dike at that point to be altogether fatal to his enterprise. But, with
his faith still firm in the existence of coal underneath, he fell back
on his old motto of "Persevere!" He determined to go on boring; and
down through the solid rock he went until, twenty-two feet lower, he
came upon the coal measures. In the mean time, however, lest the boring
at that point should prove unsuccessful, he had commenced sinking
another pair of shafts about a quarter of a mile west of the "fault,"
and, after about nine months' labor, he reached the principal seam,
called the "main coal."

The works were then opened out on a large scale, and George Stephenson
had the pleasure and good fortune to send the first train of main coal
to Leicester by railway. The price was immediately reduced there to
about 8_s._ a ton, effecting a pecuniary saving to the inhabitants
of the town of about £40,000 per annum, or equivalent to the whole
amount then collected in government taxes and local rates, besides
giving an impetus to the manufacturing prosperity of the place, which
has continued to the present day. The correct principles upon which
the mining operations at Snibston were conducted offered a salutary
example to the neighboring colliery owners. The numerous improvements
there introduced were freely exhibited to all, and they were afterward
reproduced in many forms all over the Midland Counties, greatly to the
advantage of the mining interest.

Nor was Mr. Stephenson less attentive to the comfort and well-being of
those immediately dependent upon him--the work-people of the Snibston
Colliery and their families. Unlike many of those large employers
who have "sprung from the ranks," he was one of the kindest and most
indulgent of masters. He would have a fair day's work for a fair day's
wages, but he never forgot that the employer had his duties as well as
his rights. First of all, he attended to the proper home accommodation
of his work-people. He erected a village of comfortable cottages,
each provided with a snug little garden. He was also instrumental in
erecting a church adjacent to the works, as well as Church schools
for the education of the colliers' children; and with that broad
catholicity of sentiment which distinguished him, he farther provided a
chapel and a school-house for the use of the Dissenting portion of the
colliers and their families--an example of benevolent liberality which
was not without a salutary influence upon the neighboring employers.

[Illustration: STEPHENSON'S HOUSE AT ALTON GRANGE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Letter of Mr. John Herapath in "Mechanics' Magazine," vol. xv., p.
123.

[76] Tubbing is now adopted in many cases as a substitute for
brick-walling. The tubbing consists of short portions of cast-iron
cylinder fixed in segments. Each weighs about 4-1/2 cwt., is about
three or four feet long, and about three eighths of an inch thick.
These pieces are fitted closely together, length under length, and form
an impermeable wall along the sides of the pit.



[Illustration: (Robert Stephenson.)

_Engraved by W. Hall, after a photograph by Claudet._

NEW YORK, HARPER & BROTHERS.]

CHAPTER XIV.

ROBERT STEPHENSON CONSTRUCTS THE LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY.


Of the numerous extensive projects which followed close upon the
completion of the Liverpool and Manchester line and the locomotive
triumph at Rainhill, that of a railway between London and Birmingham
was the most important. The scheme originated at the latter place
in 1830. Two committees were formed, and two plans were proposed.
One was of a line to London by way of Oxford, and the other by way
of Coventry. The object of the promoters of both schemes being to
secure the advantages of railway communication with the metropolis,
they wisely determined to combine their strength to secure it. They
resolved to call George Stephenson to their aid, and requested him
to advise them as to the two schemes which were before them. After a
careful examination of the country, Stephenson reported in favor of
the Coventry route. The Lancashire gentlemen, who were the principal
subscribers to the project, having confidence in his judgment,
supported his decision, and the line recommended by him was adopted
accordingly.

At the meeting of gentlemen held at Birmingham to determine upon the
appointment of the engineer for the railway, there was a strong party
in favor of associating with Stephenson a gentleman with whom he had
been brought into serious collision in the course of the Liverpool
and Manchester undertaking. When the offer was made to him that
he should be joint engineer with the other, he requested leave to
retire and consider the proposal with his son. The two walked into
St. Philip's church-yard, which adjoined the place of meeting, and
debated the proposal. The father was in favor of accepting it. His
struggle heretofore had been so hard that he could not bear the idea
of missing so promising an opportunity of professional advancement.
But the son, foreseeing the jealousies and heartburnings which the
joint engineership would most probably create, recommended his
father to decline the connection. George adopted the suggestion, and,
returning to the committee, announced to them his decision, on which
the promoters decided to appoint him the engineer of the undertaking in
conjunction with his son.

This line, like the Liverpool and Manchester, was very strongly
opposed, especially by the land-owners. Numerous pamphlets were
published, calling on the public to "beware of the bubbles," and
holding up the promoters of railways to ridicule. They were compared
to St. John Long and similar quacks, and pronounced fitter for Bedlam
than to be left at large. The canal proprietors, land-owners, and
road trustees made common cause against them. The failure of railways
was confidently predicted--indeed, it was elaborately attempted to be
proved that they had failed; and it was industriously spread abroad
that the locomotive engines, having been found useless and highly
dangerous on the Liverpool and Manchester line, were immediately to
be abandoned in favor of horses--a rumor which the directors of the
company thought it necessary publicly to contradict.

Public meetings were held in all the counties through which the line
would pass between London and Birmingham, at which the project was
denounced, and strong resolutions against it were passed. The attempt
was made to conciliate the landlords by explanations, but all such
efforts proved futile, the owners of nearly seven eighths of the land
being returned as dissentients. "I remember," said Robert Stephenson,
describing the opposition, "that we called one day on Sir Astley
Cooper, the eminent surgeon, in the hope of overcoming his aversion
to the railway. He was one of our most inveterate and influential
opponents. His country house at Berkhampstead was situated near the
intended line, which passed through part of his property. We found
a courtly, fine-looking old gentleman, of very stately manners, who
received us kindly, and heard all we had to say in favor of the
project. But he was quite inflexible in his opposition to it. No
deviation or improvement that we could suggest had any effect in
conciliating him. He was opposed to railways generally, and to this in
particular. 'Your scheme,' said he, 'is preposterous in the extreme. It
is of so extravagant a character as to be positively absurd. Then look
at the recklessness of your proceedings! You are proposing to cut up
our estates in all directions for the purpose of making an unnecessary
road. Do you think for one moment of the destruction of property
involved by it? Why, gentlemen, if this sort of thing be permitted to
go on, you will in a very few years _destroy the noblesse_!' We left
the honorable baronet without having produced the slightest effect upon
him, excepting perhaps, it might be, increased exasperation against
our scheme. I could not help observing to my companions as we left the
house, 'Well, it is really provoking to find one who has been made a
"Sir" for cutting that wen out of George the Fourth's neck, charging us
with contemplating the destruction of the _noblesse_ because we propose
to confer upon him the benefits of a railroad.'"

Such being the opposition of the owners of land, it was with the
greatest difficulty that an accurate survey of the line could be made.
At one point the vigilance of the land-owners and their servants was
such that the surveyors were effectually prevented taking the levels
by the light of day, and it was only at length accomplished at night
by means of dark lanterns. There was one clergyman, who made such
alarming demonstrations of his opposition, that the extraordinary
expedient was resorted to of surveying his property during the time he
was engaged in the pulpit. This was managed by having a strong force of
surveyors in readiness to commence their operations, who entered the
clergyman's grounds on one side the moment they saw him fairly off them
on the other. By a well-organized and systematic arrangement, each man
concluded his allotted task just as the reverend gentleman concluded
his sermon; so that, before he left the church, the deed was done, and
the sinners had all decamped. Similar opposition was offered at many
other points, but ineffectually. The laborious application of Robert
Stephenson was such that, in examining the country to ascertain the
best line, he walked the whole distance between London and Birmingham
upward of twenty times.

When the bill went before the committee of the Commons in 1832, a
formidable array of evidence was produced. All the railway experience
of the day was brought to bear in support of the measure, and all
that interested opposition could do was set in motion against it. The
necessity for an improved mode of communication between London and
Birmingham was clearly demonstrated, and the engineering evidence was
regarded as quite satisfactory. Not a single fact was proved against
the utility of the measure, and the bill passed the committee, and
afterward the third reading in the Commons, by large majorities.

It was then sent to the Lords, and went into committee, when a similar
mass of testimony was again gone through. But scarcely had the
proceedings been opened when it became clear that the fate of the bill
had been determined before a word of the evidence had been heard. At
that time the committees were open to all peers; and the promoters of
the measure found, to their dismay, many of the lords who were avowed
opponents of the measure as land-owners, sitting as judges to decide
its fate. Their principal object seemed to be to bring the proceedings
to a termination as quickly as possible. An attempt at negotiation was
made in the course of the proceedings in committee, but failed, and
the bill was thrown out on the motion of Earl Brownlow, one of Lady
Bridgewater's trustees; but, though carried by a large majority, the
vote was far from unanimous.

As the result had been foreseen, measures were taken to neutralize the
effect of this decision as regarded future operations. Not less than
£32,000 had been expended in preliminary and Parliamentary expenses
up to this stage; but the promoters determined not to look back, and
forthwith made arrangements for prosecuting the bill in a future
session. A meeting of the friends of the measure was held in London,
attended by members of both houses of Parliament and by leading bankers
and merchants, when a series of resolutions was passed, declaring
their conviction of the necessity for the railway, and deprecating the
opposition by which it had been encountered. Lord Wharncliffe, who had
acted as the chairman of the Lords' Committee, attributed the failure
of the bill entirely to the land-owners; and Mr. Glyn subsequently
declared that they had tried to smother it by the high price which
they demanded for their property. It was determined to reintroduce
the bill in the following session (1833), and measures were taken to
prosecute it vigorously. Strange to say, the bill on this occasion
passed both houses silently and almost without opposition. The mystery
was afterward solved by the appearance of a circular issued by the
directors of the company, in which it was stated that they had opened
negotiations with the most influential of their opponents; that
"these measures had been successful to a greater extent than they had
ventured to anticipate; and the most active and formidable had been
conciliated." An instructive commentary on the mode by which these
noble lords and influential landed proprietors had been "conciliated"
was found in the simple fact that the estimate for land was nearly
trebled, and that the owners were paid about £750,000 for what had been
originally estimated at £250,000. The total expenses of carrying the
bill through Parliament amounted to the enormous sum of £72,868.

The land-owners having been thus "conciliated," the promoters of the
measure were at length permitted to proceed with the formation of their
great highway. Robert Stephenson was, with his father's sanction,
appointed engineer-in-chief of the line, at a salary of £1500 a
year. He was now a married man, having become united to Miss Frances
Sanderson in 1829, since which his home had been at Newcastle, near to
the works there; but, on receiving his new appointment, he removed with
his wife to London, to a house on Haverstock Hill, where he resided
during the execution of the Birmingham Railway.

Steps were at once taken to proceed with the working survey, to
prepare the working drawings, and arrange for the prosecution of the
undertaking. Eighty miles of the line were shortly under construction;
the works were let (within the estimates) to contractors, who were
necessarily, for the most part, new to such work. The business of
railway construction was not then well understood. There were no
leviathans among contractors as now, able to undertake the formation
of a line of railway hundreds of miles in length; they were, for the
most part, men of small capital and slender experience. Their tools and
machinery were imperfect; they did not understand the economy of time
and piece labor; the workmen, as well as their masters, had still to
learn their trade; and every movement of an engineer was attended with
outlays, which were the inevitable result of a new system of things,
but which each succeeding day's experience tended to diminish.

[Illustration: (Map of London and Birmingham Railway)]

The difficulties encountered in the construction of this railway were
thus very great, the most formidable of them originating in the
character of the works themselves. Extensive tunnels had to be driven
through unknown strata, and miles of underground excavation had to be
carried out in order to form a level road from valley to valley under
the intervening ridges. This kind of work was the newest of all to
the contractors of that day. Robert Stephenson's experience in the
collieries of the North rendered him well fitted to grapple with such
difficulties; yet even he, with all his practical knowledge, could
scarcely have foreseen the serious obstacles which he was called
upon to encounter in executing the formidable cuttings, embankments,
and tunnels of the London and Birmingham Railway. It would be an
uninteresting, as it would be a fruitless task, to attempt to describe
these works in detail; but a general outline of their extraordinary
character and extent may not be out of place.

The length of railway to be constructed between London and Birmingham
was 112-1/2 miles. The line crossed a series of low-lying districts,
separated from each other by considerable ridges of hills, and it
was the object of the engineer to cross the valleys at as high an
elevation, and the hills at as low a one as possible. The high ground
was therefore cut down, and the "stuff" led into embankments, in some
places of great height and extent, so as to form a road upon as level a
plane as was considered practicable for the working of the locomotive
engine. In some places the high grounds were passed in open cuttings,
while in others it was necessary to bore through them in tunnels with
deep cuttings at either end.

The most formidable excavations on the line are those at Tring, Denbigh
Hall, and Blisworth. The Tring cutting is an immense chasm across
the great chalk ridge of Ivinghoe. It is two miles and a half long,
and for a quarter of a mile is fifty-seven feet deep. A million and a
half cubic yards of chalk and earth were taken out of this cutting by
means of horse-runs, and deposited in spoil-banks, besides the immense
quantity run into the embankment north of the cutting, forming a solid
mound nearly six miles long and about thirty feet high. Passing over
the Denbigh Hall cutting, and the Wolverton embankment of a mile and a
half in length across the valley of the Ouse, we come to the excavation
at Blisworth, a brief description of which will give the reader an idea
of one of the most formidable kinds of railway work.

[Illustration: BLISWORTH CUTTING. [By Percival Skelton.]]

The Blisworth Cutting is a mile and a half long, in some places
sixty-five feet deep, passing through earth, stiff clay, and hard
rock. Not less than a million cubic yards of these materials were dug,
quarried, and blasted out of it. One third of the cutting was stone,
and beneath the stone lay a thick bed of clay, under which were found
beds of loose shale so full of water that almost constant pumping was
necessary at many points to enable the works to proceed. For a year
and a half the contractor went on fruitlessly contending with these
difficulties, and at length he was compelled to abandon the adventure.
The engineer then took the works in hand for the company, and they
were vigorously proceeded with. Steam-engines were set to work to pump
out the water; two locomotives were put on, one at either end of the
cutting, to drag away the excavated rock and clay; and eight hundred
men and boys were employed along the work, in digging, wheeling, and
blasting, besides a large number of horses. Some idea of the extent of
the blasting operations may be formed from the fact that twenty-five
barrels of gunpowder were exploded weekly, the total quantity used
in forming this one excavation being about three thousand barrels.
Considerable difficulty was experienced in supporting the bed of rock
cut through, which overlaid the clay and shale along either side of
the cutting. It was found necessary to hold it up by strong retaining
walls, to prevent the clay bed from bulging out, and these walls were
farther supported by a strong invert--that is, an arch placed in an
inverted position under the road--thus binding together the walls on
both sides. Behind the retaining walls, a drift or horizontal drain was
run to enable the water to escape, and occasional openings were left
in the walls themselves for the same purpose. The work was at length
brought to a successful completion, but the extraordinary difficulties
encountered in executing the undertaking had the effect of greatly
increasing the cost of this portion of the railway.

The Tunnels on the line are eight in number, their total length being
7336 yards. The first high ground encountered was Primrose Hill, where
the stiff London clay was passed through for a distance of about 1164
yards. The clay was close, compact, and dry, more difficult to work
than stone itself. It was entirely free from water; but the absorbing
properties of the clay were such that when exposed to the air it
swelled out rapidly. Hence an unusual thickness of brick lining was
found necessary; and the engineer afterward informed the author that
for some time he entertained an apprehension lest the pressure should
force in the brick-work altogether, as afterward happened in the case
of the short Preston Brook tunnel upon the Grand Junction Railway,
constructed by his father. The pressure behind the brick-work was
so great that it made the face of the bricks to fly off in minute
chips, which covered his clothes while he was inspecting the work. The
materials used in the building were, however, of excellent quality, and
the work was happily brought to a completion without accident.

At Watford the chalk ridge was penetrated by a tunnel about 1800 yards
long, and at Northchurch, Lindslade, and Stowe Hill there were other
tunnels of minor extent. But the chief difficulty of the undertaking
was the execution of that under the Kilsby ridge. Though not the
largest, this is in many respects one of the most interesting works of
the kind. It is about two thousand four hundred yards long, and runs at
an average depth of about a hundred and sixty feet below the surface.
The ridge under which it extends is of considerable extent, the famous
battle of Naseby having been fought upon one of the spurs of the same
high ground, about seven miles to the eastward.

[Illustration: LINE OF THE SHAFTS OVER KILSBY TUNNEL. [By Percival
Skelton.]]

Previous to the letting of the contract, the character of the
underground soil was fairly tested by trial shafts, which indicated
that it consisted of shale of the lower oolite, and the works were
let accordingly. But they had scarcely been commenced when it was
discovered that, at an interval between the two trial-shafts, which had
been sunk about two hundred yards from the south end of the tunnel,
there existed an extensive quicksand under a bed of clay forty feet
thick, which the borings had escaped in the most singular manner. At
the bottom of one of these shafts, the excavation and building of the
tunnel were proceeding, when the roof at one part suddenly gave way,
a deluge of water burst in, and the party of workmen with the utmost
difficulty escaped with their lives. They were only saved by means of
a raft, on which they were towed by one of the engineers swimming with
the rope in his mouth to the lower end of the shaft, out of which they
were safely lifted to the daylight.

The works were of course at that point immediately stopped. The
contractor who had undertaken the construction of the tunnel was
so overwhelmed by the calamity that, though he was relieved by the
company from his engagement, he took to his bed and shortly after died.
Pumping-engines were erected for the purpose of draining off the water,
but for a long time it prevailed, and sometimes even rose in the shaft.
The question arose whether, in the face of so formidable a difficulty,
the works should be proceeded with or abandoned. Robert Stephenson sent
over to Alton Grange for his father, and the two took serious counsel
together. George was in favor of pumping out the water from the top by
powerful engines erected over each shaft, until the water was fairly
mastered. Robert concurred in that view, and, although other engineers
who were consulted pronounced strongly against the practicability of
the scheme and advised the abandonment of the enterprise, the directors
authorized him to proceed, and powerful steam-engines were ordered to
be constructed and delivered without loss of time.

In the mean time Robert suggested to his father the expediency of
running a drift along the heading from the south end of the tunnel,
with the view of draining off the water in that way. George said he
thought it would scarcely answer, but that it was worth a trial, at all
events until the pumping-engines were got ready. Robert accordingly
gave orders for the drift to be proceeded with. The excavators were
immediately set to work, and they had nearly reached the quicksand,
when one day, while the engineer, his assistants, and the workmen were
clustered about the open entrance of the drift-way, they heard a sudden
roar as of distant thunder. It was hoped that the water had burst
in--for all the workmen were out of the drift--and that the sand-bed
would now drain itself off in a natural way. Instead of which, very
little water made its appearance, and on examining the inner end of the
drift, it was found that the loud noise had been caused by the sudden
discharge into it of an immense mass of sand, which had completely
choked up the passage, and thus prevented the water from draining off.

The engineer now found that nothing remained but to sink numerous
additional shafts over the line of the tunnel at the points at which
it crossed the quicksand, and endeavor to master the water by sheer
force of engines and pumps. The engines, which were shortly erected,
possessed an aggregate power of 160 horses; and they went on pumping
for eight months, emptying out an almost incredible quantity of water.
It was found that the water, with which the bed of sand extending
over many miles was charged, was in a great degree held back by the
particles of the sand itself, and that it could only percolate through
at a certain average rate. It appeared in its flow to take a slanting
direction to the suction of the pumps, the angle of inclination
depending upon the coarseness or fineness of the sand, and regulating
the time of the flow. Hence the distribution of the pumping power
at short intervals along the line of the tunnel had a much greater
effect than the concentration of that power at any one place. It soon
appeared that the water had found its master. Protected by the pumps,
which cleared a space for engineering operations--carried on, as it
were, amid two almost perpendicular walls of water and sand on either
side--the workmen proceeded with the building of the tunnel at numerous
points. Every exertion was used to wall in the dangerous parts as
quickly as possible, the excavators and bricklayers laboring night
and day until the work was finished. Even while under the protection
of the immense pumping power above described, it often happened that
the bricks were scarcely covered with cement ready for the setting ere
they were washed quite clean by the streams of water which poured from
overhead. The men were accordingly under the necessity of holding over
their work large whisks of straw and other appliances to protect the
bricks and cement at the moment of setting.

The quantity of water pumped out of the sand-bed during eight months of
this incessant pumping averaged two thousand gallons per minute, raised
from an average depth of 120 feet. It is difficult to form an adequate
idea of the bulk of water thus raised, but it may be stated that if
allowed to flow for three hours only, it would fill a lake one acre
square to the depth of one foot, and if allowed to flow for an entire
day it would fill the lake to over eight feet in depth, or sufficient
to float a vessel of a hundred tons' burden. The water pumped out of
the tunnel while the work was in progress would be nearly equivalent to
the contents of the Thames at high water between London and Woolwich.
It is a curious circumstance, that notwithstanding the quantity of
water thus removed, the level of the surface in the tunnel was only
lowered about two and a half to three inches per week, showing the vast
area of the quicksand, which probably extended along the entire ridge
of land under which the railway passed.

The cost of the line was greatly increased by the difficulties thus
encountered at Kilsby. The original estimate for the tunnel was only
£99,000; but by the time it was finished it had cost about £100 per
lineal yard forward, or a total of nearly £300,000. The expenditure
on the other parts of the line also greatly exceeded the amount first
set down by the engineer, and, before the railway was complete, it
had been more than doubled. The land cost three times more than the
estimate, and the claims for compensation were enormous. Although the
contracts were let within the estimates, very few of the contractors
were able to finish them without the assistance of the company, and
many became bankrupt. Speaking of the difficulties encountered during
the construction of the line, Robert Stephenson subsequently observed
to us: "After the works were let, wages rose, the prices of materials
of all kinds rose, and the contractors, many of whom were men of
comparatively small capital, were thrown on their beam-ends. Their
calculations as to expenses and profits were completely upset. Let
me just go over the list. There was Jackson, who took the Primrose
Hill contract--he failed. Then there was the next length--Nowells;
then Copeland and Harding; north of them Townsend, who had the Tring
cutting; next Norris, who had Stoke Hammond; then Soars; then Hughes: I
think all of these broke down, or at least were helped through by the
directors. Then there was that terrible contract of the Kilsby Tunnel,
which broke the Nowells, and killed one of them. The contractors to the
north of Kilsby were more fortunate, though some of them pulled through
only with the greatest difficulty. Of the eighteen contracts in which
the line was originally let, only seven were completed by the original
contractors. Eleven firms were ruined by their contracts, which were
relet to others at advanced prices, or were carried on and finished by
the company. The principal cause of increase in the expense, however,
was the enlargement of the stations. It appeared that we had greatly
under-estimated the traffic, and it accordingly became necessary to
spend more and more money for its accommodation, until I think I am
within the mark when I say that the expenditure on this account alone
exceeded by eight or ten fold the amount of the Parliamentary estimate."

The magnitude of the works, which were unprecedented in England, was
one of the most remarkable features in the undertaking. The following
striking comparison has been made between this railway and one of
the greatest works of ancient times. The great Pyramid of Egypt
was, according to Diodorus Siculus, constructed by three hundred
thousand--according to Herodotus, by one hundred thousand--men. It
required for its execution twenty years, and the labor expended upon
it has been estimated as equivalent to lifting 15,733,000,000 of
cubic feet of stone one foot high; whereas, if the labor expended
in constructing the London and Birmingham Railway be in like manner
reduced to one common denomination, the result is 25,000,000,000 of
cubic feet _more_ than was lifted for the Great Pyramid; and yet the
English work was performed by about 20,000 men in less than five
years. And while the Egyptian work was executed by a powerful monarch
concentrating upon it the labor and capital of a great nation, the
English railway was constructed, in the face of every conceivable
obstruction and difficulty, by a company of private individuals out of
their own resources, without the aid of government or the contribution
of one farthing of public money.

The laborers who executed these formidable works were in many respects
a remarkable class. The "railway navvies,"[77] as they were called,
were men drawn by the attraction of good wages from all parts of the
kingdom; and they were ready for any sort of hard work. Many of the
laborers employed on the Liverpool line were Irish; others were from
the Northumberland and Durham railways, where they had been accustomed
to similar work; and some of the best came from the fen districts of
Lincoln and Cambridge, where they had been trained to execute works of
excavation and embankment. These old practitioners formed a nucleus of
skilled manipulation and aptitude which rendered them of indispensable
utility in the immense undertakings of the period. Their expertness in
all sorts of earth-work, in embanking, boring, and well-sinking--their
practical knowledge of the nature of soils and rocks, the tenacity of
clays, and the porosity of certain stratifications--were very great;
and, rough-looking as they were, many of them were as important in
their own department as the contractor or the engineer.

During the railway-making period the navvy wandered about from one
public work to another, apparently belonging to no country and having
no home. He usually wore a white felt hat with the brim turned up, a
velveteen or jean square-tailed coat, a scarlet plush waistcoat with
little black spots, and a bright-colored kerchief round his Herculean
neck, when, as often happened, it was not left entirely bare. His
corduroy breeches were retained in position by a leathern strap round
the waist, and were tied and buttoned at the knee, displaying beneath
a solid calf and foot incased in strong high-laced boots. Joining
together in a "butty gang," some ten or twelve of these men would take
a contract to cut out and remove so much "dirt"--as they denominated
earth-cutting--fixing their price according to the character of the
"stuff," and the distance to which it had to be wheeled and tipped. The
contract taken, every man put himself to his mettle; if any was found
skulking, or not putting forth his full working power, he was ejected
from the gang. Their powers of endurance were extraordinary. In times
of emergency they would work for twelve and even sixteen hours, with
only short intervals for meals. The quantity of flesh-meat which they
consumed was something enormous; but it was to their bones and muscles
what coke is to the locomotive--the means of keeping up the steam. They
displayed great pluck, and seemed to disregard peril. Indeed, the most
dangerous sort of labor--such as working horse-barrow runs, in which
accidents are of constant occurrence--has always been most in request
among them, the danger seeming to be one of its chief recommendations.

[Illustration: KILSBY TUNNEL. [North End.]]

Working together, eating, drinking, and sleeping together, and daily
exposed to the same influences, these railway laborers soon presented
a distinct and well-defined character, strongly marking them from the
population of the districts in which they labored. Reckless alike of
their lives as of their earnings, the navvies worked hard and lived
hard. For their lodging, a hut of turf would content them; and, in
their hours of leisure, the meanest public house would serve for their
parlor. Unburdened, as they usually were, by domestic ties, unsoftened
by family affection, and without much moral or religious training,
the navvies came to be distinguished by a sort of savage manners,
which contrasted strangely with those of the surrounding population.
Yet, ignorant and violent though they might be, they were usually
good-hearted fellows in the main--frank and open-handed with their
comrades, and ready to share their last penny with those in distress.
Their pay-nights were often a saturnalia of riot and disorder, dreaded
by the inhabitants of the villages along the line of works. The
irruption of such men into the quiet hamlet of Kilsby must, indeed,
have produced a very startling effect on the recluse inhabitants of the
place. Robert Stephenson used to tell a story of the clergyman of the
parish waiting upon the foreman of one of the gangs to expostulate with
him as to the shocking impropriety of his men working during Sunday.
But the head navvy merely hitched up his trowsers and said, "Why,
Soondays hain't cropt out here yet!" In short, the navvies were little
better than heathens, and the village of Kilsby was not restored to its
wonted quiet until the tunnel-works were finished, and the engines and
scaffolding removed, leaving only the immense masses of _débris_ around
the line of shafts which extend along the top of the tunnel.

FOOTNOTE:

[77] The word "navvie," or "navigator," is supposed to have originated
in the fact of many of these laborers having been originally employed
in making the navigations, or canals, the construction of which
immediately preceded the railway era.



CHAPTER XV.

MANCHESTER AND LEEDS, AND MIDLAND RAILWAYS--STEPHENSON'S LIFE AT
ALTON--VISIT TO BELGIUM--GENERAL EXTENSION OF RAILWAYS AND THEIR
RESULTS.


The rapidity with which railways were carried out, when the spirit of
the country became roused, was indeed remarkable. This was doubtless
in some measure owing to the increased force of the current of
speculation at the time, but chiefly to the desire which the public
began to entertain for the general extension of the system. It was even
proposed to fill up the canals and convert them into railways. The new
roads became the topic of conversation in all circles; they were felt
to give a new value to time; their vast capabilities for "business"
peculiarly recommended them to the trading classes, while the friends
of "progress" dilated on the great benefits they would eventually
confer upon mankind at large. It began to be seen that Edward Pease
had not been exaggerating when he said, "Let the country but make the
railroads, and the railroads will make the country!" They also came
to be regarded as inviting objects of investment to the thrifty, and
a safe outlet for the accumulations of inert men of capital. Thus new
avenues of iron road were soon in course of formation, branching in all
directions, so that the country promised in a wonderfully short space
of time to become wrapped in one vast network of iron.

In 1836 the Grand Junction Railway was under construction between
Warrington and Birmingham--the northern part by Mr. Stephenson, and
the southern by Mr. Rastrick. The works on that line embraced heavy
cuttings, long embankments, and numerous viaducts; but none of these
are worthy of any special description. Perhaps the finest piece of
masonry on the railway is the Dutton Viaduct across the valley of the
Weaver. It consists of 20 arches of 60 feet span, springing 16 feet
from the perpendicular shaft of each pier, and 60 feet in height from
the crown of the arches to the level of the river. The foundations of
the piers were built on piles driven 20 feet deep. The structure has
a solid and majestic appearance, and is perhaps the finest of George
Stephenson's viaducts.

[Illustration: THE DUTTON VIADUCT.]

The Manchester and Leeds line was in progress at the same time--an
important railway connecting Yorkshire and Lancashire, passing through
a district full of manufacturing towns and villages, the hives of
population, industry, and enterprise. An attempt was made to obtain the
act as early as the year 1831; but its promoters were defeated by the
powerful opposition of the land-owners, aided by the canal companies,
and the project was not revived for several years. The act authorizing
the construction of the line was obtained in 1836; it was amended in
the following year, and the first ground was broken on the 18th of
August, 1837.

An incident occurred while the second Manchester and Leeds Bill was
before the Committee of the Lords which is worthy of passing notice
in this place, as illustrative of George Stephenson's character. The
line which was authorized by Parliament in 1836 had been hastily
surveyed within a period of less than six weeks, but before it received
the royal assent the engineer became convinced that many important
improvements might be made in it, and he communicated his views to
the directors. They determined, however, to obtain the act, although
conscious at the time that they would have to go for a second and
improved line in the following year. The second bill passed the Commons
in 1837 without difficulty, and was expected in like manner to pass
the Lords' Committee. Quite unexpectedly, however, Lord Wharncliffe,
who was interested in the Manchester and Sheffield line, which passed
through his colliery property in the south of Yorkshire, conceiving
that the new Manchester and Leeds line might have some damaging effect
upon it, appeared as an opponent of the bill. Himself a member of the
committee, he adopted the unusual course of rising to his feet, and
making a set speech against the measure while the engineer was under
examination. He alleged that the act obtained in the preceding session
was one that the promoters had no intention of carrying out, that
they had only secured it for the purpose of obtaining possession of
the ground and reducing the number of the opponents to their present
application, and that, in fact, they had been practicing a deception
upon the House. Then, turning full round upon the witness, he said,
"I ask you, sir, do you call that conduct _honest_?" Stephenson, his
voice trembling with emotion, replied, "Yes, my lord, I _do_ call it
honest. And I will ask your lordship, whom I served for many years as
your engine-wright at the Killingworth collieries, did you ever know
me to do any thing that was not strictly honorable? You know what the
collieries were when I went there, and you know what they were when
I left them. Did you ever hear that I was found wanting when honest
services were wanted, or when duty called me? Let your lordship but
fairly consider the circumstances of the case, and I feel persuaded
you will admit that my conduct has been equally honest throughout in
this matter." He then briefly but clearly stated the history of the
application to Parliament for the act, which was so satisfactory to the
committee that they passed the preamble of the bill without farther
objection; and Lord Wharncliffe requested that the committee would
permit his observations to be erased from the record of the evidence,
which, as an acknowledgment of his error, was allowed. Lord Kenyon
and several other members of the committee afterward came up to Mr.
Stephenson, shook him by the hand, and congratulated him on the manly
way in which he had vindicated himself from the aspersions attempted
to be cast upon him.

In conducting this project to an issue, the engineer had the usual
opposition and prejudices to encounter. Predictions were confidently
made in many quarters that the line could never succeed. It was
declared that the utmost engineering skill could not construct a
railway through such a country of hills and hard rocks; and it was
maintained that, even if the railway were practicable, it could only be
made at a cost altogether ruinous.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE SUMMIT TUNNEL, LITTLEBOROUGH. [By
Percival Skelton.]]

During the progress of the works, as the Summit Tunnel near
Littleborough was approaching completion, the rumor was spread abroad
in Manchester that the tunnel had fallen in and buried a number of the
workmen. The last arch had been keyed in, and the work was all but
finished, when a slight accident occurred which was thus exaggerated
by the lying tongue of rumor. An invert had given way through the
irregular pressure of the surrounding earth and rock at a part of the
tunnel where a "fault" had occurred in the strata.

[Illustration: THE LITTLEBOROUGH TUNNEL. [The Walsden End.]]

A party of the directors accompanied the engineer to inspect the scene
of the accident. They entered the tunnel mouth preceded by upward
of fifty navvies, each bearing a torch. After walking a distance of
about half a mile, the inspecting party arrived at the scene of the
"frightful accident," about which so much alarm had been spread abroad.
All that was visible was a certain unevenness of the ground, which had
been forced up by the invert under it giving way; thus the ballast had
been loosened, the drain running along the centre of the road had been
displaced, and small pools of water stood about. But the whole of the
walls and the roof were as perfect as at any other part of the tunnel.
The engineer explained the cause of the accident; the blue shale, he
said, through which the excavation passed at that point, was considered
so hard and firm as to render it unnecessary to build the invert very
strong there. But shale is always a deceptive material. Subjected to
the influence of the atmosphere, it gives but a treacherous support.
In this case, falling away like quicklime, it had left the lip of the
invert alone to support the pressure of the arch above, and hence its
springing inward and upward. Stephenson then directed the attention of
the visitors to the completeness of the arch overhead, where not the
slightest fracture or yielding could be detected. Speaking of the work
in the course of the same day, he said, "I will stake my character, my
head, if that tunnel ever give way, so as to cause danger to any of the
public passing through it. Taking it as a whole, I don't think there is
another such a piece of work in the world. It is the greatest work that
has yet been done of this kind, and there has been less repairing than
is usual--though an engineer might well be beaten in his calculations,
for he can not beforehand see into those little fractured parts of the
earth he may meet with." As Stephenson had promised, the invert was put
in, and the tunnel was made perfectly safe.

[Illustration: (Map of Midland Railway)]

The construction of this subterranean road employed the labor of above
a thousand men for nearly four years. Besides excavating the arch
out of the solid rock, they used 23,000,000 of bricks and 8000 tons
of Roman cement in the building of the tunnel. Thirteen stationary
engines, and about 100 horses, were also employed in drawing the earth
and stone out of the shafts. Its entire length is 2869 yards, or nearly
a mile and three quarters, exceeding the famous Kilsby Tunnel by 471
yards.

The Midland Railway was a favorite line of Mr. Stephenson's for several
reasons. It passed through a rich mining district, in which it opened
up many valuable coal-fields, and it formed part of the great main line
of communication between London and Edinburg. The line was originally
projected by gentlemen interested in the London and Birmingham Railway.
Their intention was to extend that line from Rugby to Leeds; but,
finding themselves anticipated in part by the projection of the Midland
Counties Railway from Rugby to Derby, they confined themselves to the
district between Derby and Leeds, and in 1835 a company was formed
to construct the North Midland line, with George Stephenson for its
engineer. The act was obtained in 1836, and the first ground was broken
in February, 1837.

Although the Midland Railway was only one of the many great works
of the same kind executed at that time, it was almost enough of
itself to be the achievement of a life. Compare it, for example, with
Napoleon's military road over the Simplon, and it will at once be seen
how greatly it excels that work, not only in the constructive skill
displayed in it, but also in its cost and magnitude, and the amount of
labor employed in its formation. The road of the Simplon is 45 miles
in length; the North Midland Railway 72-1/2 miles. The former has 50
bridges and 5 tunnels, measuring together 1338 feet in length; the
latter has 200 bridges and 7 tunnels, measuring together 11,400 feet,
or about 2-1/4 miles. The former cost about £720,000 sterling, the
latter above £3,000,000. Napoleon's grand military road was constructed
in six years, at the public cost of the two great kingdoms of France
and Italy, while Stephenson's railway was formed in about three years
by a company of private merchants and capitalists out of their own
funds and under their own superintendence.

It is scarcely necessary that we should give any account in detail of
the North Midland works. The making of one tunnel so much resembles
the making of another--the building of bridges and viaducts, no matter
how extensive, so much resembles the building of others--the cutting
out of "dirt," the blasting of rocks, and the wheeling of excavation
into embankments, is so much matter of mere time and hard work, that
it is quite unnecessary to detain the reader by any attempt at their
description. Of course there were the usual difficulties to encounter
and overcome, but the railway engineer regarded these as mere matters
of course, and would probably have been disappointed if they had not
presented themselves.

On the Midland, as on other lines, water was the great enemy to be
fought against--water in the Claycross and other tunnels--water in
the boggy or sandy foundations of bridges--and water in cuttings and
embankments. As an illustration of the difficulties of bridge building,
we may mention the case of the five-arch bridge over the Derwent, where
it took two years' work, night and day, to get in the foundations
of the piers alone. Another curious illustration of the mischief
done by water in cuttings may be briefly mentioned. At a part of the
North Midland line, near Ambergate, it was necessary to pass along a
hill-side in a cutting a few yards deep. As the cutting proceeded, a
seam of shale was cut across, lying at an inclination of 6 to 1; and
shortly after, the water getting behind it, the whole mass of earth
along the hill above began to move down across the line of excavation.
The accident completely upset the estimates of the contractor, who,
instead of fifty thousand cubic yards, found that he had about five
hundred thousand to remove, the execution of this part of the railway
occupying fifteen months instead of two.

[Illustration: LAND-SLIP ON NORTH MIDLAND LINE, NEAR AMBERGATE.]

The Oakenshaw cutting near Wakefield was also of a very formidable
character. About six hundred thousand yards of rock shale and bind were
quarried out of it, and led to form the adjoining Oakenshaw embankment.
The Normanton cutting was almost as heavy, requiring the removal
of four hundred thousand yards of the same kind of excavation into
embankment and spoil. But the progress of the works on the line was so
rapid during 1839 that no less than 450,000 cubic yards of excavation
were accomplished per month.

[Illustration: BULL BRIDGE, NEAR AMBERGATE.]

As a curiosity in construction, we may also mention a very delicate
piece of work executed on the same railway at Bull Bridge in
Derbyshire, where the line at the same point passes _over_ a bridge
which here spans the River Amber, and _under_ the bed of the Cromford
Canal. Water, bridge, railway, and canal were thus piled one above the
other, four stories high. In order to prevent the possibility of the
waters of the canal breaking in upon the railway works, Stephenson had
an iron trough made, 150 feet long, of the width of the canal, and
exactly fitting the bottom. It was brought to the spot in three pieces,
which were firmly welded together, and the trough was then floated into
its place and sunk, the whole operation being completed without in the
least interfering with the navigation of the canal. The railway works
underneath were then proceeded with and finished.

Another line of the same series, constructed by George Stephenson,
was the York and North Midland, extending from Normanton--a point on
the Midland Railway--to York; but it was a line of easy formation,
traversing a comparatively level country. The inhabitants of Whitby,
as well as York, were projecting a railway to connect these towns as
early as 1832, and in the year following Whitby succeeded in obtaining
a horse line of twenty-four miles, connecting it with the small
market-town of Pickering. The York citizens were more ambitious, and
agitated the question of a locomotive line to connect them with the
town of Leeds. Stephenson recommended them to connect their line with
the Midland at Normanton, and they adopted his advice. The company was
formed, the shares were at once subscribed for, the act was obtained in
the following year, and the works were constructed without difficulty.

As the best proof of his conviction that the York and North Midland
would prove a good investment, Stephenson invested in it a considerable
portion of his savings, being a subscriber for 420 shares. The interest
taken in this line by the engineer was on more than one occasion
specially mentioned by Mr. Hudson, then Lord-mayor of York, as an
inducement to other persons of capital to join the undertaking; and had
it not been afterward encumbered and overlaid by comparatively useless
and profitless branches, in the projection of which Stephenson had no
part, the sanguine expectations which he early formed of the paying
qualities of that railway would have been more than realized.

There was one branch, however, of the York and North Midland Line in
which he took an anxious interest, and of which he may be said to have
been the projector--the branch to Scarborough, which proved one of
the most profitable parts of the railway. He was so satisfied of its
value, that, at a meeting of the York and North Midland proprietors,
he volunteered his gratuitous services as engineer until the company
was formed, in addition to subscribing largely to the undertaking.
At that meeting he took an opportunity of referring to the charges
brought against engineers of so greatly exceeding the estimates: "He
had had a good deal to do with making out the estimate of the North
Midland Railway, and he believed there never was a more honest one. He
had always endeavored to state the truth as far as was in his power.
He had known a contractor who, when he (Mr. Stephenson) had sent in
an estimate, came forward and said, 'I can do it for half the money.'
The contractor's estimate went into Parliament, but it came out his.
He could go through the whole list of the undertakings in which he
had been engaged, and show that he had never had any thing to do with
stock-jobbing concerns. He would say that he would not be concerned in
any scheme unless he was satisfied that it would pay the proprietors;
and in bringing forward the proposed line to Scarborough, he was
satisfied that it would pay, or he would have had nothing to do with
it."

During the time that our engineer was engaged in superintending the
execution of these undertakings, he was occupied upon other projected
railways in various parts of the country. He surveyed several lines in
the neighborhood of Glasgow, and afterward alternate routes along the
east coast from Newcastle to Edinburg, with the view of completing the
main line of communication with London. When out on foot in the field
on these occasions, he was ever foremost in the march, and he delighted
to test the prowess of his companions by a good jump at any hedge or
ditch that lay in their way. His companions used to remark his singular
quickness of observation. Nothing escaped his attention--the trees, the
crops, the birds, or the farmer's stock; and he was usually full of
lively conversation, every thing in nature affording him an opportunity
for making some striking remark or propounding some ingenious theory.
When taking a flying survey of a new line, his keen observation
proved very useful, for he rapidly noted the general configuration
of the country, and inferred its geological structure. He afterward
remarked to a friend, "I have planned many a railway traveling along
in a post-chaise, and following the natural line of the country." And
it was remarkable that his first impressions of the direction to be
taken almost invariably proved correct; and there are few of the lines
surveyed and recommended by him which have not been executed, either
during his lifetime or since. As an illustration of his quick and
shrewd observation on such occasions, we may mention that when employed
to lay out a line to connect Manchester, through Macclesfield, with
the Potteries, the gentleman who accompanied him on the journey of
inspection cautioned him to provide large accommodation for carrying
off the water, observing, "You must not judge by the appearance of the
brooks; for after heavy rains these hills pour down volumes of water,
of which you can have no conception." "Pooh! pooh! _don't I see your
bridges_?" replied the engineer. He had noted the details of each as he
passed along.

Among the other projects which occupied his attention about the same
time were the projected lines between Chester and Holyhead, between
Leeds and Bradford, and between Lancaster and Maryport by the west
coast. This latter was intended to form part of a western line to
Scotland; Stephenson favoring it partly because of the flatness of
the gradients, and because it could be formed at comparatively small
cost, while it would open out a valuable iron-mining district, from
which a large traffic in ironstone was expected. One of its collateral
advantages, in the engineer's opinion, was that, by forming the railway
directly across Morecambe Bay, on the northwest coast of Lancashire, a
large tract of valuable land might be reclaimed from the sea, the sale
of which would considerably reduce the cost of the works. He estimated
that, by means of a solid embankment across the bay, not less than
40,000 acres of rich alluvial land would be gained. He proposed to
carry the road across the ten miles of sands which lie between Poulton,
near Lancaster, and Humphrey Head on the opposite coast, forming the
line in a segment of a circle of five miles' radius. His plan was to
drive in piles across the entire length, forming a solid fence of stone
blocks on the land side for the purpose of retaining the sand and silt
brought down by the rivers from the interior. The embankment would then
be raised from time to time as the deposit accumulated, until the land
was filled up to high-water mark; provision being made, by means of
sufficient arches, for the flow of the river waters into the bay. The
execution of the railway after this plan would, however, have occupied
more years than the promoters of the West Coast line were disposed
to wait, and eventually Mr. Locke's more direct but less level line
by Shap Fell was adopted. A railway has, however, since been carried
across the head of the bay, in a modified form, by the Ulverstone and
Lancaster Railway Company; and it is not improbable that Stephenson's
larger scheme of reclaiming the vast tract of land now left bare at
every receding tide may yet be carried out.

While occupied in carrying out the great railway undertakings which we
have above so briefly described, George Stephenson's home continued,
for the greater part of the time, to be at Alton Grange, near
Leicester. But he was so much occupied in traveling about from one
committee of directors to another--one week in England, another in
Scotland, and probably the next in Ireland, that he often did not see
his home for weeks together. He had also to make frequent inspections
of the various important and difficult works in progress, especially
on the Midland and Manchester and Leeds lines, besides occasionally
going to Newcastle to see how the locomotive works were going on
there. During the three years ending 1837--perhaps the busiest years
of his life[78]--he traveled by post-chaise alone upward of 20,000
miles, and yet not less than six months out of the three years were
spent in London. Hence there is comparatively little to record of Mr.
Stephenson's private life at this period, during which he had scarcely
a moment that he could call his own.

To give an idea of the number of projects which at this time occupied
our engineer's attention, and of the extent and rapidity of his
journeys, we subjoin from his private secretary's journal the following
epitome of one of them, on which he entered immediately after the
conclusion of the heavy Parliamentary session of 1836.

  "August 9th. From Alton Grange to Derby and Matlock, and forward
  by mail to Manchester, to meet the committee of the South Union
  Railway. August 10th. Manchester to Stockport, to meet committee
  of the Manchester and Leeds Railway; thence to meet directors of
  the Chester and Birkenhead, and Chester and Crewe Railways. August
  11th. Liverpool to Woodside, to meet committee of the Chester and
  Birkenhead line; journey with them along the proposed railway
  to Chester; then back to Liverpool. August 12th. Liverpool to
  Manchester, to meet directors of the Manchester and Leeds Railway,
  and traveling with them over the works in progress. August 13th.
  Continued journey over the works, and arrival at Wakefield;
  thence to York. August 14th. Meeting with Mr. Hudson at York,
  and journey from York to Newcastle. August 15th. At Newcastle,
  working up arrears of correspondence. August 16th. Meeting with
  Mr. Brandling as to the station for the Brandling Junction at
  Gateshead, and stations at other parts of the line. August 17th.
  Carlisle to Wigton and Maryport, examining the railway. August
  19th. Maryport to Carlisle, continuing the inspection. August
  20th. At Carlisle, examining the ground for a station; and working
  up correspondence. August 21st. Carlisle to Dumfries by mail;
  forward to Ayr by chaise, proceeding up the valley of the Nith,
  through Thornhill, Sanquhar, and Cumnock. August 22d. Meeting with
  promoters of the Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr Railway, and journey
  along the proposed line; meeting with the magistrates of Kilmarnock
  at Beith, and journey with them over Mr. Gale's proposed line to
  Kilmarnock. August 23d. From Kilmarnock along Mr. Miller's proposed
  line to Beith, Paisley, and Glasgow. August 24th. Examination of
  site of proposed station at Glasgow; meeting with the directors;
  then from Glasgow, by Falkirk and Linlithgow, to Edinburg, meeting
  there with Mr. Grainger, engineer, and several of the committee of
  the proposed Edinburg and Dunbar Railway. August 25th. Examining
  the site of the proposed station at Edinburg; then to Dunbar, by
  Portobello and Haddington, examining the proposed line of railway.
  August 26th. Dunbar to Tommy Grant's, to examine the summit of the
  country toward Berwick, with a view to a through line to Newcastle;
  then return to Edinburg. August 27th. At Edinburg, meeting the
  provisional committee of the proposed Edinburg and Dunbar Railway.
  August 28th. Journey from Edinburg, through Melrose and Jedburg,
  to Horsley, along the route of Mr. Richardson's proposed railway
  across Carter Fell. August 29th. From Horsley to Mr. Brandling's,
  then on to Newcastle; engaged on the Brandling Junction Railway.
  August 30th. Engaged with Mr. Brandling; after which, meeting a
  deputation from Maryport. August 31st. Meeting with Mr. Brandling
  and others as to the direction of the Brandling Junction in
  connection with the Great North of England line, and the course
  of the railway through Newcastle; then on to York. September 1st.
  At York; meeting with York and North Midland directors; then
  journeying over Lord Howden's property, to arrange for a deviation;
  examining the proposed site of the station at York. September 2d.
  At York, giving instructions as to the survey; then to Manchester
  by Leeds. September 3d. At Manchester; journey to Stockport, with
  Mr. Bidder and Mr. Bourne, examining the line to Stockport, and
  fixing the crossing of the river there; attending to the surveys;
  then journey back to Manchester, to meet the directors of the
  Manchester and Leeds Railway. September 4th. Sunday at Manchester.
  September 5th. Journey along part of the Manchester and Leeds
  Railway. September 6th. At Manchester, examining and laying down
  the section of the South Union line to Stockport; afterward engaged
  on the Manchester and Leeds working plans, in endeavoring to
  give a greater radius to the curves; seeing Mr. Seddon about the
  Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds Junction Railway. September 7th.
  Journey along the Manchester and Leeds line, then on to Derby.
  September 8th. At Derby; seeing Mr. Carter and Mr. Beale about the
  Tamworth deviation; then home to Alton Grange. September 10th. At
  Alton Grange, preparing report to the committee of the Edinburg and
  Dunbar Railway."

Such is a specimen of the enormous amount of physical and mental labor
undergone by the engineer during the busy years above referred to. He
was no sooner home than he was called away again by some other railway
or business engagement. Thus, in four days after his arrival at Alton
Grange from the above journey into Scotland, we find him going over
the whole of the North Midland line as far as Leeds; then by Halifax
to Manchester, where he staid for several days on the business of the
South Union line; then to Birmingham and London; back to Alton Grange,
and next day to Congleton and Leek; thence to Leeds and Goole, and
home again by the Sheffield and Rotherham and the Midland works. And
early in the following month (October) he was engaged in the north
of Ireland, examining the line, and reporting upon the plans of the
projected Ulster Railway. He was also called upon to inspect and report
upon colliery works, salt works, brass and copper works, and such like,
in addition to his own colliery and railway business. He usually also
staked out himself the lines laid out by him, which involved a good
deal of labor since undertaken by assistants. And occasionally he would
run up to London, attending in person to the preparation and depositing
of the plans and sections of the projected undertakings for which he
was engaged as engineer.

His correspondence increased so much that he found it necessary to
engage a private secretary, who accompanied him on his journeys. He
was himself exceedingly averse to writing letters. The comparatively
advanced age at which he learned the art of writing, and the nature
of his duties while engaged at the Killingworth Colliery, precluded
that facility in correspondence which only constant practice can give.
He gradually, however, acquired great facility in dictation, and had
also the power of laboring continuously at this work, the gentleman
who acted as his secretary in the year 1835 having informed us that
during his busy season he one day dictated no fewer than thirty-seven
letters, several of them embodying the results of much close thinking
and calculation. On another occasion he dictated reports and letters
for twelve continuous hours, until his secretary was ready to drop off
his chair from sheer exhaustion, and at length pleaded for a suspension
of the labor. This great mass of correspondence, though closely bearing
on the subjects under discussion, was not, however, of a kind to supply
the biographer with matter for quotation, or to give that insight into
the life and character of the writer which the letters of literary
men so often furnish. They were, for the most part, letters of mere
business, relating to works in progress, Parliamentary contests, new
surveys, estimates of cost, and railway policy--curt, and to the point;
in short, the letters of a man every moment of whose time was precious.

Fortunately, George Stephenson possessed a facility of sleeping, which
enabled him to pass through this enormous amount of fatigue and labor
without injury to his health. He had been trained in a hard school, and
could bear with ease conditions which, to men more softly nurtured,
would have been the extreme of physical discomfort. Many, many nights
he snatched his sleep while traveling in his chaise; and at break of
day he would be at work, surveying until dark, and this for weeks in
succession. His whole powers seemed to be under the control of his
will, for he could wake at any hour, and go to work at once. It was
difficult for secretaries and assistants to keep up with such a man.

It is pleasant to record that in the midst of these engrossing
occupations his heart remained as soft and loving as ever. In
spring-time he would not be debarred of his boyish amusement of
bird-nesting, but would go rambling along the hedges spying for nests.
In the autumn he went nutting, and when he could snatch a few minutes
he indulged in his old love of gardening. His uniform kindness and
good temper, and his communicative, intelligent disposition, made
him a great favorite with the neighboring farmers, to whom he would
volunteer much valuable advice on agricultural operations, drainage,
plowing, and labor-saving processes. Sometimes he took a long rural
ride on his favorite "Bobby," now growing old, but as fond of his
master as ever. Toward the end of his life "Bobby" lived in clover, his
master's pet, doing no work; and he died at Tapton in 1845, more than
twenty years old.

During one of George's brief sojourns at the Grange he found time to
write to his son a touching account of a pair of robins that had built
their nest within one of the empty upper chambers of the house. One
day he observed a robin fluttering outside the windows, and beating
its wings against the panes, as if eager to gain admission. He went
up stairs, and there found, in a retired part of one of the rooms, a
robin's nest, with one of the parent birds sitting over three or four
young--all dead. The excluded bird outside still beat against the
panes; and on the window being let down, it flew into the room, but was
so exhausted that it dropped upon the floor. Stephenson took up the
bird, carried it down stairs, and had it warmed and fed. The poor robin
revived, and for a time was one of his pets. But it shortly died too,
as if unable to recover from the privations it had endured during its
three days' fluttering and beating at the windows. It appeared that the
room had been unoccupied, and the sash having been let down, the robins
had taken the opportunity of building their nest within it; but the
servant having closed the window again, the calamity befell the birds
which so strongly excited the engineer's sympathies. An incident such
as this, trifling though it may seem, gives a true key to the heart of
a man.

The amount of his Parliamentary business having greatly increased
with the projection of new lines of railway, the Stephensons found it
necessary to set up an office in London in 1836. George's first office
was at No. 9 Duke Street, Westminster, from whence he removed in the
following year to 30-1/2 Great George Street. That office was the
busy scene of railway politics for several years. There consultations
were held, schemes were matured, deputations were received, and many
projectors called upon our engineer for the purpose of submitting to
him their plans of railways and railway working. His private secretary
at the time has informed us that at the end of the first Parliamentary
session in which he had been engaged as engineer for more companies
than one, it became necessary for him to give instructions as to the
preparation of the accounts to be rendered to the several companies.
In the simplicity of his heart, he directed Mr. Binns to take his
full time at the rate of ten guineas a day, and charge the railway
companies in the proportion in which he had actually been employed in
their respective business during each day. When Robert heard of this
instruction, he went directly to his father and expostulated with him
against this unprofessional course; and, other influences being brought
to bear upon him, George at length reluctantly consented to charge as
other engineers did, an entire day's fee to each of the companies for
which he was concerned while their business was going forward; but he
cut down the number of days charged for, and reduced the daily amount
from ten to seven guineas.

Besides his journeys at home, George Stephenson was on more than
one occasion called abroad on railway business. Thus, at the desire
of King Leopold, he made several visits to Belgium to assist the
Belgian engineers in laying out the national lines of the kingdom.
That enlightened monarch at an early period discerned the powerful
instrumentality of railways in developing a country's resources, and
he determined at the earliest possible period to adopt them as the
great high roads of the nation. The country, being rich in coals and
minerals, had great manufacturing capabilities. It had good ports,
fine navigable rivers, abundant canals, and a teeming, industrious
population. Leopold perceived that railways were eminently calculated
to bring the industry of the country into full play, and to render
the riches of the provinces available to the rest of the kingdom. He
therefore openly declared himself the promoter of public railways
throughout Belgium. A system of lines was projected at his instance,
connecting Brussels with the chief towns and cities of the state,
extending from Ostend eastward to the Prussian frontier, and from
Antwerp southward to the French frontier.

Mr. Stephenson and his son, as the leading railway engineers of
England, were consulted by the king, in 1835, as to the best mode of
carrying out his intentions. In the course of that year they visited
Belgium, and had several interesting conferences with Leopold and his
ministers on the subject of the proposed railways. The king then
appointed George Stephenson by royal ordinance a Knight of the Order of
Leopold. At the invitation of the monarch, Mr. Stephenson made a second
visit to Belgium in 1837, on the occasion of the public opening of the
line from Brussels to Ghent. At Brussels there was a public procession,
and another at Ghent on the arrival of the train. Stephenson and his
party accompanied it to the Public Hall, there to dine with the chief
ministers of state, the municipal authorities, and about five hundred
of the principal inhabitants of the city; the English embassador being
also present. After the king's health and a few others had been drunk,
that of Mr. Stephenson was proposed; on which the whole assembly rose
up, amid great excitement and loud applause, and made their way to
where he sat, in order to "jingle glasses" with him, greatly to his own
amazement. On the day following, our engineer dined with the king and
queen at their own table at Laaken, by special invitation, afterward
accompanying his majesty and suite to a public ball, given by the
municipality of Brussels in honor of the opening of the line to Ghent,
as well as of their distinguished English guests. On entering the room,
the general and excited inquiry was, "Which is Stephenson?" The English
engineer had not before imagined that he was esteemed to be so great a
man.

The London and Birmingham Railway having been completed in September,
1838, after being about five years in progress, the great main system
of railway communication between London, Liverpool, and Manchester was
then opened to the public. For some months previously the line had
been partially open, coaches performing the journey between Denbigh
Hall (near Wolverton) and Rugby--the works of the Kilsby tunnel being
still incomplete. It was already amusing to hear the complaints of
the travelers about the slowness of the coaches as compared with the
railway, though the coaches traveled at a speed of eleven miles an
hour. The comparison of comfort was also greatly to the disparagement
of the coaches. Then the railway train could accommodate any quantity,
whereas the road conveyances were limited; and when a press of
travelers occurred--as on the occasion of the queen's coronation--the
greatest inconvenience was experienced, as much as £10 having been
paid for a seat on a donkey-chaise between Rugby and Denbigh. On the
opening of the railway throughout, of course all this inconvenience
and delay was brought to an end.

Numerous other openings of railways constructed by George Stephenson
took place about the same time. The Birmingham and Derby line was
opened for traffic in August, 1839; the Sheffield and Rotherham in
November, 1839; and in the course of the following year, the Midland,
the York and North Midland, the Chester and Crewe, the Chester and
Birkenhead, the Manchester and Birmingham, the Manchester and Leeds,
and the Maryport and Carlisle railways, were all publicly opened in
whole or in part. Thus 321 miles of railway (exclusive of the London
and Birmingham), constructed under Mr. Stephenson's superintendence, at
a cost of upward of eleven millions sterling, were, in the course of
about two years, added to the traffic accommodation of the country.

The ceremonies which accompanied the public opening of these lines
were often of an interesting character. The adjoining population held
general holiday; bands played, banners waved, and assembled thousands
cheered the passing trains amid the occasional booming of cannon.
The proceedings were usually wound up by a public dinner; and in the
course of his speech which followed, Mr. Stephenson would revert to his
favorite topic--the difficulties which he had early encountered in the
promotion of the railway system, and in establishing the superiority
of the locomotive. On such occasions he always took great pleasure in
alluding to the services rendered to himself and the public by the
young men brought up under his eye--his pupils at first, and afterward
his assistants. No great master ever possessed a more devoted band of
assistants and fellow-workers than he did; and it was one of the most
marked evidences of his admirable tact and judgment that he selected,
with such undeviating correctness, the men best fitted to carry out
his plans. Indeed, the ability to accomplish great things, to carry
grand ideas into practical effect, depends in no small measure on that
intuitive knowledge of character which our engineer possessed in so
remarkable a degree.

At the dinner at York, which followed the partial opening of the York
and North Midland Railway, Mr. Stephenson said "he was sure they would
appreciate his feelings when he told them that, when he first began
railway business, his hair was black, although it was now gray; and
that he began his life's labor as but a poor plowboy. About thirty
years since he had applied himself to the study of how to generate
high velocities by mechanical means. He thought he had solved that
problem; and they had for themselves seen, that day, what perseverance
had brought him to. He was, on that occasion, only too happy to have
an opportunity of acknowledging that he had, in the latter portion of
his career, received much most valuable assistance particularly from
young men brought up in his manufactory. Whenever talent showed itself
in a young man, he had always given that talent encouragement where he
could, and he would continue to do so."

That this was no exaggerated statement is amply proved by many
facts which redound to Stephenson's credit. He was no niggard of
encouragement and praise when he saw honest industry struggling for a
footing. Many were the young men whom, in the course of his career,
he took by the hand and led steadily up to honor and emolument,
simply because he had noted their zeal, diligence, and integrity. One
youth excited his interest while working as a common carpenter on the
Liverpool and Manchester line; and before many years had passed he
was recognized as an engineer of distinction. Another young man he
found industriously working away at his by-hours, and, admiring his
diligence, he engaged him as his private secretary, the gentleman
shortly after rising to a position of eminent influence and usefulness.
Indeed, nothing gave the engineer greater pleasure than in this way to
help on any deserving youth who came under his observation, and, in his
own expressive phrase, to "make a man of him."

The openings of the great main lines of railroad communication shortly
proved the fallaciousness of the numerous rash prophecies which had
been promulgated by the opponents of railways. The proprietors of the
canals were astounded by the fact that, notwithstanding the immense
traffic conveyed by rail, their own traffic and receipts continued to
increase; and that, in common with other interests, they fully shared
in the expansion of trade and commerce which had been so effectually
promoted by the extension of the railway system. The cattle-owners
were equally amazed to find the price of horseflesh increasing with
the extension of railways, and that the number of coaches running
to and from the new railway stations gave employment to a greater
number of horses than under the old stage-coach system. Those who
had prophesied the decay of the metropolis, and the ruin of the
suburban cabbage-growers, in consequence of the approach of railways
to London, were disappointed; for, while the new roads let citizens
out of London, they also let country-people in. Their action, in this
respect, was centripetal as well as centrifugal. Tens of thousands
who had never seen the metropolis could now visit it expeditiously
and cheaply; and Londoners who had never visited the country, or but
rarely, were enabled, at little cost of time or money, to see green
fields and clear blue skies far from the smoke and bustle of town. If
the dear suburban-grown cabbages became depreciated in value, there
were truck-loads of fresh-grown country cabbages to make amends for
the loss: in this case, the "partial evil" was a far more general
good. The food of the metropolis became rapidly improved, especially
in the supply of wholesome meat and vegetables. And then the price
of coals--an article which, in this country, is as indispensable as
daily food to all classes--was greatly reduced. What a blessing to the
metropolitan poor is described in this single fact!

The prophecies of ruin and disaster to landlords and farmers were
equally confounded by the openings of the railways. The agricultural
communications, so far from being "destroyed," as had been predicted,
were immensely improved. The farmers were enabled to buy their coals,
lime, and manure for less money, while they obtained a readier access
to the best markets for their stock and farm-produce. Notwithstanding
the predictions to the contrary, their cows gave milk as before, the
sheep fed and fattened, and even skittish horses ceased to shy at the
passing trains. The smoke of the engines did not obscure the sky, nor
were farmyards burnt up by the fire thrown from the locomotives. The
farming classes were not reduced to beggary; on the contrary, they soon
felt that, so far from having any thing to dread, they had very much
good to expect from the extension of railways.

Landlords also found that they could get higher rent for farms
situated near a railway than at a distance from one. Hence they became
clamorous for "sidings." They felt it to be a grievance to be placed
at a distance from a station. After a railway had been once opened,
not a landlord would consent to have the line taken from him. Owners
who had fought the promoters before Parliament, and compelled them
to pass their domains at a distance, at a vastly increased expense
in tunnels and deviations, now petitioned for branches and nearer
station-accommodation. Those who held property near towns, and had
extorted large sums as compensation for the anticipated deterioration
in the value of their building land, found a new demand for it
springing up at greatly advanced prices. Land was now advertised for
sale with the attraction of being "near a railway station."

The prediction that, even if railways were made, the public would not
use them, was also completely falsified by the results. The ordinary
mode of fast traveling for the middle classes had heretofore been
by mail-coach and stage-coach. Those who could not afford to pay
the high prices charged by such conveyances went by wagon, and the
poorer classes trudged on foot. George Stephenson was wont to say
that he hoped to see the day when it would be cheaper for a poor man
to travel by railway than to walk, and not many years passed before
his expectation was fulfilled. In no country in the world is time
worth more money than in England; and by saving time--the criterion of
distance--the railway proved a great benefactor to men of industry in
all classes.

Many deplored the inevitable downfall of the old stage-coach system.
There was to be an end of that delightful variety of incident usually
attendant on a journey by road. The rapid scamper across a fine
country on the outside of the four-horse "Express" or "Highflyer;" the
seat on the box beside Jehu, or the equally coveted place near the
facetious guard behind; the journey amid open green fields, through
smiling villages and fine old towns, where the stage stopped to change
horses and the passengers to dine, was all very delightful in its
way, and many regretted that this old-fashioned and pleasant style
of traveling was about to pass away. But it had its dark side also.
Any one who remembers the journey by stage from London to Manchester
or York will associate it with recollections and sensations of not
unmixed delight. To be perched for twenty-four hours, exposed to all
weathers, on the outside of a coach, trying in vain to find a soft
seat--sitting now with the face to the wind, rain, or sun, and now
with the back--without any shelter such as the commonest penny-a-mile
Parliamentary train now daily provides--was a miserable undertaking,
looked forward to with horror by many whose business required them to
travel frequently between the provinces and the metropolis. Nor were
the inside passengers more agreeably accommodated. To be closely packed
in a little, inconvenient, straight-backed vehicle, where the cramped
limbs could not be in the least extended, nor the wearied frame indulge
in any change of posture, was felt by many to be a terrible thing. Then
there were the constantly-recurring demands, not always couched in
the politest terms, for an allowance to the driver every two or three
stages, and to the guard every six or eight; and if the gratuity did
not equal their expectations, growling and open abuse were not unusual.
These _désagrémens_, together with the exactions practiced on travelers
by innkeepers, seriously detracted from the romance of stage-coach
traveling, and there was a general disposition on the part of the
public to change the system for a better.

The avidity with which the public at once availed themselves of
the railways proved that this better system had been discovered.
Notwithstanding the reduction of the coach-fares on many of the roads
to one third of their previous rate, the public preferred traveling
by the railway. They saved in time, and they saved in money, taking
the whole expenses into account. In point of comfort there could be
no doubt as to the infinite superiority of the locomotive train. But
there remained the question of safety, which had been a great bugbear
with the early opponents of railways, and was made the most of by the
coach-proprietors to deter the public from using them. It was predicted
that trains of passengers would be blown to pieces, and that none
but fools would intrust their persons to the conduct of an explosive
machine such as the locomotive. It appeared, however, that during
the first eight years not fewer than five millions of passengers had
been conveyed along the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and of this
vast number only two persons had lost their lives by accident. During
the same period, the loss of life by the upsetting of stage-coaches
had been immensely greater in proportion. The public were not slow,
therefore, to detect the fact that traveling by railways was greatly
safer than traveling by common roads, and in all districts penetrated
by railways the coaches were very shortly taken off for want of support.

George Stephenson himself had a narrow escape in one of the stage-coach
accidents so common thirty years since, but which are already almost
forgotten. While the Birmingham line was under construction, he had
occasion to travel from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to London by coach. He was
an inside passenger with several others, and the outsides were pretty
numerous. When within ten miles of Dunstable, he felt, from the rolling
of the coach, that one of the linchpins securing the wheels had given
way, and that the vehicle must upset. He endeavored to fix himself in
his seat, holding on firmly by the arm-straps, so that he might save
himself on whichever side the coach fell. The coach soon toppled over,
and fell crash upon the road, amid the shrieks of his fellow-passengers
and the smashing of glass. He immediately pulled himself up by the
arm-strap above him, let down the coach-window, and climbed out. The
coachman and passengers lay scattered about on the road, stunned, and
some of them bleeding, while the horses were plunging in their harness.
Taking out his pocket-knife, he at once cut the traces and set the
horses free. He then went to the help of the passengers, who were all
more or less hurt. The guard had his arm broken, and the driver was
seriously cut and contused. A scream from one of his fellow-passenger
"insides" here attracted his attention: it proceeded from an elderly
lady, whom he had before observed to be decorated with one of the
enormous bonnets in fashion at the time. Opening the coach-door, he
lifted the lady out, and her principal lamentation was that her large
bonnet had been crushed beyond remedy! Stephenson then proceeded to the
nearest village for help, and saw the passengers provided with proper
assistance before he himself went forward on his journey.

It was some time before the more opulent classes, who could afford to
post to town in aristocratic style, became reconciled to the railway
train. It put an end to that gradation of rank in traveling which was
one of the few things left by which the nobleman could be distinguished
from the Manchester manufacturer and bagman. But to younger sons
of noble families the convenience and cheapness of the railway did
not fail to commend itself. One of these, whose eldest brother had
just succeeded to an earldom, said to a railway manager, "I like
railways--they just suit young fellows like me, with 'nothing per annum
paid quarterly.' You know, we can't afford to post, and it used to be
deuced annoying to me, as I was jogging along on the box-seat of the
stage-coach, to see the little earl go by, drawn by his four posters,
and just look up at me and give me a nod. But now, with railways, it's
different. It's true, he may take a first-class ticket, while I can
only afford a second-class one, but _we both go the same pace_."

For a time, however, many of the old families sent forward their
servants and luggage by railroad, and condemned themselves to jog
along the old highway in the accustomed family chariot, dragged by
country post-horses. But the superior comfort of the railway shortly
recommended itself to even the oldest families; posting went out of
date; post-horses were with difficulty to be had along even the great
high roads; and nobles and servants, manufacturers and peasants, alike
shared in the comfort, the convenience, and the dispatch of railway
traveling. The late Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, regarded the opening of the
London and Birmingham line as another great step accomplished in the
march of civilization. "I rejoice to see it," he said, as he stood on
one of the bridges over the railway, and watched the train flashing
along under him, and away through the distant hedgerows--"I rejoice to
see it, and to think that feudality is gone forever: it is so great a
blessing to think that any one evil is really extinct."

It was long before the late Duke of Wellington would trust himself
behind a locomotive. The fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson, which had
happened before his eyes, contributed to prejudice him strongly
against railways, and it was not until the year 1843 that he performed
his first trip on the Southwestern Railway, in attendance upon her
majesty. Prince Albert had for some time been accustomed to travel
by railway alone, but in 1842 the queen began to make use of the
same mode of conveyance between Windsor and London. Even Colonel
Sibthorpe was eventually compelled to acknowledge its utility. For
a time he continued to post to and from the country as before. Then
he compromised the matter by taking a railway ticket for the long
journey, and posting only a stage or two nearest town; until, at
length, he undisguisedly committed himself, like other people, to the
express train, and performed the journey throughout upon what he had
formerly denounced as "the infernal railroad."

[Illustration: COALVILLE AND SNIBSTON COLLIERY.]

FOOTNOTE:

[78] During this period he was engaged on the North Midland, extending
from Derby to Leeds; the York and North Midland, from Normanton to
York; the Manchester and Leeds; the Birmingham and Derby, and the
Sheffield and Rotherham Railways; the whole of these, of which he was
principal engineer, having been authorized in 1836. In that session
alone, powers were obtained for the construction of 214 miles of new
railways under his direction, at an expenditure of upward of five
millions sterling.



[Illustration: TAPTON HOUSE. [By Percival Skelton.]]

CHAPTER XVI.

GEORGE STEPHENSON'S COAL-MINES--APPEARS AT MECHANICS' INSTITUTES--HIS
OPINION ON RAILWAY SPEEDS--ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEM--RAILWAY MANIA--VISITS TO
BELGIUM AND SPAIN.


While George Stephenson was engaged in carrying on the works of the
Midland Railway in the neighborhood of Chesterfield, several seams of
coal were cut through in the Claycross Tunnel, when it occurred to him
that if mines were opened out there, the railway would provide the
means of a ready sale for the article in the midland counties, and even
as far south as the metropolis itself.

At a time when every body else was skeptical as to the possibility
of coals being carried from the midland counties to London, and
sold there at a price to compete with those which were sea-borne,
he declared his firm conviction that the time was fast approaching
when the London market would be regularly supplied with North-country
coals led by railway. One of the great advantages of railways, in
his opinion, was that they would bring iron and coal, the staple
products of the country, to the doors of all England. "The strength
of Britain," he would say, "lies in her iron and coal beds, and the
locomotive is destined, above all other agencies, to bring it forth.
The lord chancellor now sits upon a bag of wool; but wool has long
since ceased to be emblematical of the staple commodity of England.
He ought rather to sit upon a bag of coals, though it might not prove
quite so comfortable a seat. Then think of the lord chancellor being
addressed as the noble and learned lord _on the coal-sack_! I am afraid
it wouldn't answer, after all."

To one gentleman he said: "We want from the coal-mining, the
iron-producing and manufacturing districts, a great railway for the
carriage of these valuable products. We want, if I may so say, a
stream of steam running directly through the country from the North to
London. Speed is not so much an object as utility and cheapness. It
will not do to mix up the heavy merchandise and coal-trains with the
passenger-trains. Coal and most kinds of goods can wait, but passengers
will not. A less perfect road and less expensive works will do well
enough for coal-trains, if run at a low speed; and if the line be flat,
it is not of much consequence whether it be direct or not. Whenever
you put passenger-trains on a line, all the other trains must be run
at high speeds to keep out of their way. But coal-trains run at high
speeds pull the road to pieces, besides causing large expenditure in
locomotive power; and I doubt very much whether they will pay, after
all; but a succession of long coal-trains, if run at from ten to
fourteen miles an hour, would pay very well. Thus the Stockton and
Darlington Company made a larger profit when running coal at low speeds
at a halfpenny a ton per mile, than they have been able to do since
they put on their fast passenger-trains, when every thing must needs
be run faster, and a much larger proportion of the gross receipts is
consequently absorbed by working expenses."

In advocating these views, George Stephenson was considerably ahead
of his time; and although he did not live to see his anticipations
fully realized as to the supply of the London coal-market, he was
nevertheless the first to point it out, and to some extent to prove,
the practicability of establishing a profitable coal-trade by railway
between the northern counties and the metropolis. So long, however, as
the traffic was conducted on main passenger-lines at comparatively high
speeds, it was found that the expenditure on tear and wear of road and
locomotive power--not to mention the increased risk of carrying on the
first-class passenger traffic with which it was mixed up--necessarily
left a very small margin of profit, and hence our engineer was in the
habit of urging the propriety of constructing a railway which should be
exclusively devoted to goods and mineral traffic run at low speeds as
the only condition on which a large railway traffic of that sort could
be profitably conducted.

[Illustration: LIME-WORKS AT AMBERGATE. [By Percival Skelton.]]

Having induced some of his Liverpool friends to join him in a
coal-mining adventure at Chesterfield, a lease was taken of the
Claycross estate, then for sale, and operations were shortly after
begun. At a subsequent period Stephenson extended his coal-mining
operations in the same neighborhood, and in 1841 he himself entered
into a contract with owners of land in the townships of Tapton,
Brimington, and Newbold for the working of the coal thereunder, and
pits were opened on the Tapton estate on an extensive scale. About the
same time he erected great lime-works, close to the Ambergate station
of the Midland Railway, from which, when in full operation, he was able
to turn out upward of two hundred tons a day. The limestone was brought
on a tram-way from the village of Crich, about two or three miles
distant from the kilns, the coal being supplied from his adjoining
Claycross Colliery. The works were on a scale such as had not before
been attempted by any private individual engaged in a similar trade,
and we believe they proved very successful.

Tapton House was included in the lease of one of the collieries, and
as it was conveniently situated--being, as it were, a central point
on the Midland Railway, from which the engineer could readily proceed
north or south on his journeys of inspection of the various lines then
under construction in the midland and northern counties--he took up his
residence there, and it continued his home until the close of his life.

Tapton House is a large, roomy brick mansion, beautifully situated
amid woods, upon a commanding eminence, about a mile to the northeast
of the town of Chesterfield. Green fields dotted with fine trees slope
away from the house in all directions. The surrounding country is
undulating and highly picturesque. North and south the eye ranges over
a vast extent of lovely scenery; and on the west, looking over the
town of Chesterfield, with its church and crooked spire, the extensive
range of the Derbyshire hills bounds the distance. The Midland Railway
skirts the western edge of the park in a deep rock cutting, and the
locomotive's shrill whistle sounds near at hand as the trains speed
past. The gardens and pleasure-grounds adjoining the house were in a
very neglected state when Mr. Stephenson first went to Tapton, and he
promised himself, when he had secured rest and leisure from business,
that he would put a new face upon both. The first improvement he made
was in cutting a woodland footpath up the hill-side, by which he at
the same time added a beautiful feature to the park, and secured a
shorter road to the Chesterfield station; but it was some years before
he found time to carry into effect his contemplated improvements in the
adjoining gardens and pleasure-grounds. He had so long been accustomed
to laborious pursuits, and felt himself still so full of work, that he
could not at once settle down into the habit of quietly enjoying the
fruits of his industry.

[Illustration: FORTH-STREET WORKS, NEWCASTLE.]

He had no difficulty in usefully employing his time. Besides directing
the mining operations at Claycross, the establishment of the lime-kilns
at Ambergate, and the construction of the extensive railways still
in progress, he occasionally paid visits to Newcastle, where his
locomotive manufactory was now in full work, and the proprietors were
reaping the advantages of his early foresight in an abundant measure
of prosperity. One of his most interesting visits to the place was
in 1838, on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association
there, when he acted as one of the Vice-Presidents in the section
of Mechanical Science. Extraordinary changes had taken place in his
own fortunes, as well as in the face of the country, since he had
first appeared before a scientific body in Newcastle--the members of
the Literary and Philosophical Institute--to submit his safety-lamp
for their examination. Twenty-three years had passed over his head,
full of honest work, of manful struggle, and the humble "colliery
engine-wright of the name of Stephenson" had achieved an almost
world-wide reputation as a public benefactor. His fellow-townsmen,
therefore, could not hesitate to recognize his merits and do honor to
his presence. During the sittings of the Association, the engineer took
the opportunity of paying a visit to Killingworth, accompanied by some
of the distinguished savans whom he numbered among his friends. He
there pointed out to them, with a degree of honest pride, the cottage
in which he had lived for so many years, showing what parts of it had
been his handiwork, and told them the story of the sun-dial over the
door, describing the study and the labor it had cost him and his son
to calculate its dimensions and fix it in its place. The dial had
been serenely numbering the hours through the busy years that had
elapsed since that humble dwelling had been his home, during which
the Killingworth locomotive had become a great working power, and its
contriver had established the railway system, which was now rapidly
becoming extended in all parts of the civilized world.

About the same time, his services were very much in request at the
meetings of Mechanics' Institutes held throughout the northern
counties. From a very early period in his history he had taken an
active interest in these valuable institutions. While residing at
Newcastle in 1824, shortly after his locomotive foundery had been
started in Forth Street, he presided at a public meeting held in that
town for the purpose of establishing a Mechanics' Institute. The
meeting was held; but, as George Stephenson was a man comparatively
unknown even in Newcastle at that time, his name failed to secure
"an influential attendance." Among those who addressed the meeting
on the occasion was Joseph Locke, then his pupil, and afterward
his rival as an engineer. The local papers scarcely noticed the
proceedings, yet the Mechanics' Institute was founded and struggled
into existence. Years passed, and it was felt to be an honor to secure
Mr. Stephenson's presence at any public meetings held for the promotion
of popular education. Among the Mechanics' Institutes in his immediate
neighborhood at Tapton were those of Belper and Chesterfield, and
at their soirées he was a frequent and a welcome visitor. On these
occasions he loved to tell his auditors of the difficulties which had
early beset him through want of knowledge, and of the means by which he
had overcome them. His grand text was--PERSEVERE; and there was manhood
in the word.

On more than one occasion the author had the pleasure of listening
to George Stephenson's homely but forcible addresses at the annual
soirées of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute. He was always an immense
favorite with his audiences there. His personal appearance was greatly
in his favor. A handsome, ruddy, expressive face, lit up by bright
dark blue eyes, prepared one for his earnest words when he stood up
to speak, and the cheers had subsided which invariably hailed his
rising. He was not glib, but he was very impressive. And who, so well
as he, could serve as a guide to the working-man in his endeavors after
higher knowledge? His early life had been all struggle--encounter
with difficulty--groping in the dark after greater light, but always
earnestly and perseveringly. His words were therefore all the more
weighty, since he spoke from the fullness of his own experience.

Nor did he remain a mere inactive spectator of the improvements in
railway working which increasing experience from day to day suggested.
He continued to contrive improvements in the locomotive, and to mature
his invention of the carriage-brake. When examined before the Select
Committee on Railways in 1841, his mind seems to have been impressed
with the necessity which existed for adopting a system of self-acting
brakes, stating that, in his opinion, this was the most important
arrangement that could be provided for increasing the safety of railway
traveling. "I believe," he said, "that if self-acting brakes were put
upon every carriage, scarcely any accident could take place." His plan
consisted in employing the momentum of the running train to throw his
proposed brakes into action immediately on the moving power of the
engine being checked. He would also have these brakes under the control
of the guard, by means of a connecting line running along the whole
length of the train, by which they should at once be thrown out of
gear when necessary. At the same time he suggested, as an additional
means of safety, that the signals of the line should be self-acting,
and worked by the locomotives as they passed along the railway. He
considered the adoption of this plan of so much importance that, with
a view to the public safety, he would even have it enforced upon
railway companies by the Legislature. He was also of opinion that it
was the interest of the companies themselves to adopt the plan, as it
would save great tear and wear of engines, carriages, tenders, and
brake-vans, besides greatly diminishing the risk of accidents upon
railways.

While before the same committee, he took the opportunity of stating
his views with reference to railway speeds, about which wild ideas
were then afloat, one gentleman of celebrity having publicly expressed
the opinion that a speed of a hundred miles an hour was practicable
in railway traveling! Not many years had passed since Mr. Stephenson
had been pronounced _insane_ for stating his conviction that twelve
miles an hour could be performed by the locomotive; but, now that
he had established the fact, and greatly exceeded that speed, he was
thought behind the age because he recommended it to be limited to
forty miles an hour. He said: "I do not like either forty or fifty
miles an hour upon any line--I think it is an unnecessary speed; and
if there is danger upon a railway, it is high velocity that creates
it. I should say no railway ought to exceed forty miles an hour on the
most favorable gradient; but upon a curved line the speed ought not
to exceed twenty-four or twenty-five miles an hour." He had, indeed,
constructed for the Great Western Railway an engine capable of running
fifty miles an hour with a load, and eighty miles without one. But he
never was in favor of a hurricane speed of this sort, believing it
could only be accomplished at an unnecessary increase both of danger
and expense.

"It is true," he observed on other occasions,[79] "I have said the
locomotive engine _might_ be made to travel a hundred miles an hour,
but I always put a qualification on this, namely, as to what speed
would best suit the public. The public may, however, be unreasonable;
and fifty or sixty miles an hour is an unreasonable speed. Long before
railway traveling became general, I said to my friends that there was
no limit to the speed of the locomotive, _provided the works could
be made to stand_. But there are limits to the strength of iron,
whether it be manufactured into rails or locomotives, and there is
a point at which both rails and tires must break. Every increase of
speed, by increasing the strain upon the road and the rolling stock,
brings us nearer to that point. At thirty miles a slighter road will
do, and less perfect rolling stock may be run upon it with safety.
But if you increase the speed by say ten miles, then every thing must
be greatly strengthened. You must have heavier engines, heavier and
better-fastened rails, and all your working expenses will be immensely
increased. I think I know enough of mechanics to know where to stop. I
know that a pound will weigh a pound, and that more should not be put
upon an iron rail than it will bear. If you could insure perfect iron,
perfect rails, and perfect locomotives, I grant fifty miles an hour or
more might be run with safety on a level railway. But then you must not
forget that iron, even the best, will 'tire,' and with constant use
will become more and more liable to break at the weakest point--perhaps
where there is a secret flaw that the eye can not detect. Then look
at the rubbishy rails now manufactured on the contract system--some
of them little better than cast metal: indeed, I have seen rails
break merely on being thrown from the truck on to the ground. How is
it possible for such rails to stand a twenty or thirty ton engine
dashing over them at the speed of fifty miles an hour? No, no," he
would conclude, "I am in favor of low speeds because they are safe, and
because they are economical; and you may rely upon it that, beyond a
certain point, with every increase of speed there is a certain increase
in the element of danger."

When railways became the subject of popular discussion, many new and
unsound theories were started with reference to them, which Stephenson
opposed as calculated, in his opinion, to bring discredit on the
locomotive system. One of these was with reference to what were
called "undulating lines." Dr. Lardner, who at an earlier period was
skeptical as to the powers of the locomotive, now promulgated the idea
that a railway constructed with rising and falling gradients would be
practically as easy to work as a line perfectly level. Mr. Badnell went
even beyond him, for he held that an undulating railway was much better
than a level one for purposes of working.[80] For a time this theory
found favor, and the "undulating system" was extensively adopted; but
George Stephenson never ceased to inveigh against it, and experience
has proved that his judgment was correct. His practice, from the
beginning of his career until the end of it, was to secure a road as
nearly as possible on a level, following the course of the valleys and
the natural line of the country; preferring to go round a hill rather
than to tunnel under it or carry his railway over it, and often making
a considerable circuit to secure good workable gradients. He studied to
lay out his lines so that long trains of minerals and merchandise, as
well as passengers, might be hauled along them at the least possible
expenditure of locomotive power. He had long before ascertained, by
careful experiments at Killingworth, that the engine expends half its
power in overcoming a rising gradient of 1 in 260, which is about 20
feet in the mile; and that when the gradient is so steep as 1 in 100,
not less than three fourths of its power is sacrificed in ascending the
acclivity. He never forgot the valuable practical lessons taught him by
these early trials, which he had made and registered long before the
advantages of railways had become recognized. He saw clearly that the
longer flat line must eventually prove superior to the shorter line
of steep gradients as respected its paying qualities. He urged that,
after all, the power of the locomotive was but limited; and, although
he and his son had done more than any other men to increase its working
capacity, it provoked him to find that every improvement made in it was
neutralized by the steep gradients which the new school of engineers
were setting it to overcome. On one occasion, when Robert Stephenson
stated before a Parliamentary committee that every successive
improvement in the locomotive was being rendered virtually nugatory by
the difficult and almost impracticable gradients proposed on many of
the new lines, his father, on his leaving the witness-box, went up to
him, and said, "Robert, you never spoke truer words than those in all
your life."

To this it must be added, that in urging these views George Stephenson
was strongly influenced by commercial considerations. He had no desire
to build up his reputation at the expense of railway shareholders, nor
to obtain engineering _éclat_ by making "ducks and drakes" of their
money. He was persuaded that, in order to secure the practical success
of railways, they must be so laid out as not only to prove of decided
public utility, but also to be worked economically and to the advantage
of their proprietors. They were not government roads, but private
ventures--in fact, commercial speculations. He therefore endeavored to
render them financially profitable; and he repeatedly declared that if
he did not believe they could be "made to pay," he would have nothing
to do with them.[81] Nor was he influenced by the sordid consideration
merely of what he could _make_ out of any company that employed him,
but in many cases he voluntarily gave up his claim to remuneration
where the promoters of schemes which he thought praiseworthy had
suffered serious loss. Thus, when the first application was made to
Parliament for the Chester and Birkenhead Railway Bill, the promoters
were defeated. They repeated their application on the understanding
that in event of their succeeding the engineer and surveyor were to
be paid their costs in respect of the defeated measure. The bill was
successful, and to several parties their costs were paid. Stephenson's
amounted to £800, and he very nobly said, "You have had an expensive
career in Parliament; you have had a great struggle; you are a young
company; you can not afford to pay me this amount of money; I will
reduce it to £200, and I will not ask you for the £200 until your
shares are at £20 premium; for, whatever may be the reverses you have
to go through, I am satisfied I shall live to see the day when your
shares will be at £20 premium, and when I can legally and honorably
claim that £200."[82] We may add that the shares did eventually rise to
the premium specified, and the engineer was no loser by his generous
conduct in the transaction.

Another novelty of the time with which George Stephenson had to contend
was the proposed substitution of atmospheric pressure for locomotive
steam-power in the working of railways. The idea of obtaining motion
by means of atmospheric pressure originated with Denis Papin more
than a century and a half ago; but it slept until revived in 1810 by
Mr. Medhurst, who published a pamphlet to prove the practicability of
carrying letters and goods by air. In 1824, Mr. Vallance, of Brighton,
took out a patent for projecting passengers through a tube large enough
to contain a train of carriages, the tube ahead of the carriages
being previously exhausted of its atmospheric air. The same idea was
afterward taken up, in 1835, by Mr. Pinkus, an ingenious American.
Several scientific gentlemen, Dr. Lardner and Mr. Clegg among others,
advocated the plan, and an association was formed to carry it into
effect. Shares were created, and £18,000 raised; and a model apparatus
was exhibited in London. Mr. Vignolles took Mr. Stephenson to see the
model; and after carefully examining it, he observed emphatically,
"_It won't do_: it is only the fixed engines and ropes over again, in
another form; and, to tell you the truth, I don't think this rope of
wind will answer so well as the rope of wire did." He did not think the
principle would stand the test of practice, and he objected to the mode
of applying the principle. The stationary-engine system was open to
serious objections in whatever form applied; and every day's experience
showed that the fixed engines could not compete with locomotives in
point of efficiency and economy. Stephenson stood by the locomotive
engine, and subsequent experience proved that he was right.

Messrs. Clegg and Samuda afterward, in 1840, patented their plan of
an atmospheric railway, and they publicly tested its working on a
portion of the West London Railway. The results of the experiment
were considered so satisfactory, that the directors of the Dublin and
Kingstown line adopted it between Kingstown and Dalkey. The London
and Croydon Company also adopted the atmospheric principle; and their
line was opened in 1845. The ordinary mode of applying the power was
to lay between the line of rails a pipe, in which a large piston was
inserted, and attached by a shaft to the framework of a carriage. The
propelling power was the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere acting
against the piston in the tube on one side, a vacuum being created in
the tube on the other side of the piston by the working of a stationary
engine. Great was the popularity of the atmospheric system; and still
George Stephenson said, "It won't do; it's but a gimcrack." Engineers
of distinction said he was prejudiced, and that he looked upon the
locomotive as a pet child of his own. "Wait a little," he replied,
"and you will see that I am right." It was generally supposed that the
locomotive system was about to be snuffed out. "Not so fast," said
Stephenson. "Let us wait to see if it will pay." He never believed it
would. It was ingenious, clever, scientific, and all that; but railways
were commercial enterprises, not toys; and if the atmospheric railway
could not work to a profit, it would not do. Considered in this light,
he even went so far as to call it "a great humbug."

No one can say that the atmospheric railway had not a fair trial. The
government engineer, General Pasley, did for it what had never been
done for the locomotive--he reported in its favor, whereas a former,
government engineer had inferentially reported against the use of
locomotive power on railways. The House of Commons had also reported in
favor of the use of the steam-engine on common roads; yet the railway
locomotive had vitality enough in it to live through all. "Nothing will
beat it," said George Stephenson, "for efficiency in all weathers, for
economy in drawing loads of average weight, and for power and speed as
occasion may require."

The atmospheric system was fairly and fully tried, and it was found
wanting. It was admitted to be an exceedingly elegant mode of applying
power; its devices were very skillful, and its mechanism was most
ingenious. But it was costly, irregular in action, and, in particular
kinds of weather, not to be depended upon. At best, it was but a
modification of the stationary-engine system, and experience proved
it to be so expensive that it was shortly after entirely abandoned in
favor of locomotive power.[83]

One of the remarkable results of the system of railway locomotion which
George Stephenson had by his persevering labors mainly contributed
to establish was the outbreak of the railway mania toward the close
of his professional career. The success of the first main lines of
railway naturally led to their extension into many new districts; but
a strongly speculative tendency soon began to display itself, which
contained in it the elements of great danger.

The extension of railways had, up to the year 1844, been mainly
effected by men of the commercial classes, and the shareholders in them
principally belonged to the manufacturing districts--the capitalists
of the metropolis as yet holding aloof, and prophesying disaster to
all concerned in railway projects. The Stock Exchange looked askance
upon them, and it was with difficulty that respectable brokers
could be found to do business in the shares. But when the lugubrious
anticipations of the City men were found to be so entirely falsified by
the results--when, after the lapse of years, it was ascertained that
railway traffic rapidly increased and dividends steadily improved--a
change came over the spirit of the London capitalists. They then
invested largely in railways, the shares in which became a leading
branch of business on the Stock Exchange, and the prices of some rose
to nearly double their original value.

A stimulus was thus given to the projection of farther lines, the
shares in most of which came out at a premium, and became the subject
of immediate traffic. A reckless spirit of gambling set in, which
completely changed the character and objects of railway enterprise.
The public outside the Stock Exchange became also infected, and many
persons utterly ignorant of railways, but hungering and thirsting after
premiums, rushed eagerly into the vortex. They applied for allotments,
and subscribed for shares in lines, of the engineering character or
probable traffic of which they knew nothing. Provided they could but
obtain allotments which they could sell at a premium, and put the
profit--in many cases the only capital they possessed[84]--into their
pockets, it was enough for them. The mania was not confined to the
precincts of the Stock Exchange, but infected all ranks. It embraced
merchants and manufacturers, gentry and shop-keepers, clerks in
public offices, and loungers at the clubs. Noble lords were pointed
at as "stags;" there were even clergymen who were characterized as
"bulls," and amiable ladies who had the reputation of "bears," in the
share-markets. The few quiet men who remained uninfluenced by the
speculation of the time were, in not a few cases, even reproached for
doing injustice to their families in declining to help themselves from
the stores of wealth that were poured out on all sides.

Folly and knavery were for a time in the ascendant. The sharpers of
society were let loose, and jobbers and schemers became more and
more plentiful. They threw out railway schemes as lures to catch
the unwary. They fed the mania with a constant succession of new
projects. The railway papers became loaded with their advertisements.
The post-office was scarcely able to distribute the multitude of
prospectuses and circulars which they issued. For a time their
popularity was immense. They rose like froth into the upper heights
of society, and the flunkey Fitz Plushe, by virtue of his supposed
wealth, sat among peers and was idolized. Then was the harvest-time
for scheming lawyers, Parliamentary agents, engineers, surveyors, and
traffic-takers, who were ready to take up any railway scheme however
desperate, and to prove any amount of traffic even where none existed.
The traffic in the credulity of their dupes was, however, the great
fact that mainly concerned them, and of the profitable character of
which there could be no doubt.

Parliament, whose previous conduct in connection with railway
legislation was so open to reprehension, interposed no check--attempted
no remedy. On the contrary, it helped to intensify the evils arising
from this unseemly state of things. Many of its members were themselves
involved in the mania, and as much interested in its continuance
as the vulgar herd of money-grubbers. The railway prospectuses now
issued--unlike the original Liverpool and Manchester, and London and
Birmingham schemes--were headed by peers, baronets, landed proprietors,
and strings of M.P's. Thus it was found in 1845 that no fewer than 157
members of Parliament were on the lists of new companies as subscribers
for sums ranging from £291,000 downward! The projectors of new lines
even came to boast of their Parliamentary strength, and of the number
of votes which they could command in "the House." At all events, it
is matter of fact, that many utterly ruinous branches and extensions
projected during the mania, calculated only to benefit the inhabitants
of a few miserable boroughs accidentally omitted from Schedule A, were
authorized in the memorable sessions of 1844 and 1845.

George Stephenson was anxiously entreated to lend his name to
prospectuses during the railway mania, but he invariably refused. He
held aloof from the headlong folly of the hour, and endeavored to
check it, but in vain. Had he been less scrupulous, and given his
countenance to the numerous projects about which he was consulted, he
might, without any trouble, have thus secured enormous gains; but he
had no desire to accumulate a fortune without labor and without honor.
He himself never speculated in shares. When he was satisfied as to the
merits of an undertaking, he would sometimes subscribe for a certain
amount of capital in it, when he held on, neither buying nor selling.
At a dinner of the Leeds and Bradford directors at Ben Rydding in
October, 1844, before the mania had reached its height, he warned those
present against the prevalent disposition toward railway speculation.
It was, he said, like walking upon a piece of ice with shallows and
deeps; the shallows were frozen over, and they would carry, but it
required great caution to get over the deeps. He was satisfied that in
the course of the next year many would step on to places not strong
enough to carry them, and would get into the deeps; they would be
taking shares, and afterward be unable to pay the calls upon them.
Yorkshiremen were reckoned clever men, and his advice to them was to
stick together and promote communication in their own neighborhood--not
to go abroad with their speculations. If any had done so, he advised
them to get their money back as fast as they could, for if they did
not they would not get it at all. He informed the company, at the same
time, of his earliest holding of railway shares; it was in the Stockton
and Darlington Railway, and the number he held was _three_--"a very
large capital for him to possess at the time." But a Stockton friend
was anxious to possess a share, and he sold him _one_ at a premium of
33_s._; he supposed he had been about the first man in England to sell
a railway share at a premium.

During 1845, his son's office in Great George Street, Westminster,
was crowded with persons of various conditions seeking interviews,
presenting very much the appearance of the levee of a minister of
state. The burly figure of Mr. Hudson, the "Railway King," surrounded
by an admiring group of followers, was often to be seen there; and a
still more interesting person, in the estimation of many, was George
Stephenson, dressed in black, his coat of somewhat old-fashioned cut,
with square pockets in the tails. He wore a white neckcloth, and a
large bunch of seals was suspended from his watch-ribbon. Altogether,
he presented an appearance of health, intelligence, and good humor,
that it gladdened one to look upon in that sordid, selfish, and
eventually ruinous saturnalia of railway speculation.

Being still the consulting engineer of several of the older companies,
he necessarily appeared before Parliament in support of their branches
and extensions. In 1845 his name was associated with that of his son as
the engineer of the Southport and Preston Junction. In the same session
he gave evidence in favor of the Syston and Peterborough branch of
the Midland Railway; but his principal attention was confined to the
promotion of the line from Newcastle to Berwick, in which he had never
ceased to take the deepest interest.

Powers were granted by Parliament in 1845 to construct not less than
2883 miles of new railways in Britain, at an expenditure of about
forty-four millions sterling! Yet the mania was not appeased; for in
the following session of 1846, applications were made to Parliament
for powers to raise £389,000,000 sterling for the construction of
farther lines; and they were actually conceded to the extent of 4790
miles (including 60 miles of tunnels), at a cost of about £120,000,000
sterling.[85] During this session Mr. Stephenson appeared as engineer
for only one new line--the Buxton, Macclesfield, Congleton, and
Crewe Railway--a line in which, as a coal-owner, he was personally
interested; and of three branch lines in connection with existing
companies for which he had long acted as engineer. At the same period
all the leading professional men were fully occupied, some of them
appearing as consulting engineers for upward of thirty lines each!

One of the features of this mania was the rage for "direct lines"
which every where displayed itself. There were "Direct Manchester,"
"Direct Exeter," "Direct York," and, indeed, new direct lines between
most of the large towns. The Marquis of Bristol, speaking in favor
of the "Direct Norwich and London" project at a public meeting at
Haverhill, said, "If necessary, they might _make a tunnel beneath his
very drawing-room_ rather than be defeated in their undertaking!"
And the Rev. F. Litchfield, at a meeting in Banbury on the subject
of a line to that town, said, "He had laid down for himself a limit
to his approbation of railways--at least of such as approached the
neighborhood with which he was connected--and that limit was, that he
did not wish them to approach any nearer to him than _to run through
his bedroom, with the bedposts for a station_!" How different was the
spirit which influenced these noble lords and gentlemen but a few years
before!

The course adopted by Parliament in dealing with the multitude of
railway bills applied for during the prevalence of the mania was as
irrational as it proved unfortunate. The want of foresight displayed by
both houses in obstructing the railway system so long as it was based
upon sound commercial principles was only equaled by the fatal facility
with which they now granted railway projects based upon the wildest
speculation. Parliament interposed no check, laid down no principle,
furnished no guidance, for the conduct of railway projectors, but left
every company to select its own locality, determine its own line,
and fix its own gauge. No regard was paid to the claims of existing
companies, which had already expended so large an amount in the
formation of useful railways; and speculators were left at liberty to
project and carry out lines almost parallel with theirs.

The House of Commons became thoroughly influenced by the prevailing
excitement. Even the Board of Trade began to favor the views of the
new and reckless school of engineers. In their "Report on the Lines
projected in the Manchester and Leeds District," they promulgated some
remarkable views respecting gradients, declaring themselves in favor of
the "undulating system." They there stated that lines of an undulating
character "which gave gradients of 1 in 70 or 1 in 80 distributed over
them in short lengths, may be positively _better_ lines, _i.e._, _more
susceptible of cheap and expeditious working_, than others which have
nothing steeper than 1 in 100 or 1 in 120!" They concluded by reporting
in favor of the line which exhibited the worst gradients and the
sharpest curves, chiefly on the ground that it could be constructed for
less money.

Sir Robert Peel took occasion, when speaking in favor of the
continuance of the Railways Department of the Board of Trade, to
advert to this report in the House of Commons on the 4th of March
following, as containing "a novel and highly important view on the
subject of gradients, which, he was certain, never could have been
taken by any committee of the House of Commons, however intelligent;"
and he might have added, that the more intelligent, the less likely
would they be to arrive at any such conclusion. When George Stephenson
saw this report of the premier's speech in the newspapers of the
following morning, he went forthwith to his son, and asked him to write
a letter to Sir Robert Peel on the subject. He saw clearly that if
such views were adopted, the utility and economy of railways would be
seriously curtailed. "These members of Parliament," said he, "are now
as much disposed to exaggerate the powers of the locomotive as they
were to underestimate them but a few years ago." Robert accordingly
wrote a letter for his father's signature, embodying the views which
he so strongly entertained as to the importance of flat gradients,
and referring to the experiments conducted by him many years before
in proof of the great loss of working power which was incurred on a
line of steep as compared with easy gradients. It was clear, from the
tone of Sir Robert Peel's speech in a subsequent debate, that he had
carefully read and considered Mr. Stephenson's practical observations
on the subject, though it did not appear that he had come to any
definite conclusion thereon farther than that he strongly approved of
the Trent Valley Railway, by which Tamworth would be placed upon a
direct main line of communication.

The result of the labors of Parliament was a tissue of legislative
bungling, involving enormous loss to the nation. Railway bills were
granted in heaps. Two hundred and seventy-two additional acts were
passed in 1846. Some authorized the construction of lines running
almost parallel with existing railways, in order to afford the
public "the benefits of unrestricted competition." Locomotive and
atmospheric lines, broad-gauge and narrow-gauge lines, were granted
without hesitation. Committees decided without judgment and without
discrimination; and in the scramble for bills, the most unscrupulous
were usually the most successful. As an illustration of the legislative
folly of the period, Robert Stephenson, speaking at Toronto, in Upper
Canada, some years later, adduced the following instances:

  "There was one district through which it was proposed to run two
  lines, and there was no other difficulty between them than the
  simple rivalry that, if one got a charter, the other might also.
  But here, where the committee might have given both, they gave
  neither. In another instance, two lines were projected through a
  barren country, and the committee gave the one which afforded the
  least accommodation to the public. In another, where two lines were
  projected to run, merely to shorten the time by a few minutes,
  leading through a mountainous country, the committee gave both. So
  that, where the committee might have given both, they gave neither,
  and where they should have given neither, they gave both."

Among the many ill effects of the mania, one of the worst was that
it introduced a low tone of morality into railway transactions. The
bad spirit which had been evoked by it unhappily extended to the
commercial classes, and many of the most flagrant swindles of recent
times had their origin in the year 1845. Those who had suddenly gained
large sums without labor, and also without honor, were too ready to
enter upon courses of the wildest extravagance; and a false style
of living arose, the poisonous influence of which extended through
all classes. Men began to look upon railways as instruments to job
with. Persons sometimes possessing information respecting railways,
but more frequently possessing none, got upon boards for the purpose
of promoting their individual objects, often in a very unscrupulous
manner; land-owners, to promote branch lines through their property;
speculators in shares, to trade upon the exclusive information which
they obtained; while some directors were appointed through the
influence mainly of solicitors, contractors, or engineers, who used
them as tools to serve their own ends. In this way the unfortunate
proprietors were in many cases betrayed, and their property was
shamefully squandered, much to the discredit of the railway system.

One of the most prominent celebrities of the mania was George Hudson,
of York. He was a man of some local repute in that city when the
line between Leeds and York was projected. His views as to railways
were then extremely moderate, and his main object in joining the
undertaking was to secure for York the advantages of the best railway
communication. The company was not very prosperous at first, and
during the years 1840 and 1841 the shares had greatly sunk in value.
Mr. Alderman Meek, the first chairman, having retired, Mr. Hudson was
elected in his stead, and he very shortly contrived to pay improved
dividends to the proprietors, who asked no questions. Desiring to
extend the field of his operations, he proceeded to lease the Leeds and
Selby Railway at five per cent. That line had hitherto been a losing
concern; so its owners readily struck a bargain with Mr. Hudson, and
sounded his praises in all directions. He increased the dividends on
the York and North Midland shares to ten per cent., and began to be
cited as the model of a railway chairman.

He next interested himself in the North Midland Railway, where he
appeared in the character of a reformer of abuses. The North Midland
shares also had gone to a heavy discount, and the shareholders were
accordingly desirous of securing his services. They elected him a
director. His bustling, pushing, persevering character gave him an
influential position at the board, and he soon pushed the old members
from their stools. He labored hard, at much personal inconvenience, to
help the concern out of its difficulties, and he succeeded. The new
directors, recognizing his power, elected him their chairman.

Railways revived in 1842, and public confidence in them as profitable
investments was gradually increasing. Mr. Hudson had the benefit of
this growing prosperity. The dividends in his lines improved, and
the shares rose in value. The Lord-mayor of York began to be quoted
as one of the most capable of railway directors. Stimulated by his
success and encouraged by his followers, he struck out or supported
many new projects--a line to Scarborough, a line to Bradford, lines
in the Midland districts, and lines to connect York with Newcastle
and Edinburg. He was elected chairman of the Newcastle and Darlington
Railway; and when--in order to complete the continuity of the main line
of communication--it was found necessary to secure the Durham junction,
which was an important link in the chain, he and George Stephenson
boldly purchased that railway between them, at the price of £88,500.
It was an exceedingly fortunate purchase for the company, to whom it
was worth double the money. The act, though not strictly legal, proved
successful in the issue, and was much lauded. Thus encouraged, Mr.
Hudson proceeded to buy the Brandling Junction line for £500,000 in
his own name--an operation at the time regarded as equally favorable,
though he was afterward charged with appropriating 1600 of the shares
created for the purchase, when worth £21 premium each. The Great North
of England line being completed, Mr. Hudson had thus secured the entire
line of communication from York to Newcastle, and the route was opened
to the public in June, 1844. On that occasion Newcastle eulogized Mr.
Hudson in its choicest local eloquence, and he was pronounced to be the
greatest benefactor the district had ever known.

The adulation which followed Mr. Hudson would have intoxicated a
stronger and more self-denying man. He was pronounced the man of the
age, and hailed as "the Railway King." The highest test by which
the shareholders judged him was the dividends that he paid, though
subsequent events proved that these dividends were in many cases
delusive, intended only "to make things pleasant." The policy, however,
had its effect. The shares in all the lines of which he was chairman
went to a premium, and then arose the temptation to create new shares
in branch and extension lines, often worthless, which were issued at
a premium also. Thus he shortly found himself chairman of nearly 600
miles of railway, extending from Rugby to Newcastle, and at the head of
numerous new projects, by means of which paper-wealth could be created
as it were at pleasure. He held in his own hands almost the entire
administrative power of the companies over which he presided: he was
chairman, board, manager, and all. His admirers for the time, inspired
sometimes by gratitude for past favors, but oftener by the expectation
of favors to come, supported him in all his measures. At the meetings
of the companies, if any suspicious shareholder ventured to put a
question about the accounts, he was snubbed by the chair and hissed
by the proprietors. The Railway King was voted praises, testimonials,
and surplus shares alike liberally, and scarcely a word against him
could find a hearing. He was equally popular outside the circle of
railway proprietors. His entertainments at Albert Gate were crowded by
sycophants, many of them titled; and he went his rounds of visits among
the peerage like a prince.

Of course Mr. Hudson was a great authority on railway questions in
Parliament, to which the burgesses of Sunderland had sent him. His
experience of railways, still little understood, though the subject
of so much legislation, gave value and weight to his opinions, and in
many respects he was a useful member. During the first years of his
membership he was chiefly occupied in passing the railway bills in
which he was more particularly interested; and in the session of 1845,
when he was at the height of his power, it was triumphantly said of him
that "he walked quietly through Parliament with some sixteen railway
bills under his arm."

One of these bills, however, was the subject of a severe contest--we
mean that empowering the construction of the railway from Newcastle to
Berwick. It was almost the only bill in which George Stephenson was
concerned that year. Mr. Hudson displayed great energy in supporting
the measure, and he worked hard to insure its success both in and out
of Parliament; but he himself attributed the chief merit to Stephenson.
He accordingly suggested to the shareholders that they should present
the engineer with some fitting testimonial in recognition of his
services. Indeed, a Stephenson Testimonial had long been spoken of,
and a committee was formed for raising subscriptions for the purpose
as early as the year 1839. Mr. Hudson now revived the subject, and
appealed to the Newcastle and Darlington, the Midland, and the York and
North Midland Companies, who unanimously adopted the resolutions which
he proposed to them amid "loud applause," but there the matter ended.

The Hudson Testimonial was a much more taking thing, for Hudson had it
in his power to allot shares (selling at a premium) to his adulators.
But Stephenson pretended to fill no man's pocket with premiums; he was
no creator of shares, and could not therefore work upon shareholders'
gratitude for "favors to come." The proposed testimonial to him
accordingly ended with resolutions and speeches. The York, Newcastle,
and Berwick Board--in other words, Mr. Hudson--did indeed mark their
sense of the "great obligations" which they were under to George
Stephenson for helping to carry their bill through Parliament by
making him an allotment of thirty of the new shares authorized by the
act. But, as afterward appeared, the chairman had at the same time
appropriated to himself not fewer than 10,894 of the same shares, the
premiums on which were then worth, in the market, about £145,000.
This shabby manner of acknowledging the gratitude of the company to
their engineer was strongly resented by Stephenson at the time, and
a coolness took place between him and Hudson which was never wholly
removed, though they afterward shook hands, and Stephenson declared
that all was forgotten.

Mr. Hudson's brief reign drew to a close. The saturnalia of 1845 was
followed by the usual reaction. Shares went down faster than they
had gone up; the holders of them hastened to sell in order to avoid
payment of the calls, and many found themselves ruined. Then came
repentance, and a sudden return to virtue. The betting man, who,
temporarily abandoning the turf for the share-market, had played his
heaviest stake and lost; the merchant who had left his business, and
the doctor who had neglected his patients, to gamble in railway stock
and been ruined; the penniless knaves and schemers who had speculated
so recklessly and gained so little; the titled and fashionable people,
who had bowed themselves so low before the idol of the day, and found
themselves deceived and "done;" the credulous small capitalists, who,
dazzled by premiums, had invested their all in railway shares, and now
saw themselves stripped of every thing, were grievously enraged, and
looked about them for a victim. In this temper were shareholders when,
at a railway meeting in York, some pertinent questions were put to the
Railway King. His replies were not satisfactory, and the questions
were pushed home. Mr. Hudson became confused. Angry voices rose in the
meeting. A committee of investigation was appointed. The golden calf
was found to be of brass, and hurled down, Hudson's own toadies and
sycophants eagerly joining the chorus of popular indignation. Similar
proceedings shortly after followed at the meetings of other companies,
and the bubbles having by that time burst, the Railway Mania thus came
to an ignominious end.

While the mania was at its height in England, railways were also being
extended abroad, and George Stephenson continued to be invited to
give the directors of foreign undertakings the benefit of his advice.
One of the most agreeable of his excursions with that object was his
third visit to Belgium in 1845. His special purpose was to examine the
proposed line of the Sambre and Meuse Railway, for which a concession
had been granted by the Belgian Legislature. Arrived on the ground,
he went carefully over the entire length of the proposed line, by
Couvins, through the Forest of Ardennes, to Rocroi, across the French
frontier, examining the bearing of the coal-field, the slate and
marble quarries, and the numerous iron-mines in existence between the
Sambre and the Meuse, as well as carefully exploring the ravines which
extended through the district, in order to satisfy himself that the
best possible route had been selected. Stephenson was delighted with
the novelty of the journey, the beauty of the scenery, and the industry
of the population. His companions were entertained by his ample and
varied stores of practical information on all subjects, and his
conversation was full of reminiscences of his youth, on which he always
delighted to dwell when in the society of his more intimate friends.
The journey was varied by a visit to the coal-mines near Jemappe, where
Stephenson examined with interest the mode adopted by the Belgian
miners of draining the pits, inspecting their engines and brakeing
machines, so familiar to him in early life.

The engineers of Belgium took the opportunity of the engineer's visit
to invite him to a magnificent banquet at Brussels. The Public Hall, in
which they entertained him, was gayly decorated with flags, prominent
among which was the Union Jack, in honor of their distinguished guest.
A handsome marble pedestal, ornamented with his bust crowned with
laurels, stood at one end of the room. The chair was occupied by M.
Massui, the Chief Director of the National Railways of Belgium; and
the most eminent scientific men of the kingdom were present. Their
reception of the "father of railways" was of the most enthusiastic
description. Stephenson was greatly pleased with the entertainment.
Not the least interesting incident of the evening was his observing,
when the dinner was about half over, the model of a locomotive engine
placed upon the centre table, under a triumphal arch. Turning suddenly
to his friend Sopwith, he exclaimed, "Do you see the 'Rocket?'" It
was, indeed, the model of that celebrated locomotive; and the engineer
prized the delicate compliment thus paid him perhaps more than all the
encomiums of the evening.

The next day (April 5th) King Leopold invited him to a private
interview at the palace. Accompanied by Mr. Sopwith, he proceeded to
Laaken, and was cordially received by his majesty. The king immediately
entered into familiar conversation with him, discussing first the
railway project which had been the object of his visit to Belgium, and
then the structure of the Belgian coal-fields, his majesty expressing
his sense of the great importance of economy in a fuel which had become
indispensable to the comfort and well-being of society, which was the
basis of all manufactures, and the vital power of railway locomotion.
The subject was always a favorite one with George Stephenson, and,
encouraged by the king, he proceeded to explain to him the geological
structure of Belgium, the original formation of coal, its subsequent
elevation by volcanic forces, and the vast amount of denudation.
In describing the coal-beds he used his hat as a sort of model to
illustrate his meaning, and the eyes of the king were fixed upon it as
he proceeded with his description. The conversation then passed to the
rise and progress of trade and manufactures, Stephenson pointing out
how closely they every where followed the coal, being mainly dependent
upon it, as it were, for their very existence.

The king seemed greatly pleased with the interview, and at its close
expressed himself as obliged by the interesting information which
the engineer had communicated. Shaking hands cordially with both the
gentlemen, and wishing them success in their important undertakings,
he bade them adieu. As they were leaving the palace, Stephenson,
bethinking him of the model by which he had just been illustrating the
Belgian coal-fields, said to his friend, "By-the-by, Sopwith, I was
afraid the king would see the inside of my hat; it's a shocking bad
one!"

George Stephenson paid a farther visit to Belgium in the course of the
same year, on the business of the West Flanders Railway, and he had
scarcely returned from it ere he was requested to proceed to Spain,
for the purpose of examining and reporting upon a scheme then on foot
for constructing "the Royal North of Spain Railway." A concession had
been made by the Spanish government of a line of railway from Madrid
to the Bay of Biscay, and a numerous staff of engineers was engaged in
surveying the proposed line. The directors of the company had declined
making the necessary deposits until more favorable terms had been
secured; and Sir Joshua Walmsley, on their part, was about to visit
Spain and press the government on the subject. George Stephenson,
whom he consulted, was alive to the difficulties of the office which
Sir Joshua was induced to undertake, and offered to be his companion
and adviser on the occasion, declining to receive any recompense
beyond the simple expenses of the journey. He could only arrange to be
absent for six weeks, and he set out from England about the middle of
September, 1845.

The party was joined at Paris by Mr. Mackenzie, the contractor for the
Orleans and Tours Railway, then in course of construction, who took
them over the works and accompanied them as far as Tours. They soon
reached the great chain of the Pyrenees, and crossed over into Spain.
It was on a Sunday evening, after a long day's toilsome journey through
the mountains, that the party suddenly found themselves in one of those
beautiful secluded valleys lying amid the Western Pyrenees. A small
hamlet lay before them, consisting of some thirty or forty houses and
a fine old church. The sun was low on the horizon, and under the wide
porch, beneath the shadow of the church, were seated nearly all the
inhabitants of the place. They were dressed in their holiday attire.
The bright bits of red and amber color in the dresses of the women,
and the gay sashes of the men, formed a striking picture, on which the
travelers gazed in silent admiration. It was something entirely novel
and unexpected. Beside the villagers sat two venerable old men, whose
canonical hats indicated their quality as village pastors. Two groups
of young women and children were dancing outside the porch to the
accompaniment of a simple pipe, and within a hundred yards of them some
of the youths of the village were disporting themselves in athletic
exercises, the whole being carried on beneath the fostering care of
the old church, and with the sanction of its ministers. It was a
beautiful scene, and deeply moved the travelers as they approached the
principal group. The villagers greeted them courteously, supplied their
present wants, and pressed upon them some fine melons, brought from
their adjoining gardens. George Stephenson used afterward to look back
upon that simple scene, and speak of it as one of the most charming
pastorals he had ever witnessed.

They shortly reached the site of the proposed railway, passing through
Irun, St. Sebastian, St. Andero, and Bilbao, at which places they met
deputations of the principal inhabitants who were interested in the
object of their journey. At Raynosa Stephenson carefully examined the
mountain passes and ravines through which a railway could be made.
He rose at break of day, and surveyed until the darkness set in, and
frequently his resting-place at night was the floor of some miserable
hovel. He was thus laboriously occupied for ten days, after which he
proceeded across the province of Old Castile toward Madrid, surveying
as he went. The proposed plan included the purchase of the Castile
Canal, and that property was also examined. He next proceeded to El
Escorial, situated at the foot of the Guadarama Mountains, through
which he found it would be necessary to construct two formidable
tunnels; added to which, he ascertained that the country between El
Escorial and Madrid was of a very difficult and expensive character
to work through. Taking these circumstances into account, and looking
at the expected traffic on the proposed line, Sir Joshua Walmsley,
acting under the advice of Mr. Stephenson, offered to construct the
line from Madrid to the Bay of Biscay on condition that the requisite
land was given to the company for the purpose; that they should be
allowed every facility for cutting such timber belonging to the crown
as might be required for the purposes of the railway; and also that the
materials required from abroad for the construction of the line should
be admitted free of duty. In return for these concessions the company
offered to clothe and feed several thousand convicts while engaged
in the execution of the earthworks. General Narvaez, afterward Duke
of Valencia, received Sir Joshua Walmsley and Mr. Stephenson on the
subject of their proposition, and expressed his willingness to close
with them; but it was necessary that other influential parties should
give their concurrence before the scheme could be carried into effect.
The deputation waited ten days to receive the answer of the Spanish
government, but no answer of any kind was vouchsafed. The authorities,
indeed, invited them to be present at a Spanish bull-fight, but that
was not quite the business Stephenson had gone all the way to Spain
to transact, and the offer was politely declined. The result was that
Stephenson dissuaded his friend from making the necessary deposit at
Madrid. Besides, he had by this time formed an unfavorable opinion of
the entire project, and considered that the traffic would not amount to
one eighth of the estimate.

Mr. Stephenson was now anxious to be in England. During the journey
from Madrid he often spoke with affection of friends and relatives,
and when apparently absorbed by other matters he would revert to what
he thought might then be passing at home. Few incidents worthy of
notice occurred on the journey homeward, but one may be mentioned.
While traveling in an open conveyance between Madrid and Vittoria, the
driver urged his mules down hill at a dangerous pace. He was requested
to slacken speed; but, suspecting his passengers to be afraid, he only
flogged the brutes into a still more furious gallop. Observing this,
Stephenson coolly said, "Let us try him on the other tack; tell him to
show us the fastest pace at which Spanish mules can go." The rogue of a
driver, when he found his tricks of no avail, pulled up and proceeded
at a more moderate speed for the rest of the journey.

Urgent business required Mr. Stephenson's presence in London on the
last day of November. They traveled, therefore, almost continuously,
day and night, and the fatigue consequent on the journey, added to
the privations endured by the engineer while carrying on the survey
among the Spanish mountains, began to tell seriously on his health. By
the time he reached Paris he was evidently ill, but he nevertheless
determined on proceeding. He reached Havre in time for the Southampton
boat, but when on board pleurisy developed itself, and it was necessary
to bleed him freely. After a few weeks' rest at home, however, he
gradually recovered, though his health remained severely shaken.

[Illustration: CLAYCROSS WORKS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[79] It may be mentioned that these views were communicated to the
author by Robert Stephenson, and noted down in his presence.

[80] "Treatise on Railway Improvements." By Mr. Richard Badnell, C.E.

[81] He often refused to act as engineer for lines which he thought
would not prove remunerative, or when he considered the estimates too
low. Thus, when giving evidence on the Great Western Bill, Stephenson
said, "I made out an estimate for the Hartlepool Railway, which they
returned on account of its being too high, but I declined going to
Parliament with a lower estimate. Another engineer was employed. Then,
again, I was consulted about a line from Edinburg to Glasgow. The
directors chalked out a line and sent it to me, and I told them I could
not support it in that case." Hence the employment of another engineer
to carry out the line which Stephenson could not conscientiously
advocate.

[82] Speech of Wm. Jackson, Esq., M.P., at the meeting of the Chester
and Birkenhead Railway Company, held at Liverpool, October, 1845.

[83] The question of the specific merits of the atmospheric as compared
with the fixed engine and locomotive systems will be found fully
discussed in Robert Stephenson's able "Report on the Atmospheric
Railway System", 1844, in which he gave the result of numerous
observations and experiments made by him on the Kingstown Atmospheric
Railway, with the object of ascertaining whether the new power would
be applicable for the working of the Chester and Holyhead Railway then
under construction. His opinion was decidedly against the atmospheric
system.

[84] The Marquis of Clanricarde brought under the notice of the House
of Lords, in 1845, that one Charles Guernsey, the son of a charwoman
and a clerk in a broker's office at 12_s._ a week, had his name down as
a subscriber for shares in the London and York line for £52,000.

[85] On the 17th of November, 1845, Mr. Spackman published a list of
the lines _projected_ (many of which were not afterward prosecuted),
from which it appeared that there were then 620 new railway projects
before the public, requiring a capital of £563,203,000.



[Illustration: NEWCASTLE, FROM THE HIGH-LEVEL BRIDGE. [By R. P.
Leitch.]]

CHAPTER XVII.

ROBERT STEPHENSON'S CAREER--THE STEPHENSONS AND BRUNEL--EAST COAST
ROUTE TO SCOTLAND--ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK--HIGH-LEVEL BRIDGE,
NEWCASTLE.


The career of George Stephenson was drawing to a close. He had for some
time been gradually retiring from the more active pursuit of railway
engineering, and confining himself to the promotion of only a few
undertakings, in which he took a more than ordinary personal interest.
In 1840, when the extensive main lines in the Midland districts had
been finished and opened for traffic, he publicly expressed his
intention of withdrawing from the profession. He had reached sixty,
and, having spent the greater part of his life in very hard work, he
naturally desired rest and retirement in his old age. There was the
less necessity for his continuing "in harness," as Robert Stephenson
was now in full career as a leading railway engineer, and his father
had pleasure in handing over to him, with the sanction of the companies
concerned, nearly all the railway appointments which he held.

Robert Stephenson amply repaid his father's care. The sound education
of which he had laid the foundations at school, improved by his
subsequent culture, but more than all by his father's example of
application, industry, and thoroughness in all that he undertook,
told powerfully in the formation of his character not less than in the
discipline of his intellect. His father had early implanted in him
habits of mental activity, familiarized him with the laws of mechanics,
and carefully trained and stimulated his inventive faculties, the first
great fruits of which, as we have seen, were exhibited in the triumph
of the "Rocket" at Rainhill. "I am fully conscious in my own mind,"
said the son at a meeting of the Mechanical Engineers at Newcastle
in 1858, "how greatly my civil engineering has been regulated and
influenced by the mechanical knowledge which I derived directly from
my father; and the more my experience has advanced, the more convinced
I have become that it is necessary to educate an engineer in the
workshop. That is, emphatically, the education which will render the
engineer most intelligent, most useful, and the fullest of resources in
times of difficulty."

Robert Stephenson was but twenty-six years old when the performances
of the "Rocket" established the practicability of steam locomotion on
railways. He was shortly after appointed engineer of the Leicester and
Swannington Railway; after which, at his father's request, he was made
joint engineer with himself in laying out the London and Birmingham
Railway, and the execution of that line was afterward intrusted to
him as sole engineer. The stability and excellence of the works of
that railway, the difficulties which had been successfully overcome in
the course of its construction, and the judgment which was displayed
by Robert Stephenson throughout the whole conduct of the undertaking
to its completion, established his reputation as an engineer, and
his father could now look with confidence and pride upon his son's
achievements. From that time forward, father and son worked together
cordially, each jealous of the other's honor; and on the father's
retirement it was generally recognized that, in the sphere of railways,
Robert Stephenson was the foremost man, the safest guide, and the most
active worker.

Robert Stephenson was subsequently appointed engineer of the Eastern
Counties, the Northern and Eastern, and the Blackwall Railways, besides
many lines in the midland and southern districts. When the speculation
of 1844 set in, his services were, of course, greatly in request. Thus,
in one session, we find him engaged as engineer for not fewer than
thirty-three new schemes. Projectors thought themselves fortunate who
could secure his name, and he had only to propose his terms to obtain
them. The work which he performed at this period of his life was indeed
enormous, and his income was large beyond any previous instance of
engineering gain. But much of the labor done was mere hackwork of a
very uninteresting character. During the sittings of the committees
of Parliament, much time was also occupied in consultations, and in
preparing evidence or in giving it.

The crowded, low-roofed committee-rooms of the old houses of Parliament
were altogether inadequate to accommodate the press of perspiring
projectors of bills, and even the lobbies were sometimes choked with
them. To have borne that noisome atmosphere and heat would have tested
the constitutions of salamanders, and engineers were only human. With
brains kept in a state of excitement during the entire day, no wonder
their nervous systems became unstrung. Their only chance of refreshment
was during an occasional rush to the bun and sandwich stand in the
lobby, though sometimes even that resource failed them. Then, with mind
and body jaded--probably after undergoing a series of consultations
upon many bills after the rising of the committees--the exhausted
engineers would seek to stimulate nature by a late, perhaps a heavy
dinner. What chance had any ordinary constitution of surviving such
an ordeal? The consequence was, that stomach, brain, and liver were
alike injured, and hence the men who bore the heat and brunt of those
struggles--Stephenson, Brunel, Locke, and Errington--have already all
died, comparatively young men.

In mentioning the name of Brunel, we are reminded of him as the
principal rival and competitor of Robert Stephenson. Both were the sons
of distinguished men, and both inherited the fame and followed in the
footsteps of their fathers. The Stephensons were inventive, practical,
and sagacious; the Brunels ingenious, imaginative, and daring. The
former were as thoroughly English in their characteristics as the
latter perhaps were as thoroughly French. The fathers and the sons
were alike successful in their works, though not in the same degree.
Measured by practical and profitable results, the Stephensons were
unquestionably the safer men to follow.

Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were destined often to
come into collision in the course of their professional life. Their
respective railway districts "marched" with each other, and it became
their business to invade or defend those districts, according as the
policy of their respective boards might direct. The gauge of 7 feet
fixed by Brunel for the Great Western Railway, so entirely different
from that of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches adopted by the Stephensons on the
Northern and Midland lines,[86] was from the first a great cause of
contention. But Brunel had always an aversion to follow any man's lead;
and that another engineer had fixed the gauge of a railway, or built
a bridge, or designed an engine in one way, was of itself often a
sufficient reason with him for adopting an altogether different course.
Robert Stephenson, on his part, though less bold, was more practical,
preferring to follow the old routes, and to tread in the safe steps of
his father.

Mr. Brunel, however, determined that the Great Western should be a
giant's road, and that traveling should be conducted upon it at double
speed. His ambition was to make the _best_ road that imagination could
devise, whereas the main object of the Stephensons, both father and
son, was to make a road that would _pay_. Although, tried by the
Stephenson test, Brunel's magnificent road was a failure so far as the
shareholders in the Great Western Company were concerned, the stimulus
which his ambitious designs gave to mechanical invention at the time
proved a general good. The narrow-gauge engineers exerted themselves to
quicken their locomotives to the utmost. They improved and reimproved
them. The machinery was simplified and perfected. Outside cylinders
gave place to inside; the steadier and more rapid and effective action
of the engine was secured, and in a few years the highest speed on
railways went up from thirty to about fifty miles an hour. For this
rapidity in progress we are in no small degree indebted to the stimulus
imparted to the narrow-gauge engineers by Mr. Brunel.

It was one of the characteristics of Brunel to _believe_ in the success
of the schemes for which he was professionally engaged as engineer,
and he proved this by investing his savings largely in the Great
Western Railway, in the South Devon Atmospherical line, and in the
Great Eastern steam-ship, with what results are well known. Robert
Stephenson, on the contrary, with characteristic caution, toward
the latter years of his life avoided holding unguaranteed railway
shares; and though he might execute magnificent structures, such as
the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence, he was careful not to
embark any portion of his own fortune in the ordinary capital of these
concerns. In 1845 he shrewdly foresaw the inevitable crash that was
about to succeed the mania of that year, and while shares were still
at a premium he took the opportunity of selling out all that he held.
He urged his father to do the same thing, but George's reply was
characteristic. "No," said he "I took my shares for an investment, and
not to speculate with, and I am not going to sell them now because
people have gone mad about railways." The consequence was, that he
continued to hold the £60,000 which he had invested in the shares of
various railways until his death, when they were at once sold out by
his son, though at a great depreciation on their original cost.

One of the hardest battles fought between the Stephensons and Brunel
was for the railway between Newcastle and Berwick, forming part of
the great East Coast route to Scotland. As early as 1836 George
Stephenson had surveyed two lines to connect Edinburg with Newcastle:
one by Berwick and Dunbar along the coast, and the other, more inland,
by Carter Fell, up the vale of the Gala, to the northern capital. Two
years later he made a farther examination of the intervening country,
and reported in favor of the coast line. The inland route, however, was
not without its advocates. But both projects lay dormant for several
years longer, until the completion of the Midland and other main lines
as far north as Newcastle had the effect of again reviving the subject
of the extension of the route as far as Edinburg.

On the 18th of June, 1844, the Newcastle and Darlington line--an
important link of the great main highway to the north--was completed
and publicly opened, thus connecting the Thames and the Tyne by a
continuous line of railway. On that day George Stephenson and a
distinguished party of railway men traveled by express train from
London to Newcastle in about nine hours. It was a great event, and was
worthily celebrated. The population of Newcastle held holiday; and a
banquet given in the Assembly Rooms the same evening assumed the form
of an ovation to Mr. Stephenson and his son.

After the opening of this railway, the project of the East Coast line
from Newcastle to Berwick was revived, and George Stephenson, who
had already identified himself with the question, and was intimately
acquainted with every foot of the ground, was again called upon to
assist the promoters with his judgment and experience. He again
recommended as strongly as before the line he had previously surveyed;
and on its being adopted by the local committee, the necessary steps
were taken to have the scheme brought before Parliament in the ensuing
session. The East Coast line was not, however, to be allowed to pass
without a fight. On the contrary, it had to encounter as stout an
opposition as Stephenson had ever experienced.

We have already stated that about this time the plan of substituting
atmospheric pressure for locomotive steam-power in the working of
railways had become very popular. Many eminent engineers avowedly
supported atmospheric in preference to locomotive lines; and many
members of Parliament, headed by the prime ministers, were strongly
disposed in their favor. Mr. Brunel warmly espoused the atmospheric
principle, and his persuasive manner, as well as his admitted
scientific ability, unquestionably exercised considerable influence in
determining the views of many leading members of both houses. Among
others, Lord Howick, one of the members for Northumberland, advocated
the new principle, and, possessing great local influence, he succeeded
in forming a powerful confederacy of the landed gentry in favor of
Brunel's atmospheric railway through the country.

George Stephenson could not brook the idea of seeing the locomotive,
for which he had fought so many stout battles, pushed to one side,
and that in the very county in which its great powers had been first
developed. Nor did he relish the appearance of Mr. Brunel as the
engineer of Lord Howick's scheme, in opposition to the line which had
occupied his thoughts and been the object of his strenuous advocacy
for so many years. When Stephenson first met Brunel in Newcastle, he
good-naturedly shook him by the collar, and asked "what business he
had north of the Tyne?" George gave him to understand that they were
to have a fair stand-up fight for the ground, and shaking hands before
the battle like Englishmen, they parted in good-humor. A public meeting
was held at Newcastle in the following December, when, after a full
discussion of the merits of the respective plans, Stephenson's line was
almost unanimously adopted as the best.

The rival projects went before Parliament in 1845, and a severe contest
ensued. The display of ability and tactics on both sides was great.
Robert Stephenson was examined at great length as to the merits of the
locomotive line, and Brunel at equally great length as to the merits of
the atmospheric. Mr. Brunel, in his evidence, said that, after numerous
experiments, he had arrived at the conclusion that the mechanical
contrivance of the atmospheric system was perfectly applicable, and he
believed that it would likewise be more economical in most cases than
locomotive power. "In short," said he, "rapidity, comfort, safety, and
economy are its chief recommendations."

Notwithstanding the promise of Mr. Sergeant Wrangham, the counsel
for Lord Howick's scheme, that the Northumberland atmospheric was to
be "a _respectable_ line, and not one that was to be converted into
a road for the accommodation of the coal-owners of the district,"
the locomotive again triumphed. The Stephenson Coast line secured
the approval of Parliament, and the shareholders in the Atmospheric
Company were happily prevented investing their capital in what would
unquestionably have proved a gigantic blunder. For, less than three
years later, the whole of the atmospheric tubes which had been laid
down on other lines were pulled up and the materials sold, including
Mr. Brunel's immense tube on the South Devon Railway[87]--to make way
for the working of the locomotive engine. George Stephenson's first
verdict of "It won't do" was thus conclusively confirmed.

Robert Stephenson used afterward to describe with gusto an interview
which took place between Lord Howick and his father, at his office in
Great George Street, during the progress of the bill in Parliament.
His father was in the outer office, where he used to spend a good deal
of his spare time, occasionally taking a quiet wrestle with a friend
when nothing else was stirring.[88] On the day in question, George was
standing with his back to the fire, when Lord Howick called to see
Robert. Oh! thought George, he has come to try and talk Robert over
about that atmospheric gimcrack; but I'll tackle his lordship. "Come
in, my lord," said he; "Robert's busy; but I'll answer your purpose
quite as well; sit down here, if you please." George began, "Now, my
lord, I know very well what you have come about: it's that atmospheric
line in the North; I will show you in less than five minutes that
it can never answer." "If Mr. Robert Stephenson is not at liberty,
I can call again," said his lordship. "He's certainly occupied on
important business just at present," was George's answer, "but I can
tell you far better than he can what nonsense the atmospheric system
is: Robert's good-natured, you see, and if your lordship were to get
alongside of him you might talk him over; so you have been quite lucky
in meeting with me. Now just look at the question of expense," and then
he proceeded in his strong Doric to explain his views in detail, until
Lord Howick could stand it no longer, and he rose and walked toward the
door. George followed him down stairs to finish his demolition of the
atmospheric system, and his parting words were, "You may take my word
for it, my lord, it will never answer." George afterward told his son
with glee of "the settler" he had given Lord Howick.

So closely were the Stephensons identified with this measure, and so
great was the personal interest which they were both known to take in
its success, that, on the news of the passing of the bill reaching
Newcastle, a sort of general holiday took place, and the workmen
belonging to the Stephenson Locomotive Factory, upward of eight hundred
in number, walked in procession through the principal streets of the
town, accompanied by music and banners.

[Illustration: ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK. [By R. P. Leitch, after
his original Drawing.]]

It is unnecessary to enter into any description of the works of the
Newcastle and Berwick Railway. There are no fewer than a hundred
and ten bridges of all sorts on the line--some under and some over
it--the viaducts over the Ouseburn, the Wansbeck, and the Coquet being
of considerable importance. But by far the most formidable piece of
masonry work on this railway is at its northern extremity, where
it passes across the Tweed into Scotland, immediately opposite the
formerly redoubtable castle of Berwick. Not many centuries had passed
since the district amid which this bridge stands was the scene of
almost constant warfare. Berwick was regarded as the key of Scotland,
and was fiercely fought for, being sometimes held by a Scotch and
sometimes by an English garrison. Though strongly fortified, it was
repeatedly taken by assault. On its capture by Edward I., Boetius
says, 17,000 persons were slain, so that its streets "ran with blood
like a river." Within sight of the ramparts, a little to the west, is
Halidon Hill, where a famous victory was gained by Edward III. over the
Scottish army under Douglas; and there is scarcely a foot of ground
in the neighborhood but has been the scene of contention in days long
past. In the reigns of James I. and Charles I., a bridge of fifteen
arches was built across the Tweed at Berwick; and now a railway bridge
of twenty-eight arches was built a little above the old one, but at a
much higher level. The bridge built by the kings out of the national
resources cost £15,000, and occupied twenty-four years and four months
in the building; the bridge built by the Railway Company, with funds
drawn from private resources, cost £120,000, and was finished in three
years and four months from the day of laying the foundation stone.

This important viaduct, built after the designs of Robert Stephenson,
consists of a series of twenty-eight semicircular arches, each 61 feet
6 inches in span, the greatest height above the bed of the river being
126 feet. The whole is built of ashlar, with a hearting of rubble,
excepting the river parts of the arches, which are constructed with
bricks laid in cement. The total length of the work is 2160 feet. The
foundations of the piers were got in by coffer-dams in the ordinary
way, Nasmyth's steam-hammer being extensively used in driving the
piles. The bearing piles, from which the foundations of the piers were
built up, were each capable of carrying 70 tons.

Another bridge, of still greater importance, necessary to complete
the continuity of the East Coast route, was the master-work erected
by Robert Stephenson between the north and south banks of the Tyne,
at Newcastle, commonly known as the High-Level Bridge. Mr. R. W.
Brandling, George Stephenson's early friend, is entitled to the
merit of originating the idea of this bridge, as it was eventually
carried out, with a central terminus for the northern railways in the
Castle Garth. The plan was first promulgated by him in 1841; and in
the following year it was resolved that George Stephenson should be
consulted as to the most advisable site for the proposed structure.
A prospectus of a High-Level Bridge Company was issued in 1843, the
names of George Stephenson and George Hudson appearing on the committee
of management, Robert Stephenson being the consulting engineer. The
project was eventually taken up by the Newcastle and Darlington Railway
Company, and an act for the construction of the bridge was obtained in
1845.

The rapid extension of railways had given an extraordinary stimulus to
the art of bridge-building; the number of such structures erected in
Great Britain alone, since 1830, having been above thirty thousand,
or far more than all that previously existed in the country. Instead
of the erection of a single large bridge constituting, as formerly,
an epoch in engineering, hundreds of extensive bridges of novel
design were simultaneously constructed. The necessity which existed
for carrying rigid roads, capable of bearing heavy railway trains at
high speed, over extensive gaps free of support, rendered it apparent
that the methods which had up to that time been employed for bridging
space were altogether insufficient. The railway engineer could not,
like the ordinary road engineer, divert his road, and make choice
of the best point for crossing a river or a valley. He must take
such ground as lay in the line of his railway, be it bog, or mud, or
shifting sand. Navigable rivers and crowded thoroughfares had to be
crossed without interruption to the existing traffic, sometimes by
bridges at right angles to the river or road, sometimes by arches
more or less oblique. In many cases great difficulty arose from the
limited nature of the headway; but, as the level of the original
road must generally be preserved, and that of the railway was in a
measure fixed and determined, it was necessary to modify the form and
structure of the bridge in almost every case, in order to comply with
the public requirements. Novel conditions were met by fresh inventions,
and difficulties of an unusual character were one after another
successfully surmounted. In executing these extraordinary works, iron
has been throughout the sheet-anchor of the engineer. In the various
forms of cast and wrought iron it offered a valuable resource where
rapidity of execution, great strength and cheapness of construction
in the first instance were elements of prime importance, and by its
skillful use the railway architect was enabled to achieve results which
thirty years since would scarcely have been thought possible.

In many of the early cast-iron bridges the old form of the arch
was adopted, the stability of the structure depending wholly on
compression, the only novel feature consisting in the use of iron
instead of stone. But in a large proportion of cases, the arch, with
the railroad over it, was found inapplicable in consequence of the
limited headway which it provided. Hence it early occurred to George
Stephenson, when constructing the Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
to adopt the simple cast-iron beam for the crossing of several roads
and canals along that line--this beam resembling in some measure the
lintel of the early temples--the pressure on the abutments being purely
vertical. One of the earliest instances of this kind of bridge was
that erected over Water Street, Manchester, in 1829; after which,
cast-iron girders, with their lower webs considerably larger than
their upper, were ordinarily employed where the span was moderate, and
wrought-iron tie-rods below were added to give increased strength where
the span was greater.

The next step was the contrivance of arched beams or bow-string
girders, firmly held together by horizontal ties to resist the thrust,
instead of abutments. Numerous excellent specimens of this description
of bridge were erected by Robert Stephenson on the original London and
Birmingham Railway; but by far the grandest work of the kind--perfect
as a specimen of modern constructive skill--was the High-Level Bridge,
which we owe to the genius of the same engineer.

The problem was to throw a railway bridge across the deep ravine which
lies between the towns of Newcastle and Gateshead, at the bottom of
which flows the navigable river Tyne. Along and up the sides of the
valley--on the Newcastle bank especially--run streets of old-fashioned
houses, clustered together in the strange forms peculiar to the older
cities. The ravine is of great depth--so deep and gloomy-looking toward
dusk, that local tradition records that when the Duke of Cumberland
arrived late in the evening, at the brow of the hill overlooking the
Tyne, on his way to Culloden, he exclaimed to his attendants, on
looking down into the black gorge before him, "For God's sake, don't
think of taking me down that coal-pit at this time of night!" The road
down the Gateshead High Street is almost as steep as the roof of a
house, and up the Newcastle Side, as the street there is called, it is
little better. During many centuries the traffic north and south passed
along this dangerous and difficult route, across the old bridge which
spans the river in the bottom of the valley. For some thirty years the
Newcastle Corporation had discussed various methods of improving the
communication between the towns; and the discussion might have gone on
for thirty years more, but for the advent of railways, when the skill
and enterprise to which they gave birth speedily solved the difficulty
and bridged the ravine. The local authorities adroitly took advantage
of the opportunity, and insisted on the provision of a road for
ordinary vehicles and foot passengers in addition to the railroad. In
this circumstance originated one of the most remarkable peculiarities
of the High-Level Bridge, which serves two purposes, being a railway
above, with a carriage roadway underneath.

The breadth of the river at the point of crossing is 515 feet, but
the length of the bridge and viaduct between the Gateshead station
and the terminus on the Newcastle side is about 4000 feet. It springs
from Pipewell Gate Bank, on the south, directly across to Castle
Garth, where, nearly fronting the bridge, stands the fine old Norman
keep of the _New_ Castle, now nearly eight hundred years old; and a
little beyond it is the spire of St. Nicholas Church, with its light
and graceful Gothic crown, the whole forming a grand architectural
group of unusual historic interest. The bridge passes completely over
the roofs of the houses which fill both sides of the valley, and the
extraordinary height of the upper parapet, which is about 130 feet
above the bed of the river, offers a prospect to the passing traveler
the like of which is perhaps nowhere else to be seen. Far below lie
the queer chares and closes, the wynds and lanes of old Newcastle;
the water is crowded with pudgy, black coal keels; and, when there is
a lull in the great clouds of smoke which usually obscure the sky,
the funnels of steamers and the masts of the shipping may be seen far
down the river. The old bridge lies so far beneath that the passengers
crossing it seem like so many bees passing to and fro.

The first difficulty encountered in building the bridge was in securing
a solid foundation for the piers. The dimensions of the piles to be
driven were so huge that the engineer found it necessary to employ
some extraordinary means for the purpose. He called Nasmyth's Titanic
steam-hammer to his aid--the first occasion, we believe, on which this
prodigious power was employed in bridge pile-driving. A temporary
staging was erected for the steam-engine and hammer apparatus, which
rested on two keels, and, notwithstanding the newness and stiffness of
the machinery, the first pile was driven on the 6th of October, 1846,
to a depth of 32 feet in four minutes. Two hammers of 30 cwt. each
were kept in regular use, making from 60 to 70 strokes per minute,
and the results were astounding to those who had been accustomed to
the old style of pile-driving by means of the ordinary pile-frame,
consisting of slide, ram, and monkey. By the old system the pile was
driven by a comparatively small mass of iron descending with great
velocity from a considerable height--the velocity being in excess and
the mass deficient, and calculated, like the momentum of a cannon-ball,
rather for destructive than impulsive action. In the case of the steam
pile-driver, on the contrary, the whole weight of a heavy mass is
delivered rapidly upon a driving-block of several tons weight placed
directly over the head of the pile, the weight never ceasing, and the
blows being repeated at the rate of a blow a second, until the pile
is driven home. It is a curious fact, that the rapid strokes of the
steam-hammer evolved so much heat, that on many occasions the pile-head
burst into flame during the process of driving. The elastic force of
steam is the power that lifts the ram, the escape permitting its entire
force to fall upon the head of the driving-block; while the steam above
the piston on the upper part of the cylinder, acting as a buffer or
recoil-spring, materially enhances the effect of the downward blow. As
soon as one pile was driven, the traveler, hovering overhead, presented
another, and down it went into the solid bed of the river with almost
as much ease as a lady sticks pins into a cushion. By the aid of this
formidable machine, what before was among the most costly and tedious
of engineering operations was rendered simple, easy, and economical.

When the piles had been driven and the coffer-dams formed and puddled,
the water within the inclosed spaces was pumped out by the aid of
powerful engines, so as to lay bare the bed of the river. Considerable
difficulty was experienced in getting in the foundations of the middle
pier, in consequence of the water forcing itself through the quicksand
beneath as fast as it was removed. This fruitless labor went on for
months, and many expedients were tried. Chalk was thrown in in large
quantities outside the piling, but without effect. Cement concrete was
at last put within the coffer-dam until it set, and the bottom was
then found to be secure. A bed of concrete was laid up to the level of
the heads of the piles, the foundation course of stone blocks being
commenced about two feet below low water, and the building proceeded
without farther difficulty. It may serve to give an idea of the
magnitude of the work when we state that 400,000 cubic feet of ashlar,
rubble, and concrete were worked up in the piers, and 450,000 cubic
feet in the land-arches and approaches.

[Illustration: HIGH-LEVEL BRIDGE--ELEVATION OF ONE ARCH.]
PLAN OF ONE ARCH.]

The most novel feature of the structure is the use of cast and wrought
iron in forming the double bridge, which admirably combines the two
principles of the arch and suspension, the railway being carried
over the back of the ribbed arches in the usual manner, while the
carriage-road and footpaths, forming a long gallery or aisle, are
suspended from these arches by wrought-iron vertical rods, with
horizontal tie-bars to resist the thrust. The suspension-bolts are
inclosed within spandril pillars of cast iron, which give great
stiffness to the superstructure. This system of longitudinal and
vertical bracing has been much admired, for it not only accomplishes
the primary object of securing rigidity in the roadway, but at the
same time, by its graceful arrangement, heightens the beauty of the
structure. The arches consist of four main ribs, disposed in pairs,
with a clear distance between the two inner arches of 20 feet 4 inches,
forming the carriage-road, while between each of the inner and outer
ribs there is a space of 6 feet 2 inches, constituting the footpaths.
Each arch is cast in five separate lengths or segments, strongly bolted
together. The ribs spring from horizontal plates of cast iron, bedded
and secured on the stone piers. All the abutting joints were carefully
executed by machinery, the fitting being of the most perfect kind. In
order to provide for the expansion and contraction of the iron arching,
and to preserve the equilibrium of the piers without disturbance or
racking of the other parts of the bridge, it was arranged that the
ribs of every two adjoining arches resting on the same pier should be
secured to the springing-plates by keys and joggles; while on the next
piers, on either side, the ribs remained free, and were at liberty to
expand or contract according to temperature--a space being left for
the purpose. Hence each arch is complete and independent in itself, the
piers having simply to sustain their vertical pressure. The arches are
six in number, of 125 feet span each, the two approaches to the bridge
being formed of cast-iron pillars and bearers in keeping with the
arches.

The result is a bridge that for massive solidity may be pronounced
unrivaled. It is one of the most magnificent and striking of the
bridges to which railways have given birth, and has been worthily
styled "the King of railway structures." It is a monument of the
highest engineering skill of our time, with the impress of power
grandly stamped upon it. It will also be observed from the drawing
placed as the frontispiece to this Life, that the High-Level Bridge
forms a very fine object in a picture of great interest, full of
striking architectural variety and beauty. The bridge was opened on
the 15th of August, 1849. A few days after, the royal train passed
over it, halting for a few minutes to enable her majesty to survey the
wonderful scene below. In the course of the following year the queen
opened the extensive stone viaduct across the Tweed above described,
by which the last link was completed of the continuous line of railway
between London and Edinburg. Over the entrance to the Berwick station,
occupying the site of the once redoubtable Border fortress, so often
the deadly battle-ground of the ancient Scots and English, was erected
an arch under which the royal train passed, bearing in large letters of
gold the appropriate words, "_The last act of the Union_."

The warders at Berwick no longer look out from the castle walls to
descry the glitter of Southron spears. The bell-tower, from which the
alarm was sounded of old, though still standing, is deserted; the only
bell heard within the precincts of the old castle being the railway
porter's bell announcing the arrival and departure of trains. You see
the Scotch Express pass along the bridge and speed southward on the
wings of steam. But no alarm spreads along the Border now. Northumbrian
beeves are safe. Chevy Chase and Otterburn are quiet sheep-pastures.
The only men-at-arms on the battlements of Alnwick Castle are of stone.
Bamborough Castle has become an asylum for shipwrecked mariners, and
the Norman Keep at Newcastle has been converted into a Museum of
Antiquities. The railway has indeed consummated the Union.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] The original width of the coal tram-roads in the North virtually
determined the British gauge. It was the width of the ordinary
road-track--not fixed after any scientific theory, but adopted simply
because its use had already been established. George Stephenson
introduced it without alteration on the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, and the lines subsequently formed in that district were laid
down of the same width. Stephenson from the first anticipated the
general extension of railways throughout England, and one of the ideas
with which he started was the essential importance of preserving such
a uniformity as would admit of perfect communication between them.
When consulted about the gauge of the Canterbury and Whitstable, and
Leicester and Swannington Railways, he said, "Make them of the same
width: though they may be a long way apart now, depend upon it they
will be joined together some day." All the railways, therefore, laid
down by himself and his assistants in the neighborhood of Manchester,
extending from thence to London on the south, and to Leeds on the east,
were constructed on the Liverpool and Manchester, or narrow gauge.
Besides the Great Western Railway, where the gauge adopted was seven
feet, the only other line on which a broader gauge than four feet
eight and a half inches was adopted was the Eastern Counties, where it
was five feet, Mr. Braithwaite, the engineer, being of opinion that
an increase of three and a half inches in the width of the line would
afford better space for the machinery of the locomotive. But when the
northern and eastern extension of the same line was formed, which was
to work into the narrow-gauge system of the Midland Railway, Robert
Stephenson, its new engineer, strongly recommended the directors of the
Eastern Counties Line to alter their gauge accordingly, for the purpose
of securing uniformity, and they adopted his recommendation.

[87] The atmospheric lines had for some time been working very
irregularly and very expensively. Robert Stephenson, in a letter to
Mr. T. Sopwith, F.R.S., dated the 8th of January, 1846, wrote: "Since
my return [from Italy] I have learned that your atmospheric friends
are very sickly. A slow typhus has followed the high fever I left
them in about three months ago. I don't anticipate, however, that the
patient will expire suddenly. There is every appearance of the case
being a protracted one, though a fatal termination is inevitable. When
the pipes are sold by auction, I intend to buy one and present it to
the British Museum." During the last half year of the atmospheric
experiment on the South Devon line in 1848, the expenditure exceeded
the gross income (£26,782) by £2487, or about 9-3/4 per cent. excess of
working expenses beyond the gross receipts.

[88] "When my father came about the office," said Robert, "he sometimes
did not well know what to do with himself. So he used to invite Bidder
to have a quiet wrestle with him, for old acquaintance sake. And the
two wrestled together so often, and had so many 'falls' (sometimes I
thought they would bring the house down between them), that they broke
half the chairs in my outer office. I remember once sending my father
in a joiner's bill of about £2 10_s._ for the mending of broken chairs."



CHAPTER XVIII.

CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD RAILWAY--MENAI AND CONWAY BRIDGES.


We have now to describe briefly another great undertaking, begun by
George Stephenson, and taken up and completed by his son, in the course
of which the latter carried out some of his greatest works--we mean the
Chester and Holyhead Railway, completing the railway connection with
Dublin, as the Newcastle and Berwick line completed the connection with
Edinburg. It will thus be seen how closely Telford was followed by the
Stephensons in perfecting the highways of their respective epochs; the
former by means of turnpike roads, and the latter by means of railways.

George Stephenson surveyed a line from Chester to Holyhead in 1838,
and at the same time reported on the line through North Wales to Port
Dynallen, as proposed by the Irish Railway Commissioners. His advice
was strongly in favor of adopting the line to Holyhead, as less costly
and presenting better gradients. A public meeting was held at Chester
in January, 1839, in support of the latter measure, at which he was
present to give explanations. Mr. Uniacke, the mayor, in opening the
proceedings, observed that it clearly appeared that the rival line
through Shrewsbury was quite impracticable. Mr. Stephenson, he added,
was present in the room, ready to answer any questions which might be
put to him on the subject; and "it would be better that he should be
asked questions than required to make a speech; for, though a very good
engineer, he was a bad speaker."

One of the questions then put to Mr. Stephenson related to the mode
by which he proposed to haul the passenger-carriages over the Menai
Suspension Bridge by horse-power; and he was asked whether he knew the
pressure the bridge was capable of sustaining. His answer was that
"he had not yet made any calculations, but he proposed getting data
which would enable him to arrive at an accurate calculation of the
actual strain upon the bridge during the late gale. He had, however,
no hesitation in saying that it was more than twenty times as much
as the strain of a train of carriages and a locomotive engine. The
only reason why he proposed to convey the carriages over by horses was
in order that he might, by distributing the weight, not increase the
wavy motion. All the train would be on at once, but distributed. This
he thought better than passing them linked together, by a locomotive
engine." It will thus be observed that the practicability of throwing a
rigid railroad bridge across the Straits had not yet been completed.

The Dublin Chamber of Commerce passed resolutions in favor of
Stephenson's line after hearing his explanations of its essential
features. The project, after undergoing much discussion, was at length
embodied in an act passed in 1844, and the work was brought to a
successful completion by his son, with several important modifications,
including the grand original feature of the tubular bridges across the
Menai Straits and the estuary of the Conway. Excepting these great
works, the construction of this line presented no unusual features,
though the remarkable terrace cut for the accommodation of the railway
under the steep slope of Penmaen Mawr is worthy of a passing notice.

About midway between Conway and Bangor, Penmaen Mawr forms a bold and
almost precipitous headland, at the base of which, in rough weather,
the ocean dashes with great fury. There was not space enough between
the mountain and the strand for the passage of the railway; hence in
some places the rock had to be blasted to form a terrace, and in others
sea walls had to be built up to the proper level, on which to form an
embankment of sufficient width to enable the road to be laid. A tunnel
of 10-1/2 chains in length was cut through the headland itself; and
on its east and west sides the line was formed by a terrace cut out
of the cliff, and by embankments protected by sea walls, the terrace
being three times interrupted by embankments in its course of about a
mile and a quarter. The road lies so close under the steep mountain
face that it was even found necessary at certain places to protect it
against possible accidents from falling stones, by means of a covered
way. The terrace on the east side of the headland was, however, in some
measure, protected against the roll of the sea by the mass of stone run
out from the tunnel, which formed a deep shingle-bank in front of the
wall.

[Illustration: PENMAEN MAWR. [By Percival Skelton, after his original
Drawing.]]

The part of the work which lies to the westward of the headland
penetrated by the tunnel was exposed to the full force of the sea,
and the formation of the road at that point was attended with great
difficulty. While the sea wall was still in progress, its strength was
severely tried by a strong northwesterly gale which blew in October,
1846, accompanied with a spring tide of 17 feet. On the following
morning it was found that a large portion of the rubble was irreparably
injured, and 200 yards of the wall were then replaced by an open
viaduct, with the piers placed edgeways to the sea, the openings
between them being spanned by ten cast-iron girders 42 feet long. This
accident farther induced the engineer to alter the contour of the sea
wall, so that it should present a diminished resistance to the force
of the waves.

But the sea repeated its assaults, and made farther havoc with the
work, entailing heavy expenses and a complete reorganization of the
contract. Increased solidity was then given to the masonry, and the
face of the wall underwent farther change. At some points outworks were
constructed, and piles were driven into the beach about 15 feet from
the base of the wall for the purpose of protecting its foundations and
breaking the force of the waves. The work was at length finished after
about three years' anxious labor; but Mr. Stephenson confessed that if
a long tunnel had been made in the first instance through the solid
rock of Penmaen Mawr, a saving of from £25,000 to £30,000 would have
been effected. He also said he had arrived at the conclusion that in
railway works engineers should endeavor as far as possible to avoid the
necessity of contending with the sea;[89] but if he were ever again
compelled to go within its reach, he would adopt, instead of retaining
walls, an open viaduct, placing all the piers edgeways to the force
of the sea, and allowing the waves to break upon a natural slope of
beach. He was ready enough to admit the errors he had committed in the
original design of this work; but he said he had always gained more
information from studying the causes of failures and endeavoring to
surmount them, than he had done from easily-won successes. While many
of the latter had been forgotten, the former were indelibly fixed in
his memory.

But by far the greatest difficulty which Robert Stephenson had to
encounter in executing this railway was in carrying it across the
Straits of Menai and the estuary of the Conway, where, like his
predecessor Telford, when forming his high road through North Wales,
he was under the necessity of resorting to new and altogether untried
methods of bridge construction. At Menai, the waters of the Irish Sea
are perpetually vibrating along the precipitous shores of the Strait,
rising and falling from 20 to 25 feet at each successive tide, the
width and depth of the channel being such as to render it available
for navigation by the largest ships. The problem was to throw a bridge
across this wide chasm--a bridge of unusual span and dimensions--of
such strength as to be capable of bearing the heaviest loads at high
speeds, and of such a uniform height throughout as not in any way to
interfere with the navigation of the Strait. From an early period Mr.
Stephenson had fixed upon the spot where the Britannia Rock occurs,
nearly in the middle of the channel, as the most eligible point for
crossing, the water width from shore to shore at high water being there
about 1100 feet.

[Illustration: MAP OF MENAI STRAIT; BRITANNIA BRIDGE]

The engineer's first idea was to construct the bridge of two cast-iron
arches of 350 feet span each. There was no novelty in this idea; for,
as early as the year 1801, Mr. Rennie prepared a design of a cast-iron
bridge across the Strait at the Swilly Rocks, the great centre arch of
which was to be 450 feet span; and at a later period, in 1810, Telford
submitted a design of a similar bridge at Inys-y-Moch, with a single
cast-iron arch of 500 feet. But the same objections which led to the
rejection of Rennie's and Telford's designs proved fatal to Robert
Stephenson's, and his iron-arched railway bridge was rejected by the
Admiralty. The navigation of the Strait was under no circumstances to
be interfered with; and even the erection of scaffolding from below,
to support the bridge during construction, was not to be permitted.
The idea of a suspension bridge was dismissed as inapplicable, a
degree of rigidity and strength greater than could be secured by any
bridge erected on the principle of suspension being considered an
indispensable condition of the proposed structure.

Mr. Stephenson next considered the expediency of erecting a bridge by
means of suspended centering, after the ingenious method proposed by
Telford in 1810,[90] by which the arching was to be carried out by
placing equal and corresponding voussoirs on opposite sides of the pier
at the same time, tying them together by horizontal tie-bolts. The
arching, thus extended outward from each pier and held in equilibrium,
would have been connected at the crown with the extremity of the arch
advanced in like manner from the adjoining pier. It was, however, found
that this method of construction was not applicable at the crossing
of the Conway, and it was eventually abandoned. Various other plans
were suggested; but the whole question remained unsettled even down to
the time when the company went before Parliament in 1844 for power to
construct the proposed bridges. No existing kind of structure seemed
to be capable of bearing the severe extension to which rigid bridges
of the necessary spans would be subjected, and some new expedient of
engineering therefore became necessary.

Mr. Stephenson was then led to reconsider a design which he had made
in 1841 for a road bridge over the River Lea at Ware, with a span of
50 feet, the conditions only admitting of a platform 18 or 20 inches
thick. For this purpose a wrought-iron platform was devised, consisting
of a series of simple cells, formed of boiler-plates riveted together
with angle-iron. The bridge was not, however, carried out after this
design, but was made of separate wrought-iron girders composed of
riveted plates.[91] Recurring to his first idea of this bridge, the
engineer thought that a stiff platform might be constructed, with
sides of strongly-trussed frame-work of wrought iron, braced together
at top and bottom with plates of like material riveted together with
angle-iron, after a method adopted by Mr. Rendel in stiffening the
suspension bridge at Montrose with wooden trellis-work a few years
before; and that such platform might be suspended by strong chains
on either side to give it increased security. "It was now," says Mr.
Stephenson, "that I came to regard the tubular platform as a beam, and
that the chains should be looked upon as auxiliaries." It appeared to
him, nevertheless, that without a system of diagonal struts inside,
which of course would have prevented the passage of trains _through_
it, this kind of structure was ill suited for maintaining its form, and
would be very liable to become lozenge-shaped. Besides, the rectangular
figure was deemed objectionable, from the large surface which it
presented to the wind.

It then occurred to him that circular or elliptical tubes might better
answer the intended purpose; and in March, 1845, he gave instructions
to two of his assistants to prepare drawings of such a structure, the
tubes being made with a double thickness of plate at top and bottom.
The results of the calculations made as to the strength of such a tube
were considered so satisfactory, that Mr. Stephenson says he determined
to fall back upon a bridge of this description on the rejection of his
design of the two cast-iron arches by the Parliamentary Committee.
Indeed, it became evident that a tubular wrought-iron beam was the only
structure which combined the necessary strength and stability for a
railway, with the conditions deemed essential for the protection of the
navigation:

  "I stood," says Mr. Stephenson, "on the verge of a responsibility
  from which, I confess, I had nearly shrunk. The construction of a
  tubular beam of such gigantic dimensions, on a platform elevated
  and supported by chains at such a height, did at first present
  itself as a difficulty of a very formidable nature. Reflection,
  however, satisfied me that the principles upon which the idea was
  founded were nothing more than an extension of those daily in
  use in the profession of the engineer. The method, moreover, of
  calculating the strength of the structure which I had adopted was
  of the simplest and most elementary character; and whatever might
  be the form of the tube, the principle on which the calculations
  were founded was equally applicable, and could not fail to lead
  to equally accurate results."[92]

Mr. Stephenson accordingly announced to the directors of the railway
that he was prepared to carry out a bridge of this general description,
and they adopted his views, though not without considerable misgivings.

While the engineer's mind was still occupied with the subject, an
accident occurred to the _Prince of Wales_ iron steam-ship, at
Blackwall, which singularly corroborated his views as to the strength
of wrought-iron beams of large dimensions. When this vessel was being
launched, the cleat on the bow gave way in consequence of the bolts
breaking, and let the vessel down so that the bilge came in contact
with the wharf, and she remained suspended between the water and the
wharf for a length of about 110 feet, but without any injury to the
plates of the ship, satisfactorily proving the great strength of this
form of construction. Thus Mr. Stephenson became gradually confirmed
in his opinion that the most feasible method of bridging the strait at
Menai and the river at Conway was by means of a hollow tube of wrought
iron. As the time was approaching for giving evidence before Parliament
on the subject, it was necessary for him to settle some definite plan
for submission to the committee.

  "My late revered father," says he, "having always taken a deep
  interest in the various proposals which had been considered for
  carrying a railway across the Menai Straits, requested me to
  explain fully to him the views which led me to suggest the use
  of a tube, and also the nature of the calculations I had made in
  reference to it. It was during this personal conference that Mr.
  William Fairbairn accidentally called upon me, to whom I also
  explained the principles of the structure I had proposed. He at
  once acquiesced in their truth, and expressed confidence in the
  feasibility of my project, giving me at the same time some facts
  relative to the remarkable strength of iron steam-ships, and
  invited me to his works at Millwall to examine the construction of
  an iron steam-ship which was then in progress."[93]

The date of this consultation was early in April, 1845, and Mr.
Fairbairn states that, on that occasion,

  "Mr. Stephenson asked whether such a design was practicable, and
  whether I could accomplish it; and it was ultimately arranged that
  the subject should be investigated experimentally, to determine
  not only the value of Mr. Stephenson's original conception (of a
  circular or egg-shaped wrought-iron tube, supported by chains),
  but that of any other tubular form of bridge which might present
  itself in the prosecution of my researches. The matter was placed
  unreservedly in my hands; the entire conduct of the investigation
  was intrusted to me; and, as an experimenter, I was to be left free
  to exercise my own discretion in the investigation of whatever
  forms or conditions of the structure might appear to me best
  calculated to secure a safe passage across the Straits."[94]

Mr. Fairbairn then proceeded to construct a number of experimental
models, for the purpose of testing the strength of tubes of different
forms. The short period which elapsed, however, before the bill was
in committee, did not admit of much progress being made with those
experiments; but from the evidence in chief given by Mr. Stephenson
on the subject on the 5th of May following, it appears that the idea
which prevailed in his mind was that of a bridge with openings of
450 feet (afterward increased to 460 feet), with a roadway formed of
a hollow wrought-iron beam about 25 feet in diameter, presenting a
rigid platform suspended by chains. At the same time, he expressed the
confident opinion that a tube of wrought iron would possess sufficient
strength and rigidity to support a railway train running inside of it
without the help of the chains.

While the bill was still in progress, Mr. Fairbairn proceeded with
his experiments. He first tested tubes of a cylindrical form, in
consequence of the favorable opinion entertained by Mr. Stephenson
of tubes in that shape, extending them subsequently to those of an
elliptical form.[95] He found tubes thus shaped more or less defective,
and proceeded to test those of a rectangular kind. After the bill had
received the royal assent, on the 30th of June, 1845, the directors
of the company, with great liberality, voted a sum for the purpose of
enabling the experiments to be prosecuted, and upward of £6000 were
thus expended to make the assurance of their engineer doubly sure.

Mr. Fairbairn's tests were of the most elaborate and eventually
conclusive character, bringing to light many new and important facts
of great practical value. The due proportions and thicknesses of the
top, bottom, and sides of the tubes were arrived at after a vast number
of separate trials, one of the results of the experiments being the
adoption of Mr. Fairbairn's invention of rectangular hollow cells in
the top of the beam for the purpose of giving it the requisite degree
of strength. About the end of August it was thought desirable to obtain
the assistance of a mathematician, who should prepare a formula by
which the strength of a full-sized tube might be calculated from the
results of the experiments made with tubes of smaller dimensions.
Professor Hodgkinson was accordingly called in, and he proceeded to
verify and confirm the experiments which Mr. Fairbairn had made, and
afterward reduced them to the required formulæ, though Mr. Fairbairn
states that they did not appear in time to be of any practical service
in proportioning the parts of the largest tubes.[96]

Mr. Stephenson's time was so much engrossed with his extensive
engineering business that he was in a great measure precluded from
devoting himself to the consideration of the practical details, which
he felt were safe in the hands of Mr. Fairbairn--"a gentleman," as he
stated to the Committee of the Commons, "whose experience was greater
than that of any other man in England." The results of the experiments
were communicated to him from time to time, and were regarded by him
as exceedingly satisfactory. It would appear, however, that while Mr.
Fairbairn urged the sufficient rigidity and strength of the tubes
without the aid of chains, Mr. Stephenson had not quite made up his
mind upon the point. Mr. Hodgkinson, also, was strongly inclined to
retain them.[97] Mr. Fairbairn held that it was quite practicable
to make the tubes "sufficiently strong to sustain not only their own
weight, but, in addition to that load, 2000 tons equally distributed
over the surface of the platform--a load ten times greater than they
will ever be called upon to support."

It was thoroughly characteristic of Mr. Stephenson, and of the
caution with which he proceeded in every step of this great
undertaking--probing every inch of the ground before he set his foot
down upon it--that he should, early in 1846, have appointed his able
assistant, Mr. Edwin Clark, to scrutinize carefully the results of
every experiment, whether made by Mr. Fairbairn or Mr. Hodgkinson,
and subject them to a separate and independent analysis before
finally deciding upon the form or dimensions of the structure, or
upon any mode of procedure connected with it. That great progress
had been made by the two chief experimenters before the end of 1846
appears from the papers on the subject read by Messrs. Fairbairn and
Hodgkinson before the British Association at Southampton in September
of that year. In the course of the following month Mr. Stephenson had
become satisfied that the use of auxiliary chains was unnecessary,
and that the tubular bridge might be made of such strength as to be
entirely self-supporting.[98] While these important discussions
were in progress, measures were taken to proceed with the masonry
of the bridges simultaneously at Conway and the Menai Strait. The
foundation-stone of the Britannia Bridge was laid by Mr. Frank Forster,
the resident engineer, on the 10th of April, 1846; and on the 12th
of May following that of the Conway Bridge was laid by Mr. A. M.
Ross, resident engineer at that part of the works. Suitable platforms
and workshops were also erected for proceeding with the punching,
fitting, and riveting of the tubes; and when these operations were in
full progress, the neighborhood of the Conway and Britannia Bridges
presented scenes of extraordinary bustle and industry. On the 11th of
July, 1847, Mr. Clark informed Mr. Stephenson that "the masonry gets on
rapidly. The abutments on the Anglesea side resemble the foundations
of a great city rather than of a single structure, and nothing appears
to stand still here." About 1500 men were employed on the Britannia
Bridge alone, and they mostly lived upon the ground in wooden cottages
erected for the occasion. The iron plates were brought in ship-loads
from Liverpool, Anglesea marble from Penmon, and red sandstone from
Runcorn, in Cheshire, as wind and tide, and shipping and convenience,
might determine. There was an unremitting clank of hammers, grinding
of machinery, and blasting of rock going on from morning to night. In
fitting the Britannia tubes together not less than 2,000,000 of bolts
were riveted, weighing some 900 tons.

The Britannia Bridge consists of two independent continuous tubular
beams, each 1511 feet in length, and each weighing 4680 tons,
independent of the cast-iron frames inserted at their bearings on
the masonry of the towers. These immense beams are supported at five
places, namely, on the abutments and on three towers, the central of
which is known as the Great Britannia Tower, 230 feet high, built on a
rock in the middle of the Strait. The side towers are 18 feet less in
height than the central one, and the abutments 35 feet lower than the
side towers. The design of the masonry is such as to accord with the
form of the tubes, being somewhat of an Egyptian character, massive and
gigantic rather than beautiful, but bearing the unmistakable impress of
power.

The bridge has four spans--two of 460 feet over the water, and two of
230 feet over the land. The weight of the longer spans, at the points
where the tubes repose on the masonry, is not less than 1587 tons.
On the centre tower the tubes lie solid; but on the land towers and
abutments they lie on roller-beds, so as to allow of expansion and
contraction. The road within each tube is 15 feet wide, and the height
varies from 23 feet at the ends to 30 feet at the centre. To give an
idea of the vast size of the tubes by comparison with other structures,
it may be mentioned that each length constituting the main spans is
twice as long as London Monument is high; and if it could be set on end
in St. Paul's Church-yard, it would reach nearly 100 feet above the
cross.

[Illustration: CONSTRUCTION OF THE MAIN BRITANNIA TUBE ON THE STAGING.]

The Conway Bridge is, in most respects, similar to the Britannia,
consisting of two tubes of 400 feet span, placed side by side, each
weighing 1180 tons. The principle adopted in the construction of the
tubes, and the mode of floating and raising them, was nearly the same
as at the Britannia Bridge, though the general arrangement of the
plates is in many respects different.

It was determined to construct the shorter outer tubes of the Britannia
Bridge on scaffoldings in the positions in which they were permanently
to remain, and to erect the larger tubes upon wooden platforms at
high-water-mark on the Caernarvon shore, from whence they were to be
floated in pontoons--in like manner as Rennie had floated into their
places the centerings of his Waterloo and other bridges--and then
raised into their proper places by means of hydraulic power, after a
method originally suggested by Mr. Edwin Clark. The tubes of the Conway
Bridge also were to be constructed on shore, and floated to their
places on pontoons, as in the case of the main centre tubes of the
Britannia Bridge.

[Illustration: CONWAY BRIDGE. [By Percival Skelton.]]

The floating of these tubes on pontoons, from the places where they
had been constructed to the recesses in the masonry of the towers, up
which they were to be hoisted to the places they were permanently to
occupy, was an anxious and exciting operation. The first proceeding of
this nature was at Conway, where Mr. Stephenson directed it in person,
assisted by Captain Claxton, Mr. Brunel, and other engineering friends.
On the 6th of March, 1848, the pontoons bearing the first great tube
of the up-line were floated round quietly and majestically into their
place between the towers in about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, one
of the sets of pontoons had become slightly slued by the stream, by
which the Conway end of the tube was prevented from being brought home,
and five anxious days to all concerned intervened before it could be
set in its place. In the mean time, the presses and raising machinery
had been fitted in the towers above, and the lifting process was begun
on the 8th of April, when the immense mass was raised 8 feet, at the
rate of about 2 inches a minute. On the 16th the tube had been raised
and finally lowered into its permanent bed; the rails were laid within
it; and on the 18th Mr. Stephenson passed through with the first
locomotive. The second tube was proceeded with on the removal of the
first from the platform, and was completed and floated in seven months.
The rapidity with which this second tube was constructed was in no
small degree owing to the Jacquard punching-machine, contrived for
the purpose of punching the holes for the rivets by Mr. Roberts, of
Manchester. The tube was finally fixed in its permanent bed on the 2d
of January, 1849.

The floating and fixing of the great Britannia tubes was a still more
formidable enterprise, though the experience gained at Conway rendered
it easy compared with what it otherwise would have been. Mr. Stephenson
superintended the operation of floating the first in person, giving
the arranged signals from the top of the tube on which he was mounted,
the active part of the business being performed by a numerous corps of
sailors, under the immediate direction of Captain Claxton. Thousands of
spectators lined the shores of the Strait on the evening of the 19th of
June, 1849. On the land attachments being cut, the pontoons began to
float off; but one of the capstans having given way from the too great
strain put upon it, the tube was brought home again for the night.
By next morning the defective capstan was restored, and all was in
readiness for another trial. At half past seven in the evening the tube
was afloat, and the pontoons swung out into the current like a monster
pendulum, held steady by the shore guide-lines, but increasing in speed
to almost a fearful extent as they neared their destined place between
the piers.

  "The success of this operation," says Mr. Clark, "depended mainly
  on properly striking the 'butt' beneath the Anglesey tower, on
  which, as upon a centre, the tube was to be veered round into its
  position across the opening. This position was determined by a
  12-inch line, which was to be paid out to a fixed mark from the
  Llanfair capstan. The coils of the rope unfortunately overrode
  each other upon this capstan, so that it could not be paid out. In
  resisting the motion of the tube, the capstan was bodily dragged
  out of the platform by the action of the palls, and the tube was
  in imminent danger of being carried away by the stream, or the
  pontoons crushed upon the rocks. The men at the capstan were all
  knocked down, and some of them thrown into the water, though they
  made every exertion to arrest the motion of the capstan-bars. In
  this dilemma, Mr. Charles Rolfe, who had charge of the capstan,
  with great presence of mind called the visitors on shore to his
  assistance; and handing out the spare coil of the 12-inch line
  into the field at the back of the capstan, it was carried with
  great rapidity up the field, and a crowd of people, men, women,
  and children, holding on to this huge cable, arrested the progress
  of the tube, which was at length brought safely against the butt
  and veered round. The Britannia end was then drawn into the recess
  of the masonry by a chain passing through the tower to a crab on
  the far side. The violence of the tide abated, though the wind
  increased, and the Anglesey end was drawn into its place beneath
  the corbeling in the masonry; and as the tide went down, the
  pontoons deposited their valuable cargo on the welcome shelf at
  each end. The successful issue was greeted by cannon from the
  shore and the hearty cheers of many thousands of spectators, whose
  sympathy and anxiety were but too clearly indicated by the unbroken
  silence with which the whole operation had been accompanied."[99]

By midnight all the pontoons had been got clear of the tube, which now
hung suspended over the waters of the Strait by its two ends, which
rested upon the edges cut in the rock for the purpose at the base of
the Britannia and Anglesey towers respectively, up which the tube had
now to be lifted by hydraulic power to its permanent place near the
summit. The accuracy with which the gigantic beam had been constructed
may be inferred from the fact that, after passing into its place, a
clear space remained between the iron plating and the rock outside of
it of only about three quarters of an inch!

Mr. Stephenson's anxiety was, of course, very great up to the time
of effecting this perilous operation. When he had got the first tube
floated at Conway and saw all safe, he said to Captain Moorsom, "Now I
shall go to bed." But the Britannia Bridge was a still more difficult
enterprise, and cost him many a sleepless night. Afterward describing
his feelings to his friend Mr. Gooch, he said, "It was a most anxious
and harassing time with me. Often at night I would lie tossing about,
seeking sleep in vain. The tubes filled my head. I went to bed with
them and got up with them. In the gray of the morning, when I looked
across the Square,[100] it seemed an immense distance across to the
houses on the opposite side. It was nearly the same length as the span
of my tubular bridge!" When the first tube had been floated, a friend
observed to him, "This great work has made you ten years older." "I
have not slept sound," he replied, "for three weeks." Sir F. Head,
however, relates that, when he revisited the spot on the following
morning, he observed, sitting on a platform overlooking the suspended
tube, a gentleman, reclining entirely by himself, smoking a cigar, and
gazing, as if indolently, at the aerial gallery beneath him. It was
the engineer himself, contemplating his newborn child. He had strolled
down from the neighboring village, after his first sound and refreshing
sleep for weeks, to behold in sunshine and solitude that which, during
a weary period of gestation, had been either mysteriously moving in
his brain, or, like a vision--sometimes of good omen and sometimes of
evil--had, by night as well as by day, been flitting across his mind.

The next process was the lifting of the tube into its place, which
was performed very deliberately and cautiously. It was raised by
powerful hydraulic presses, only a few feet at a time, and carefully
under-built, before being raised to a farther height. When it had
been got up by successive stages of this kind to about 24 feet, an
extraordinary accident occurred, during Mr. Stephenson's absence
in London, which he afterward described to the author in as nearly
as possible the following words: "In a work of such novelty and
magnitude, you may readily imagine how anxious I was that every
possible contingency should be provided for. Where one chain or rope
was required, I provided two. I was not satisfied with 'enough:' I
must have absolute security, so far as that was possible. I knew the
consequences of failure would be most disastrous to the company,
and that the wisest economy was to provide for all contingencies,
at whatever cost. When the first tube at the Britannia had been
successfully floated between the piers, ready for being raised, my
young engineers were very much elated; and when the hoisting apparatus
had been fixed, they wrote to me, saying, 'We are now all ready for
raising her: we could do it in a day, or in two at the most.' But my
reply was, No; you must only raise the tube inch by inch, and you must
build up under it as you rise. Every inch must be made good. Nothing
must be left to chance or good luck. And fortunate it was that I
insisted upon this cautious course being pursued; for, one day, while
the hydraulic presses were at work, the bottom of one of them burst
clean away! The cross-head and the chains, weighing more than 50 tons,
descended with a fearful crash upon the press, and the tube itself fell
down upon the packing beneath. Though the fall of the tube was not more
than nine inches, it crunched solid castings, weighing tons, as if they
had been nuts. The tube itself was slightly strained and deflected,
though it still remained sufficiently serviceable. But it was a
tremendous test to which it was put, for a weight of upward of 5000
tons falling even a few inches must be admitted to be a very serious
matter. That it stood so well was extraordinary. Clark immediately
wrote me an account of the circumstance, in which he said, 'Thank God
you have been so obstinate; for if this accident had occurred without
a bed for the end of the tube to fall on, the whole would now have
been lying across the bottom of the Straits.' Five thousand pounds
extra expense was caused by this accident, slight though it might
seem. But careful provision was made against future failure; a new and
improved cylinder was provided; and the work was very soon advancing
satisfactorily toward completion."[101]

When the queen first visited the Britannia Bridge, on her return from
the North in 1852, Robert Stephenson accompanied her majesty and Prince
Albert over the works, explaining the principles on which the bridge
had been built, and the difficulties which had attended its erection.
He conducted the royal party to near the margin of the sea, and, after
describing to them the incident of the fall of the tube, and the reason
of its preservation, he pointed with pardonable pride to a pile of
stones which the workmen had there raised to commemorate the event.
While nearly all the other marks of the work during its progress had
been obliterated, that cairn had been left standing in commemoration of
the caution and foresight of their chief.

[Illustration: MENAI BRIDGE. [By Percival Skelton, after his original
Drawing.]]

The floating and raising of the remaining tubes need not be described
in detail. The second was floated on the 3d of December, and set in
its permanent place on the 7th of January, 1850. The others[102] were
floated and raised in due course; on the 5th of March Mr. Stephenson
put the last rivet in the tube, and passed through the completed
bridge, accompanied by about a thousand persons, drawn by three
locomotives. The bridge was found almost entirely rigid, scarcely
showing the slightest deflection. When, in the course of the day, a
train of 200 tons of coal was allowed to rest with all its weight,
for two hours, in the centre of the eastern land tube, the deflection
was only four tenths of an inch, or less than that produced upon the
structure by half an hour's sunshine;[103] while the whole bridge might
with safety, and without injury to itself, be deflected to the extent
of 13 inches. The bridge was opened for public traffic on the 18th of
March. The cost of the whole work was £234,450.

The Britannia Bridge is one of the most remarkable monuments of the
enterprise and skill of the present century. Robert Stephenson was the
master spirit of the undertaking. To him belongs the merit of first
seizing the ideal conception of the structure best adapted to meet the
necessities of the case, and of selecting the best men to work out
his idea, himself watching, controlling, and testing every result by
independent check and counter-check. And, finally, he organized and
directed, through his assistants, the vast band of skilled workmen
and laborers who were for so many years occupied in carrying his
magnificent original conception to a successful practical issue.

But it was not accomplished without the greatest anxiety and mental
pressure. Mr. Clark has well observed that few persons who merely
witness the results of the engineer's labors can form any conception
of the real difficulties overcome, and the intense anxiety involved
in their elaboration. "If the stranger," he says, "who contemplates
the finished reality, requires so much thought to appreciate its
principles and comprehend its detail, what weary hours must he have
undergone who first conceived its bold proportions--who, combating,
almost alone, every prejudice that assailed him, and with untiring
labor discussing every objection, listening to every opinion, and
embodying every inquiry, at length matured, step by step, this noble
monument?" On the occasion of raising the last tube into its place, Mr.
Stephenson declared, in reply to the felicitations of a large company
who had witnessed the proceedings with intense interest, that not all
the triumph which attended this great work, and the solution of the
difficult problem of carrying a rigid roadway across an arm of the sea
at such a height as to allow the largest vessels to pass with all their
sails set beneath it, could repay him for the anxieties he had gone
through, the friendships he had compromised, and the unworthy motives
which had been attributed to him; and that, were another work of the
same magnitude offered to him with like consequences, he would not for
worlds undertake it!

The Britannia Bridge was indeed the result of a vast combination of
skill and industry. But for the perfection of our tools, and the
ability of our mechanics to use them to the greatest advantage--but
for the matured powers of the steam-engine--but for the improvements
in the iron manufacture, which enabled blooms to be puddled of sizes
before deemed impracticable, and plates and bars of immense size to
be rolled and forged--but for these, the Britannia Bridge would have
been designed in vain. Thus it was not the product of the genius of the
railway engineer alone, but of the collective mechanical genius of the
English nation.

[Illustration: CONWAY BRIDGE--FLOATING THE FIRST TUBE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[89] The simple fact that in a heavy storm the force of impact of
the waves is from one and a half to two tons per square foot, must
necessarily dictate the greatest possible caution in approaching so
formidable an element. Mr. R. Stevenson (Edinburg) registered a force
of three tons per square foot at Skerryvore during a gale in the
Atlantic, when the waves were supposed to run twenty feet high.

[90] See "Lives of the Engineers," vol. ii., p. 445. It appears that
Mr. Fairbairn suggested this idea in his letter to Mr. Stephenson,
dated the 3d of June, 1845, accompanied by a drawing. See his "Account
of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges," etc.
London, 1849.

[91] Robert Stephenson's narrative of the early history of the design,
in Edwin Clark's "Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges," vol. i., p.
25, London, 1850.

[92] Robert Stephenson's narrative in Clark's "Britannia and Conway
Tubular Bridges," vol. i., p. 27.

[93] Robert Stephenson's narrative in Clark's "Britannia and Conway
Tubular Bridges," vol. i., p. 27.

[94] "Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular
Bridges." By W. Fairbairn, C.E., London, 1849.

[95] Mr. Stephenson continued to hold that the elliptical tube was
the right idea, and that sufficient justice had not been done to it.
A year or two before his death, Mr. Stephenson remarked to the author
that, had the same arrangement for stiffening been adopted to which the
oblong rectangular tubes owe a great part of their strength, a very
different result would have been obtained.

[96] "Mr. Fairbairn's Account," p. 22.

[97] The following passage occurs in Robert Stephenson's report to
the directors of the Chester and Holyhead Railway, dated the 9th of
February, 1846: "You will observe in Mr. Fairbairn's remarks that
he contemplates the feasibility of stripping the tube entirely of
all the chains that may be required in the erection of the bridge;
whereas, on the other hand, Mr. Hodgkinson thinks the chains will be an
essential, or, at all events, a useful auxiliary, to give the tube the
requisite strength and rigidity. This, however, will be determined by
the proposed additional experiments, and does not interfere with the
construction of the masonry, which is designed so as to admit of the
tube, with or without chains. The application of chains as an auxiliary
has occupied much of my attention, and I am satisfied that the ordinary
mode of applying them to suspension bridges is wholly inadmissible in
the present instance; if, therefore, it be hereafter found necessary or
desirable to employ them in conjunction with the tube, another mode of
employing them must be devised, as it is absolutely essential to attach
them in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of the smallest
oscillation."

[98] In a letter of Mr. Fairbairn to Mr. Stephenson, dated July 18th,
1846, he says: "To get rid of the chains will be a desideratum; and I
have made the tube of such strength, and intend putting it together
upon such a principle, as will insure its carrying a dead weight,
equally distributed over its hollow surface, of 4000 tons. With a
bridge of such powers, what have we to fear? and why, in the name of
truth and in the face of conclusive facts, should we hesitate to adopt
measures calculated not only to establish the principle as a triumph of
art, but, what is of infinitely more importance to the shareholders,
the saving of a large sum of money, nearly equal to half the cost
of the bridge? I have been ably assisted by Mr. Clark in all these
contrivances; but in a matter of such importance we must have your
sanction and support."--"Mr. Fairbairn's Account," p. 93.

[99] "The Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges." By Edwin Clark. Vol.
ii., p. 683-4.

[100] No. 34 Gloucester Square, Hyde Park, where he lived.

[101] The hydraulic presses were of an extraordinary character. The
cylinders of those first constructed were of wrought iron (cast iron
being found altogether useless), not less than 8 inches thick. They
were tested by being subjected to an internal pressure of 3 or 3-1/2
tons to the circular inch. The pressure was such that it squeezed
the fibres of the iron together; so that, after a few tests of this
character, the piston, which at first fitted it quite closely, was
found considerably too small. "A new piston," says Mr. Clark, "was then
made to suit the enlarged cylinder; and a farther enlargement occurring
again and again with subsequent use, the new pistons became as
formidable an obstacle as the cylinders. The wrought-iron cylinder was
on the point of being abandoned, when Mr. Amos (the iron manufacturer),
having carefully gauged the cylinder inside and out, found to
his surprise that, although the internal diameter had increased
considerably, the external diameter had retained precisely its original
dimensions. He consequently persevered in the construction of new
pistons, and ultimately found that the cylinder enlarged no longer,
and to this day it continues in constant use. Layer after layer having
attained additional permanent set, sufficient material was at length
brought into play, with sufficient tenacity to withstand the pressure;
and thus an obstacle, apparently insurmountable, and which threatened
at one time to render much valuable machinery useless, was entirely
overcome. The workman may be excused for calling the stretched cylinder
stronger than the new one, though it is only stronger as regards the
amount of its yielding to a given force."--Clark, vol. i., p. 306. The
hydraulic presses used in raising the tubes of the Britannia Bridge, it
may be remembered, were afterward used in starting the _Great Eastern_
from her berth on the shore at Milwall, where she had been built.

[102] While the preparations were in progress for floating the third
tube, Mr. Stephenson received a pressing invitation to a public railway
celebration at Darlington, in honor of his old friend, Edward Pease.
His reply, dated the 15th of May, 1850, was as follows: "I am prevented
having the pleasure of a visit to Darlington on the 22d, owing to that
or the following day having been fixed upon for floating the next tube
at the Menai Straits; and as this movement depends on the tide, it is,
of course, impossible for me to alter the arrangements. I sincerely
regret this circumstance, for every early association connected with
my profession would have tended to render my visit a gratifying one.
It would, moreover, have given me an opportunity of saying publicly
how much the wonderful progress of railways was dependent upon the
successful issue of the first great experiment, and how much that issue
was influenced by your great discernment, and your confidence in my
late revered father. In my remembrance you stand among the foremost of
his patrons and early advisers; and I know that throughout his life
he regarded you as one of his very best friends. One of the things in
which he took especial delight was in frequently and very graphically
describing his first visit to Darlington, on foot, to confer with you
on the subject of the Stockton and Darlington Railway."

[103] The effect of sunshine in deflecting the bridge is very curious.
When the first main tube was tested, ballast-wagons loaded with iron
were drawn into the centre and left standing there. The first 20 tons
increased the deflection an eighth of an inch, and with 50 tons the
deflection was 9 inches. After standing all night, the deflection in
the morning was found to be only 8-3/8 inches. How was this to be
accounted for? Mr. Clark says: "This was attributed at the time to
an error made in the reading; but this, and many other anomalies in
the deflection, were afterward fully accounted for by local changes
of temperature. _A gleam of sunshine_ on the top of the tube raised
it on one occasion nearly an inch in half an hour with 200 tons at
the centre, the top plates being expanded by increase of temperature,
while the lower plates remained constant from radiation to the water
immediately beneath them. In a similar manner, the tube was drawn
sidewise to the extent of an inch from _the sun shining on one side_,
and returned immediately as clouds passed over the sun, being, in fact,
a most delicate thermometer in constant motion, both vertically and
laterally."



[Illustration: VIEW IN TAPTON GARDENS. [By Percival Skelton.]]

CHAPTER XIX.

CLOSING YEARS OF GEORGE STEPHENSON'S LIFE--ILLNESS AND DEATH--CHARACTER.


In describing the completion of the series of great works detailed in
the preceding chapter, we have somewhat anticipated the closing years
of George Stephenson's life. He could not fail to take an anxious
interest in the success of his son's designs, and he paid many visits
to Conway and to Menai during the progress of the bridges. He was
present on the occasion of the floating and raising of the first Conway
tube, and there witnessed a proof of the soundness of Robert's judgment
as to the efficiency and strength of the structure, of which he had at
first expressed some doubt; but before the like test could be applied
at the Britannia Bridge, George Stephenson's mortal anxieties were at
an end, for he had then ceased from all his labors.

Toward the close of his life, George Stephenson almost entirety
withdrew from the active pursuit of his profession. He devoted himself
chiefly to his extensive collieries and lime-works, taking a local
interest only in such projected railways as were calculated to open up
new markets for their products.

At home he lived the life of a country gentleman, enjoying his garden
and grounds, and indulging his love of nature, which, through all his
busy life, had never left him. It was not until the year 1845 that he
took an active interest in horticultural pursuits. Then he began to
build new melon-houses, pineries, and vineries, of great extent; and
he now seemed as eager to excel all other growers of exotic plants in
his neighborhood, as he had been some thirty years before to surpass
the villagers of Killingworth in the production of cabbages and
cauliflowers. He had a pine-house built 68 feet in length and a vinery
140 feet. Workmen were constantly employed in enlarging them, until
at length he had no fewer than ten glass forcing-houses. He did not
take so much pleasure in flowers as in fruits. At one of the county
agricultural meetings he said that he intended yet to grow pine-apples
at Tapton as big as pumpkins. The only man to whom he would "knock
under" was his friend Paxton, the gardener to the Duke of Devonshire;
but he was so old in the service, and so skillful, that he could
scarcely hope to beat him. Yet his "Queen" pines did take the first
prize at a competition with the duke, though this was not until shortly
after his death, when the plants had become fully grown. Stephenson's
grapes also took the first prize at Rotherham, at a competition open to
all England. He was extremely successful in producing melons, having
invented a method of suspending them in baskets of wire gauze, which,
by relieving the stalk from tension, allowed nutrition to proceed more
freely, and better enabled the fruit to grow and ripen.

He also took much pride in his growth of cucumbers. He raised them very
fine and large, but he could not make them grow straight. Place them
as he would, notwithstanding all his propping and humoring of them by
modifying the application of heat and the admission of light, they
would still insist on growing crooked in their own way. At last he
had a number of glass cylinders made at Newcastle, and into these the
growing cucumbers were inserted, when at last he succeeded in growing
them perfectly straight. Carrying one of the new products into his
house one day, and exhibiting it to a party of visitors, he told them
of the expedient he had adopted, and added, "I think I have bothered
them noo!"

Farming operations were also carried on by him with success. He
experimented on manure, and fed cattle after methods of his own. He
was very particular as to breed and build in stock-breeding. "You
see, sir," he said to one gentleman, "I like to see the _coo's_ back
at a gradient something like this" (drawing an imaginary line with
his hand), "and then the ribs or girders will carry more flesh than
if they were so--or so." When he attended the county agricultural
meetings, which he frequently did, he was accustomed to take part in
the discussions, and he brought the same vigorous practical mind to
bear upon questions of tillage, drainage, and farm economy which he
had before been accustomed to exercise on mechanical and engineering
matters.

All his early affection for birds and animals revived. He had favorite
dogs, and cows, and horses; and again he began to keep rabbits, and
to pride himself on the beauty of his breed. There was not a bird's
nest in the grounds that he did not know of; and from day to day he
went round watching the progress which the birds made with their
building, carefully guarding them from harm. His minute knowledge of
the habits of British birds was the result of a long, loving, and close
observation of nature.

At Tapton he remembered the failure of his early experiment in hatching
birds' eggs by heat, and he now performed it successfully, being able
to secure a proper apparatus for maintaining a uniform temperature.
He was also curious about the breeding and fattening of fowls; and
when his friend Edward Pease, of Darlington, visited him at Tapton, he
explained a method which he had invented of fattening chickens in half
the usual time. The chickens were confined in boxes, which were so made
as to exclude the light. Dividing the day into two or three periods,
the birds were shut up at the end of each after a heavy feed, and went
to sleep. The plan proved very successful, and Mr. Stephenson jocularly
said that if he were to devote himself to chickens he could soon make a
little fortune.

Mrs. Stephenson tried to keep bees, but found they would not thrive
at Tapton. Many hives perished, and there was no case of success. The
cause of failure was long a mystery to the engineer; but one day his
acute powers of observation enabled him to unravel it. At the foot of
the hill on which Tapton House stands, he saw some bees trying to rise
up from among the grass, laden with honey and wax. They were already
exhausted, as if with long flying; and then it occurred to him that
the height at which the house stood above the bees' feeding-ground
rendered it difficult for them to reach their hives when heavy laden,
and hence they sank exhausted. He afterward incidentally mentioned the
circumstance to Mr. Jesse, the naturalist, who concurred in his view
as to the cause of failure, and was much struck by the keen observation
which had led to its solution.

George Stephenson had none of the habits of the student. He read very
little; for reading is a habit which is generally acquired in youth,
and his youth and manhood had been, for the most part, spent in hard
work. Books wearied him and sent him to sleep. Novels excited his
feelings too much, and he avoided them, though he would occasionally
read through a philosophical work on a subject in which he felt
particularly interested. He wrote very few letters with his own hand.
Nearly all his letters were dictated, and he avoided even dictation
when he could. His greatest pleasure was in conversation, from which he
gathered most of his imparted information.

It was his practice, when about to set out on a journey by railway, to
walk along the train before it started, and look into the carriages to
see if he could find "a conversible face." On one of such occasions, at
the Euston Station, he discovered in a carriage a very handsome, manly,
and intelligent face, which he afterward found was that of the late
Lord Denman. He was on his way down to his seat at Stony Middelton,
in Derbyshire. Stephenson entered the carriage, and the two were
shortly engaged in interesting conversation. It turned upon chronometry
and horology, and the engineer amazed his lordship by the extent of
his knowledge on the subject, in which he displayed as much minute
information, even down to the latest improvements in watch-making,
as if he had been bred a watchmaker and lived by the trade. Lord
Denman was curious to know how a man whose time must have been mainly
engrossed by engineering had gathered so much knowledge on a subject
quite out of his own line, and he asked the question. "I learned
clockmaking and watchmaking," was the answer, "while a working-man at
Killingworth, when I made a little money in my spare hours by cleaning
the pitmen's clocks and watches; and since then I have kept up my
information on the subject." This led to farther questions, and then he
proceeded to tell Lord Denman the interesting story of his life, which
held him entranced during the remainder of the journey.

Many of his friends readily accepted invitations to Tapton House
to enjoy his hospitality, which never failed. With them he would
"fight his battles o'er again," reverting often to his battle for the
locomotive; and he was never tired of telling, nor were his auditors
of listening to, the lively anecdotes with which he was accustomed to
illustrate the struggles of his early career. While walking in the
woods or through the grounds, he would arrest his friends' attention
by allusion to some simple object--such as a leaf, a blade of grass, a
bit of bark, a nest of birds, or an ant carrying its eggs across the
path--and descant in glowing terms on the creative power of the Divine
Mechanician, whose contrivances were so exhaustless and so wonderful.
This was a theme upon which he was often accustomed to dwell in
reverential admiration when in the society of his more intimate friends.

One night, when walking under the stars, and gazing up into the field
of suns, each the probable centre of a system, forming the Milky Way, a
friend observed, "What an insignificant creature is man in sight of so
immense a creation as this!" "Yes!" was his reply: "but how wonderful a
creature also is man, to be able to think and reason, and even in some
measure to comprehend works so infinite!"

A microscope which he had brought down to Tapton was a source of
immense enjoyment, and he was never tired of contemplating the minute
wonders which it revealed. One evening, when some friends were visiting
him, he induced each of them to puncture his skin so as to draw blood,
in order that he might examine the globules through the microscope. One
of the gentlemen present was a teetotaler, and Stephenson pronounced
his blood to be the most lively of the whole. He had a theory of his
own about the movement of the globules in the blood, which has since
become familiar. It was, that they were respectively charged with
electricity, positive at one end and negative at the other, and that
they thus attracted and repelled each other, causing a circulation.
No sooner did he observe any thing new than he immediately set about
devising a reason for it. His training in mechanics, his practical
familiarity with matter in all its forms, and the strong bent of his
mind, led him first of all to seek for a mechanical explanation; and
yet he was ready to admit that there was a something in the principle
of _life_--so mysterious and inexplicable--which baffled mechanics,
and seemed to dominate over and control them. He did not care much,
either, for abstruse mechanics, but only for the experimental and
practical, as is usually the case with those whose knowledge has been
self-acquired.

[Illustration: (Footpath to Tapton House)]

Even at his advanced age the spirit of frolic had not left him. When
proceeding from Chesterfield Station to Tapton House with his friends,
he would almost invariably challenge them to a race up the steep
path, partly formed of stone steps, along the hill-side. And he would
struggle, as of old, to keep the front place, though by this time his
"wind" greatly failed him. He would occasionally invite an old friend
to take a wrestle with him on the lawn, to keep up his skill, and
perhaps to try some new "knack" of throwing. In the evening he would
sometimes indulge his visitors by reciting the old pastoral of "Damon
and Phyllis," or singing his favorite song of "John Anderson my Joe."

But his greatest enjoyment on such occasion was "a crowdie." "Let's
have a crowdie night," he would say; and forthwith a kettle of boiling
water was ordered in, with a basin of oatmeal. Taking a large bowl,
containing a sufficiency of hot water, and placing it between his
knees, he poured in oatmeal with one hand, and stirred the mixture
vigorously with the other. When enough meal had been added, and the
stirring was completed, the crowdie was made. It was then supped with
new milk, and Mr. Stephenson generally pronounced it "capital!" It was
the diet to which he had been accustomed when a working-man, and all
the dainties with which he had become familiar in recent years had
not spoiled his simple tastes. To enjoy crowdie at his years, besides,
indicated that he still possessed that quality on which no doubt much
of his practical success in life had depended--a strong and healthy
digestion.

He would also frequently invite to his house the humbler companions
of his early life, and take pleasure in talking over old times with
them. He never assumed any of the bearings of the great man on such
occasions, but treated his visitors with the same friendliness and
respect as if they had been his equals, sending them away pleased with
themselves and delighted with him. At other times, needy men who had
known him in their youth would knock at his door, and they were never
refused access. But if he had heard of any misconduct on their part,
he would rate them soundly. One who knew him intimately in private
life has seen him exhorting such backsliders, and denouncing their
misconduct and imprudence, with the tears streaming down his cheeks.
And he would generally conclude by opening his purse, and giving them
the help which they needed "to make a fresh start in the world."

His life at Tapton during his later years was occasionally diversified
by a visit to London. His engineering business having become limited,
he generally went there for the purpose of visiting friends, or "to
see what there was fresh going on." He found a new race of engineers
springing up on all sides--men who knew him not; and his London
journeys gradually ceased to yield him pleasure. A friend used to take
him to the opera, but by the end of the first act he was generally
observed in a profound slumber. Yet on one occasion he enjoyed a visit
to the Haymarket, with a party of friends on his birthday, to see T. P.
Cooke in "Black-eyed Susan"--if that can be called enjoyment which kept
him in a state of tears during half the performance. At other times he
visited Newcastle, which always gave him great pleasure. He would, on
such occasions, go out to Killingworth and seek up old friends, and
if the people whom he knew were too retiring and shrunk into their
cottages, he went and sought them there. Striking the floor with his
stick, and holding his noble person upright, he would say, in his own
kind way, "Well, and how's all here to-day?" To the last he had always
a warm heart for Newcastle and its neighborhood.

Sir Robert Peel, on more than one occasion, invited George Stephenson
to his mansion at Drayton, where he was accustomed to assemble round
him men of the highest distinction in art, science, and legislation,
during the intervals of his Parliamentary life. The first invitations
were respectfully declined; but Sir Robert again pressing him to come
down to Tamworth, where he would meet Buckland, Follett, and others
well known to both, he at last consented.

Stephenson's strong powers of observation, together with his native
humor and shrewdness, imparted to his conversation at all times much
vigor and originality. Though mainly an engineer, he was also a
profound thinker on many scientific questions, and there was scarcely
a subject of speculation or a department of recondite science on which
he had not employed his faculties in such a way as to have formed large
and original views. Mr. Sopwith, F.R.S., has informed us that the
conversation at Drayton, on one occasion, turned on the theory of the
formation of coal, in the course of which Stephenson had an animated
discussion with Dr. Buckland. But the result was, that Dr. Buckland,
a much greater master of tongue-fence, completely silenced him. Next
morning, before breakfast, when he was walking in the grounds deeply
pondering, Sir William Follett came up and asked what he was thinking
about. "Why, Sir William, I am thinking over that argument I had with
Buckland last night. I know I am right, and that, if I had only the
command of words which he has, I'd have beaten him." "Let me know all
about it," said Sir William, "and I'll see what I can do for you."
The two sat down in an arbor, where the astute lawyer made himself
thoroughly acquainted with the points of the case, entering into it
with the zeal of an advocate about to plead the interests of his
client. After he had mastered the subject, Sir William said, "Now I am
ready for him." Sir Robert Peel was made acquainted with the plot, and
adroitly introduced the subject of the controversy after dinner. The
result was, that in the argument which followed, the man of science was
overcome by the man of law. "And what do _you_ say, Mr. Stephenson?"
asked Sir Robert, laughing. "Why," said he, "I say this, that of all
the powers above and under the earth, there seems to me to be no power
so great as the gift of the gab."

One Sunday, when the party had just returned from church, they were
standing together on the terrace near the Hall, and observed in the
distance a railway flashing along, tossing behind its long white plume
of steam. "Now, Buckland," said Stephenson, "I have a poser for you.
Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?" "Well,"
said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines." "But what
drives the engine?" "Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver." "What
do you say to the light of the sun?" "How can that be?" asked the
doctor. "It is nothing else," said the engineer: "it is light bottled
up in the earth for tens of thousands of years--light, absorbed by
plants and vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon
during the process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another
form--and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields
of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made
to work as in that locomotive, for great human purposes."[104]

During the same visit Mr. Stephenson one evening repeated his
experiment with blood drawn from the finger, submitting it to the
microscope in order to show the curious circulation of the globules.
He set the example by pricking his own thumb; and the other guests,
by turns, in like manner gave up a small portion of their blood for
the purpose of ascertaining the comparative liveliness of their
circulation. When Sir Robert Peel's turn came, Stephenson said he was
curious to know "how the blood globules of a great politician would
conduct themselves." Sir Robert held forth his finger for the purpose
of being pricked; but once and again he sensitively shrunk back, and
at length the experiment, so far as he was concerned, was abandoned.
Sir Robert Peel's sensitiveness to pain was extreme, and yet he was
destined, a few years after, to die a death of the most distressing
agony.

In 1847, the year before his death, George Stephenson was again invited
to join a distinguished party at Drayton Manor, and to assist in the
ceremony of formally opening the Trent Valley Railway, which had
been originally designed and laid out by himself many years before.
The first sod of the railway had been cut by the prime minister in
November, 1845, and the formal opening took place on the 26th of June,
1847, the line having thus been constructed in less than two years.

What a change had come over the spirit of the landed gentry since the
time when George Stephenson had first projected a railway through
that district! Then they were up in arms against him, characterizing
him as the devastator and spoiler of their estates, whereas now he
was hailed as one of the greatest benefactors of the age. Sir Robert
Peel, the chief political personage in England, welcomed him as a
guest and friend, and spoke of him as the chief among practical
philosophers. A dozen members of Parliament, seven baronets, with
all the landed magnates of the district, assembled to celebrate the
opening of the railway. The clergy were there to bless the enterprise,
and to bid all hail to railway progress, as "enabling them to carry
on with greater facility those operations in connection with religion
which were calculated to be so beneficial to the country." The army,
speaking through the mouth of General A'Court, acknowledged the vast
importance of railways, as tending to improve the military defenses of
the country. And representatives from eight corporations were there to
acknowledge the great benefits which railways had conferred upon the
merchants, tradesmen, and working classes of their respective towns and
cities.

In the spring of 1848 George Stephenson was invited to Whittington
House, near Chesterfield, the residence of his friend and former
pupil, Mr. Swanwick, to meet the distinguished American, Emerson. On
being introduced to each other they did not immediately engage in
conversation; but presently Stephenson jumped up, took Emerson by
the collar, and, giving him one of his friendly shakes, asked how it
was that in England we could always tell an American. This led to an
interesting conversation, in the course of which Emerson said how much
he had every where been struck by the haleness and comeliness of the
English men and women, from which they diverged into a discussion of
the influences which air, climate, moisture, soil, and other conditions
exercised on the physical and moral development of a people. The
conversation was next directed to the subject of electricity, on
which Stephenson launched out enthusiastically, explaining his views
by several simple and some striking illustrations. From thence it
gradually turned to the events of his own life, which he related in so
graphic a manner as completely to rivet the attention of the American.
Afterward Emerson said "that it was worth crossing the Atlantic were it
only to have seen Stephenson--he had such force of character and vigor
of intellect."

The rest of George Stephenson's days were spent quietly at Tapton,
among his dogs, his rabbits, and his birds. When not engaged about the
works connected with his collieries, he was occupied in horticulture
and farming. He continued proud of his flowers, his fruits, and his
crops, while the old spirit of competition was still strong within
him. Although he had for some time been in delicate health, and his
hand shook from nervous debility, he appeared to possess a sound
constitution. Emerson had observed of him that he had the lives of
many men in him. But perhaps the American spoke figuratively, in
reference to his vast stores of experience. It appeared that he had
never completely recovered from the attack of pleurisy which seized him
during his return from Spain. As late, however, as the 26th of July,
1848, he felt himself sufficiently well to be able to attend a meeting
of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, and to read to
the members his paper "On the Fallacies of the Rotatory Engine."

It was his last public appearance. Shortly after his return to Tapton
he had an attack of intermittent fever, from which he seemed to be
recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from the lungs carried
him off, on the 12th of August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of
his age. When all was over, Robert wrote to Edmund Pease, "With deep
pain I inform you, as one of his oldest friends, of the death of my
dear father this morning at 12 o'clock, after about ten days' illness
from severe fever." Mr. Starbuck, who was also present, wrote: "The
favorable symptoms of yesterday morning were toward evening followed
by a serious change for the worse. This continued during the night,
and early this morning it became evident that he was sinking. At a
few minutes before 12 to-day he breathed his last. All that the most
devoted and unremitting care of Mrs. Stephenson[105] and the skill of
medicine could accomplish has been done, but in vain."

George Stephenson's remains were followed to the grave by a large body
of his work-people, by whom he was greatly admired and beloved. They
remembered him as a kind master, who was ever ready actively to promote
all measures for their moral, physical, and mental improvement. The
inhabitants of Chesterfield evinced their respect for the deceased by
suspending business, closing their shops, and joining in the funeral
procession, which was headed by the corporation of the town. Many of
the surrounding gentry also attended. The body was interred in Trinity
Church, Chesterfield, where a simple tablet marks the great engineer's
last resting-place.

[Illustration: TRINITY CHURCH, CHESTERFIELD.]

The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liverpool and Manchester and
Grand Junction Companies had commissioned, was on its way to England
when his death occurred; and it served for a monument, though his best
monument will always be his works. The statue referred to was placed in
St. George's Hall, Liverpool. A full-length statue of him, by Bailey,
was also erected, a few years later, in the noble vestibule of the
London and Northwestern Station, in Euston Square. A subscription for
the purpose was set on foot by the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of
which he had been the founder and president. A few advertisements were
inserted in the newspapers, inviting subscriptions; and it is a notable
fact that the voluntary offerings included an average of two shillings
each from 3150 working-men, who embraced this opportunity of doing
honor to their distinguished fellow-workman.

But the finest and most appropriate statue to the memory of George
Stephenson is that which was erected in 1862, after the design of John
Lough, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is in the immediate neighborhood of
the Literary and Philosophical Institute, to which both George and his
son Robert were so much indebted in their early years; close to the
great Stephenson locomotive foundery established by the shrewdness of
the father; and in the vicinity of the High-Level Bridge, one of the
grandest products of the genius of the son. The head of Stephenson, as
expressed in this noble work, is massive, characteristic, and faithful;
and the attitude of the figure is simple, yet manly and energetic. It
stands on a pedestal, at the respective corners of which are sculptured
the recumbent figures of a pitman, a mechanic, an engine-driver, and a
plate-layer. The statue appropriately stands in a very thoroughfare of
working-men, thousands of whom see it daily as they pass to and from
their work; and we can imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson's
manly figure, applying to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to
Robert Burns, with perhaps still greater appropriateness:

    "Before the proudest of the earth
      We stand, with an uplifted brow;
    Like us, thou wast a toiling man--
      And we are noble, now!"

The portrait prefixed to this volume gives a good indication of
George Stephenson's shrewd, kind, honest, manly face. His fair, clear
countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health. The forehead
was large and high, projecting over the eyes, and there was that
massive breadth across the lower part which is usually observed in
men of eminent constructive skill. The mouth was firmly marked, and
shrewdness and humor lurked there as well as in the keen gray eye. His
frame was compact, well knit, and rather spare. His hair became gray at
an early age, and toward the close of his life it was of a pure silky
whiteness. He dressed neatly in black, wearing a white neckcloth; and
his face, his person, and his deportment at once arrested attention,
and marked the Gentleman.

[Illustration: TABLET IN TRINITY CHURCH, CHESTERFIELD.]

FOOTNOTES:

[104] This was a favorite notion of George Stephenson's, and he held
that what produced light and heat had originally been light and heat.
Mr. Fearon, solicitor, has informed the author that he accompanied
Stephenson on one of his visits to Belgium, when it seemed to him
that the engineer did not take much interest in the towns, churches,
or public buildings of Belgium, probably because he knew little of
history, and they recalled no associations with the past. One day
the party went to see the beautiful Hôtel de Ville at Brussels, but
Stephenson did not seem moved by it. On passing out of the square,
however, by the little street which leads toward the Montague de la
Cour, his interest was thoroughly roused by the sight of an immense fat
pig hung up in a butcher's shop. He immediately took out his foot-rule,
measured the pig, and expressed a desire to have some conversation with
the butcher as to how it had been fed. The butcher accordingly waited
upon them at the hotel, and told all he knew about the feeding of the
pig; and then, says Mr. Fearon, "George went off into his favorite
theory of the sun's light, which he said had fattened the pig; for the
light had gone into the pease, and the pease had gone into the fat, and
the fat pig was like a field of coal in this respect, that they were,
for the most part, neither more nor less than bottled sunshine."

[105] The second Mrs. Stephenson having died in 1845, George married a
third time in 1848, about six months before his death. The third Mrs.
Stephenson was an intelligent and respectable lady, who had for some
years officiated as his housekeeper.



[Illustration: VICTORIA BRIDGE, MONTREAL.]

CHAPTER XX.

ROBERT STEPHENSON'S VICTORIA BRIDGE, LOWER CANADA--ILLNESS AND DEATH.


George Stephenson bequeathed to his son his valuable collieries,
his share in the engine manufactory at Newcastle, and his large
accumulation of savings, which, together with the fortune he had
himself amassed by railway work, gave Robert the position of an
engineer millionaire--the first of his order. He continued, however, to
live in a quiet style; and although he bought occasional pictures and
statues, and indulged in the luxury of a yacht, he did not live up to
his income, which went on accumulating until his death.

There was no longer the necessity for applying himself to the laborious
business of a Parliamentary engineer, in which he had now been occupied
for some fifteen years. Shortly after his father's death, Edward Pease
recommended him to give up the more harassing work of his profession;
and his reply (15th of June, 1850) was as follows:

  "The suggestion which your kind note contains is quite in
  accordance with my own feelings and intentions respecting
  retirement; but I find it a very difficult matter to bring to
  a close so complicated a connection in business as that which
  has been established by twenty-five years of active and arduous
  professional duty. Comparative retirement is, however, my
  intention, and I trust that your prayer for the Divine blessing to
  grant me happiness and quiet comfort will be fulfilled. I can not
  but feel deeply grateful to the Great Disposer of events for the
  success which has hitherto attended my exertions in life, and I
  trust that the future will also be marked by a continuance of His
  mercies."

Although Robert Stephenson, in conformity with this expressed
intention, for the most part declined to undertake new business, he
did not altogether lay aside his harness, and he lived to repeat his
tubular bridges both in Egypt and Canada. The success of the tubular
system, as adopted at Menai and Conway, was such as to recommend
it for adoption wherever great span was required, and the peculiar
circumstances connected with the navigation of the Nile and the St.
Lawrence may be said to have compelled its adoption in carrying
railways across both those rivers.

Two tubular bridges were built after our engineer's designs across the
Nile, near Damietta, in Lower Egypt. That near Benha contains eight
spans or openings of 80 feet each, and two centre spans, formed by one
of the largest swing-bridges ever constructed, the total length of the
swing-beam being 157 feet, a clear waterway of 60 feet being provided
on either side of the centre pier. The only novelty in these bridges
consisted in the road being carried upon the tubes instead of within
them, their erection being carried out in the usual manner by means of
workmen, materials, and plant sent out from England. The Tubular Bridge
constructed in Canada, after Mr. Stephenson's designs, was of a much
more important character, and deserves a fuller description.

The important uses of railways had been recognized at an early period
by the inhabitants of North America, and in the course of about
thirty years more than 25,000 miles of railway, mostly single, were
constructed in the United States alone. The Canadians were more
deliberate in their proceedings, and it was not until the year 1840
that their first railway, 14 miles in length, was constructed between
Laprairie and St. John's, for the purpose of connecting Lake Champlain
with the River St. Lawrence. From this date, however, new lines were
rapidly projected; more particularly the Great Western of Canada, and
the Atlantic and St. Lawrence (now forming part of the Grand Trunk),
until in the course of a few years Canada had a length of nearly 2000
miles of railway open or in course of construction, intersecting the
provinces almost in a continuous line from Rivière du Loup, near the
mouth of the St. Lawrence, to Port Sarnia, on the shores of Lake Huron.

But there still remained one most important and essential link to
connect the lines on the south of the St. Lawrence with those on the
north, and at the same time place the city of Montreal in direct
railway connection with the western parts of Canada. The completion
of this link was also necessary in order to maintain the commercial
communication of Canada with the rest of the world during five months
in every year; for, though the St. Lawrence in summer affords a
splendid outlet to the ocean--toward which the commerce of the colony
naturally tends--the frost in winter is so severe, that during that
season Canada is completely frozen in, and the navigation hermetically
closed by the ice.

The Grand Trunk Railway was designed to furnish a line of land
communication along the great valley of the St. Lawrence at all
seasons, following the course of the river, and connecting the
principal towns of the colony. But stopping short on the north shore,
nearly opposite Montreal, with which it was connected by a dangerous
and often impracticable ferry, it was felt that, until the St.
Lawrence was bridged by a railway, the Canadian system of railways was
manifestly incomplete. But how to bridge this wide and rapid river!
Never before, perhaps, was a problem of such difficulty proposed for
solution by an engineer. Opposite Montreal, the St. Lawrence is about
two miles wide, running at the rate of about ten miles an hour; and at
the close of each winter it carries down the ice of 2000 square miles
of lakes and rivers, with their numerous tributaries.

As early as the year 1846, the construction of a bridge at Montreal was
strongly advocated by the local press as the only means of connecting
that city with the projected Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway. But the
difficulties of executing such a work seemed almost insurmountable to
those best acquainted with the locality. The greatest difficulty was
apprehended from the tremendous shoving and pressure of the ice at the
break-up of winter. At such times, opposite Montreal, the whole river
is packed with huge blocks of ice, and it is often seen piled up to a
height of from 40 to 50 feet along the banks, placing the surrounding
country under water, and occasionally doing severe damage to the
massive stone buildings erected along the noble river front of the
city.

But no other expedient presented itself but a bridge, and a survey
was made accordingly at the instance of the Hon. John Young, one of
the directors of the railway. A period of colonial depression having
shortly after occurred, the project slept for a time, and it was not
until six years later, in 1852, when the Grand Trunk Railway was under
construction, that the subject was again brought under discussion.
In that year, Mr. Alexander M. Ross, who had superintended the
construction of Robert Stephenson's tubular bridge at Conway, visited
Canada, and inspected the site of the proposed structure, when he at
once formed the opinion that a tubular bridge carrying a railway was
the most suitable means of crossing the St. Lawrence, and connecting
Montreal with the lines on the north of the river.

The directors felt that such a work would necessarily be of a most
formidable and difficult character, and before coming to any conclusion
they determined to call to their assistance Mr. Robert Stephenson,
as the engineer most competent to advise them in the matter. Mr.
Stephenson considered the subject of so much interest and importance
that, in the summer of 1853, he proceeded to Canada to inquire as to
all the facts, and examine carefully the site of the proposed work.
He then formed the opinion that a tubular bridge across the river was
not only practicable, but by far the most suitable for the purpose
intended, and early in the following year he sent an elaborate report
on the whole subject to the directors of the railway. The result was
the adoption of his recommendation and the erection of the Victoria
Bridge, of which Robert Stephenson was the designer and engineer,
and Mr. A. M. Ross the joint and resident engineer in directly
superintending the execution of the undertaking. The details of the
plans were principally worked out in Mr. Stephenson's office in London,
under the superintendence of his cousin, Mr. George Robert Stephenson,
while the iron-work was for the most part constructed at the Canada
Works, Liverpool, from whence it was shipped, ready for being fixed in
position on the spot.

The Victoria Bridge is, without exception, the greatest work of its
kind in the world. For gigantic proportions, and vast length and
strength, there is nothing to compare with it in ancient or modern
times. The entire bridge, with its approaches, is only about sixty
yards short of _two miles_ in length, being five times longer than
the Britannia Bridge across the Menai Straits, seven and a half times
longer than Waterloo Bridge, and more than ten times longer than
Chelsea Bridge. The two-mile tube across the St. Lawrence rests on
twenty-four piers, which, with the abutments, leave twenty-five spaces
or spans for the several parts of the tube. Twenty-four of these spans
are 242 feet wide; the centre span--itself a huge bridge--being 330
feet. The road is carried within the tube 60 feet above the level of
the river, so as not to interfere with its navigation.

[Illustration: SIDE ELEVATION OF PIER.]

As one of the principal difficulties apprehended in the erection of the
bridge was that arising from the tremendous "shoving" and ramming of
the ice at the break-up of winter, the plans were carefully designed so
as to avert all danger from this cause. Hence the peculiarity in the
form of the piers, which, though greatly increasing their strength for
the purpose intended, must be admitted to detract considerably from
the symmetry of the structure as a whole. The western face of each
pier--that is, the up-river side--has a large wedge-shaped cutwater
of stone-work, presenting an inclined plane toward the current, for
the purpose of arresting and breaking up the ice-blocks, and thereby
preventing them from piling up and damaging the tube carrying the
railway. The piers are of immense strength. Those close to the
abutments contain about 6000 tons of masonry each, while those which
support the great centre tube contain about 12,000 tons. The former are
15 feet wide, and the latter 18. Scarcely a block of stone used in the
piers is less than seven tons in weight, while many of those opposed to
the force of the breaking-up ice weigh fully ten tons.

As might naturally be expected, the getting in of the foundations of
these enormous piers in so wide and rapid a river was attended with
many difficulties. To give an idea of the water-power of the St.
Lawrence, it may be mentioned that when the river comes down in its
greatest might, large stone boulders weighing upward of a ton are
rolled along by the sheer force of the current. The depth of the river,
however, was not so great as might be supposed, varying from only five
to fifteen feet during summer, when the foundation-work was carried on.

The method first employed to get in the foundations was by means
of dams or caissons, which were constructed on shore, floated into
position, and scuttled over the places at which the foundations were
to be laid, thus at once forming a nucleus from which the dams could
be constructed. The first of such dams was floated, got into position,
scuttled, and sunk, and the piling fairly begun, on the 19th of June,
1854. By the 15th of the following month the sheet-piling and puddling
was finished, when the pumping of the water out of the inclosed space
by steam-power was proceeded with, and in a few hours the bed of the
river was laid almost dry, the toe of every pile being distinctly
visible. By the 22d the first stone of the pier was laid, and on the
14th of August the masonry was above water-level.

The getting in of the foundations of the other piers was proceeded with
in like manner, though frequently interrupted by storms, inundations,
and collisions of timber-rafts, which occasionally carried away the
moorings of the dams. Considerable difficulty was in some places
experienced from the huge boulder-stones lying in the bed of the river,
to remove which sometimes cost the divers several months of hard labor.
In getting in the foundations of the later piers, the method first
employed of sinking the floating caissons in position was abandoned,
and the dams were constructed of "crib-work,"[106] which was found more
convenient, and less liable to interruption by accident from collision
or otherwise.

By the spring of 1857 a sufficient number of piers had been finished to
enable the erection of the tubes to be proceeded with. The operations
connected with this portion of the work were also of a novel character.
Instead of floating the tubes between the piers and raising them into
position by hydraulic power, as at Conway and Menai, which the rapid
current of the St. Lawrence would not permit, the tubes were erected
_in situ_ on a staging prepared for the purpose, as shown in the
following engraving.

[Illustration: WORKS IN PROGRESS, 1857--VIEW FROM ABOVE THE SOUTH
ABUTMENT.]

Floating scows, each 60 feet by 20, were moored in position, and kept
in their place by piles sliding in grooves. These piles, when firmly
fixed in the bed of the river, were bolted to the sides of the scows,
and the tops were leveled to receive the sills upon which the framing
carrying the truss and platform was erected. Timbers were laid on the
lower chords of the truss, forming a platform 24 feet wide, closely
planked with deals. The upper chords carried rails, along which moved
the "travelers" used in erecting the tubes. The plates forming the
bottom of each tube having been accurately laid and riveted, and
adjusted to level and centre by oak wedges, the erection of the sides
was next proceeded with, extending outward from the centre on either
side, this work being closely followed by the plating of the top. Each
tube between the respective pairs of piers was in the first place
erected separate and independent of its adjoining tubes; but after
completion, the tubes were joined in pairs and firmly bolted to the
masonry over which they were united, their outer ends being placed upon
rollers so arranged on the adjoining piers that they might expand or
contract according to variations of temperature.

The work continued to make satisfactory progress down to the spring
of 1858, by which time fourteen out of the twenty-four piers were
finished, together with the formidable abutments and approaches to
the bridge. Considerable apprehensions were entertained as to the
security of the piers and the unfinished parts of the work at the usual
breaking-up of the ice. We take the following account from a letter
written by Mr. Ross to Mr. Stephenson descriptive of the scene.

  "On the 29th of March, the ice above Montreal began to show signs
  of weakness, but it was not until the 31st that a general movement
  became observable, which continued for an hour, when it suddenly
  stopped, and the water rose rapidly. On the following day, at
  noon, a grand movement commenced; the waters rose about four feet
  in two minutes, up to a level with many of the Montreal streets.
  The fields of ice at the same time were suddenly elevated to an
  incredible height; and so overwhelming were they in appearance,
  that crowds of the townspeople, who had assembled on the quay
  to watch the progress of the flood, ran for their lives. This
  movement lasted about twenty minutes, during which the jammed ice
  destroyed several portions of the quay wall, grinding the hardest
  blocks to atoms. The embanked approaches to the Victoria Bridge had
  tremendous forces to resist. In the full channel of the stream,
  the ice in its passage between the piers was broken up by the
  force of the blow immediately on its coming in contact with the
  cutwaters. Sometimes thick sheets of ice were seen to rise up and
  rear on end against the piers, but by the force of the current they
  were speedily made to roll over into the stream, and in a moment
  after were out of sight. For the two next days the river was still
  high, until on the 4th of April the waters seemed suddenly to give
  way, and by the following day the river was flowing clear and
  smooth as a millpond, nothing of winter remaining except the masses
  of bordage ice which were strewn along the shores of the stream.
  On examination of the piers of the bridge, it was found that they
  had admirably resisted the tremendous pressure; and though the
  timber "crib-work" erected to facilitate the placing of floating
  pontoons to form the dams was found considerably disturbed and
  in some places seriously damaged, the piers, with the exception
  of one or two heavy stone blocks, which were still unfinished,
  escaped uninjured. One block of many tons' weight was carried to a
  considerable distance, and must have been torn out of its place by
  sheer force, as several of the broken fragments were found left in
  the pier."

Toward the end of January, 1859, the plating of the bottom of the great
central tube was begun. The execution of this part of the undertaking
was of a very formidable and difficult character. The gangs of men
employed upon it were required to work night and day, though the
season was mid-winter, as it was of great importance to the navigation
that the staging should be removed by the time that the ice broke
up and the river became open. The night gangs were lighted at their
work by wood-fires filling huge braziers, the bright glow of which
illumined the vast snow-covered ice-field in the midst of which they
worked at so lofty an elevation; and the sight as well as the sounds
of the hammering and riveting, the puffing of the steam-engines, and
the various operations thus carried on, presented a scene the like of
which has rarely been witnessed. The work was not conducted without
considerable risk to the men, arising from the intense cold. The
temperature was often 20° below zero, and notwithstanding that they
all worked in thick gloves, and that care was taken to protect every
exposed part, many of them were severely frostbitten. Sometimes, when
thick mist rose from the river, they would become covered with icicles,
and be driven from their work.

[Illustration: ERECTION OF MAIN CENTRAL TUBE.]

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the laying of the great central
tube made steady progress. By the 17th of February the first pair
of side-plates was erected; on the 28th, the bottom was riveted and
completed; 180 feet of the sides was also in place, and 100 feet of
the top was plated; and on the 21st of March the whole of the plating
was finished. A few days later the wedges were knocked away, and the
tube hung suspended between the adjoining piers. On the 18th of May
following the staging was all cleared away, with the moored scows and
the crib-work, and the centre span of the bridge was again clear for
the navigation of the river.

The first stone of the bridge was laid on the 22d of July, 1854. The
works continued in progress for a period of five and a half years,
until the 17th of December, 1859, when the first train passed over
the bridge; and on the 25th of August, 1860, it was formally opened
for traffic by the Prince of Wales. It was the greatest of Robert
Stephenson's bridges, and worthy of being the crowning and closing work
of his life. But he was not destined to see its completion. Two months
before the bridge was finished he had passed from the scene of all his
labors.

       *       *       *       *       *

We have little to add as to the closing events in Robert Stephenson's
life. Retired in a great measure from the business of an engineer, he
occupied himself for the most part in society, in yachting, and in
attending the House of Commons and the Clubs. It was in the year 1847
that he entered the House of Commons as member for Whitby; but he does
not seem to have been very regular in his attendance, and only appeared
on divisions when there was a "whip" of the party to which he belonged.
He was a member of the Sewage and Sanitary Commissions, and of the
Commission which sat on Westminster Bridge. He very seldom addressed
the House, and then only on matters relating to engineering. The
last occasions on which he spoke were on the Suez Canal[107] and the
cleansing of the Serpentine. Besides constructing the railway between
Alexandria and Cairo, he was consulted, like his father, by the King
of Belgium as to the railways of that country; and he was made Knight
of the Order of Leopold because of the improvements which he had made
in locomotive engines, so much to the advantage of the Belgian system
of inland transit. He was consulted by the King of Sweden as to the
railway between Christiana and Lake Miösen, and in consideration of his
services was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olaf.
He also visited Switzerland, Piedmont, and Denmark, to advise as to the
system of railway communication best suited for those countries. At the
Paris Exhibition of 1855 the Emperor of France decorated him with the
Legion of Honor in consideration of his public services; and at home
the University of Oxford made him a Doctor of Civil Laws. In 1855 he
was elected President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, which office
he held with honor and filled with distinguished ability for two years,
giving place to his friend Mr. Locke at the end of 1857.

Mr. Stephenson was frequently called upon to act as arbitrator
between contractors and railway companies, or between one company and
another, great value being attached to his opinion on account of his
weighty judgment, his great experience, and his upright character; and
we believe his decisions were invariably stamped by the qualities of
impartiality and justice. He was always ready to lend a helping hand
to a friend, and no petty jealousy stood between him and his rivals in
the engineering world. The author remembers being with Mr. Stephenson
one evening at his house in Gloucester Square when a note was put into
his hand from his friend Brunel, then engaged in his fruitless efforts
to launch the _Great Eastern_. It was to ask Stephenson to come down to
Blackwall early next morning, and give him the benefit of his judgment.
Shortly after six next morning Stephenson was in Scott Russell's
building-yard, and he remained there until dusk. About midday, while
superintending the launching operations, the balk of timber on which he
stood canted up, and he fell up to his middle in the Thames mud. He was
dressed as usual, without great-coat (though the day was bitter cold),
and with only thin boots upon his feet. He was urged to leave the yard
and change his dress, or at least dry himself; but, with his usual
disregard of health, he replied, "Oh, never mind me; I'm quite used to
this sort of thing;" and he went paddling about in the mud, smoking his
cigar, until almost dark, when the day's work was brought to an end.
The result of this exposure was an attack of inflammation of the lungs,
which kept him to his bed for a fortnight.

He was habitually careless of his health, and perhaps he indulged in
narcotics to a prejudicial extent. Hence he often became "hipped,"
and sometimes ill. When Mr. Sopwith accompanied him to Egypt in the
_Titania_, in 1856, he succeeded in persuading Mr. Stephenson to limit
his indulgence in cigars and stimulants, and the consequence was that
by the end of the voyage he felt himself, as he said, "quite a new
man." Arrived at Marseilles, he telegraphed from thence a message to
Great George Street, prescribing certain stringent and salutary rules
for observance in the office there on his return. But he was of a
facile, social disposition, and the old associations proved too strong
for him. When he sailed for Norway in the autumn of 1859, though then
ailing in health, he looked a man who had still plenty of life in
him. By the time he returned his fatal illness had seized him. He was
attacked by congestion of the liver, which first developed itself in
jaundice, and then ran into dropsy, of which he died on the 12th of
October, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. He was buried by the side
of Telford in Westminster Abbey, amid the departed great men of his
country, and was attended to his resting-place by many of the intimate
friends of his boyhood and his manhood. Among those who assembled
round his grave were some of the greatest men of thought and action
in England, who embraced the sad occasion to pay the last mark of
their respect to this illustrious son of one of England's greatest
working-men.

       *       *       *       *       *

It would be out of keeping with the subject thus drawn to a conclusion
to pronounce any panegyric on the character and achievements of George
and Robert Stephenson. These, for the most part, speak for themselves;
and both were emphatically true men, exhibiting in their lives many
valuable and sterling qualities.

No beginning could have been less promising than that of the elder
Stephenson. Born in a poor condition, yet rich in spirit, he was
from the first compelled to rely upon himself, every step of advance
which he made being conquered by patient labor. Whether working as
a brakesman or an engineer, his mind was always full of the work in
hand. He gave himself thoroughly up to it. Like the painter, he might
say that he had become great "by neglecting nothing." Whatever he
was engaged upon, he was as careful of the details as if each were
itself the whole. He did all thoroughly and honestly. There was no
"scamping" with him. When a workman, he put his brains and labor into
his work; and when a master, he put his conscience and character into
it. He would have no slop-work executed merely for the sake of profit.
The materials must be as genuine as the workmanship was skillful.
The structures which he designed and executed were distinguished for
their thoroughness and solidity; his locomotives were famous for their
durability and excellent working qualities. The engines which he sent
to the United States in 1832 are still in good condition; and even the
engines built by him for the Killingworth Colliery, upward of thirty
years since, are working there to this day. All his work was honest,
representing the actual character of the man.

He was ready to turn his hand to any thing--shoes and clocks, railways
and locomotives. He contrived his safety-lamp with the object of saving
pitmen's lives, and periled his own life in testing it. With him to
resolve was to do. Many men knew far more than he, but none was more
ready forthwith to apply what he did know to practical purposes. It
was while working at Willington as a brakesman that he first learned
how best to handle a spade in throwing ballast out of the ships'
holds. This casual employment seems to have left upon his mind the
most lasting impression of what "hard work" was; and he often used to
revert to it, and say to the young men about him, "Ah, ye lads! there's
none o' ye know what _wark_ is." Mr. Gooch says he was proud of the
dexterity in handling a spade which he had thus acquired, and that he
has frequently seen him take the shovel from a laborer in some railway
cutting, and show him how to use it more deftly in filling wagons of
earth, gravel, or sand. Sir Joshua Walmsley has also informed us that,
when examining the works of the Orleans and Tours Railway, Stephenson,
seeing a large number of excavators filling and wheeling sand in a
cutting, at a great waste of time and labor, went up to the men and
said he would show them how to fill their barrows in half the time. He
showed them the proper position in which to stand so as to exercise the
greatest amount of power with the least expenditure of strength; and
he filled the barrow with comparative ease again and again in their
presence, to the great delight of the workmen. When passing through his
own workshops he would point out to his men how to save labor and get
through their work skillfully and with ease. His energy imparted itself
to others, quickening and influencing them as strong characters always
do, flowing down into theirs, and bringing out their best powers.

His deportment to the workmen employed under him was familiar, yet firm
and consistent. As he respected their manhood, so they respected his
masterhood. Although he comported himself toward his men as if they
occupied very much the same level with himself, he yet possessed that
peculiar capacity for governing which enabled him always to preserve
among them the strictest discipline, and to secure their cheerful and
hearty services. Mr. Ingham, M.P. for South Shields, on going over the
workshops at Newcastle, was particularly struck with this quality of
the master in his bearing toward his men. "There was nothing," said
he, "of undue familiarity in their intercourse, but they spoke to each
other as man to man; and nothing seemed to please the master more than
to point out illustrations of the ingenuity of his artisans. He took up
a rivet, and expatiated on the skill with which it had been fashioned
by the workman's hand--its perfectness and truth. He was always proud
of his workmen and his pupils; and, while indifferent and careless
as to what might be said of himself, he fired up in a moment if
disparagement were thrown upon any one whom he had taught or trained."

In manner, George Stephenson was simple, modest, and unassuming, but
always manly. He was frank and social in spirit. When a humble workman,
he had carefully preserved his sense of self-respect. His companions
looked up to him, and his example was worth much more to many of them
than books or schools. His devoted love of knowledge made his poverty
respectable, and adorned his humble calling. When he rose to a more
elevated station, and associated with men of the highest position
and influence in Britain, he took his place among them with perfect
self-possession. They wondered at the quiet ease and simple dignity of
his deportment; and men in the best ranks of life have said of him that
"he was one of Nature's gentlemen."

Probably no military chiefs were ever more beloved by their soldiers
than were both father and son by the army of men who, under their
guidance, worked at labors of profit, made labors of love by their
earnest will and purpose. True leaders of men and lords of industry,
they were always ready to recognize and encourage talent in those
who worked for and with them. Thus it was pleasant, at the openings
of the Stephenson lines, to hear the chief engineers attributing the
successful completion of the works to their assistants; while the
assistants, on the other hand, ascribed the principal glory to their
chiefs.

George Stephenson, though a thrifty and frugal man, was essentially
unsordid. His rugged path in early life made him careful of his
resources. He never saved to hoard, but saved for a purpose, such
as the maintenance of his parents or the education of his son. In
his later years he became a prosperous and even a wealthy man; but
riches never closed his heart, nor stole away the elasticity of his
soul. He enjoyed life cheerfully, because hopefully. When he entered
upon a commercial enterprise, whether for others or for himself, he
looked carefully at the ways and means. Unless they would "pay,"
he held back. "He would have nothing to do," he declared, "with
stock-jobbing speculations." His refusal to sell his name to the
schemes of the railway mania--his survey of the Spanish lines without
remuneration--his offer to postpone his claim for payment from a poor
company until their affairs became more prosperous, are instances of
the unsordid spirit in which he acted.

Another marked feature in Mr. Stephenson's character was his patience.
Notwithstanding the strength of his convictions as to the great uses to
which the locomotive might be applied, he waited long and patiently for
the opportunity of bringing it into notice; and for years after he had
completed an efficient engine, he went on quietly devoting himself to
the ordinary work of the colliery. He made no noise nor stir about his
locomotive, but allowed another to take credit for the experiments on
velocity and friction which he had made with it upon the Killingworth
railroad. By patient industry and laborious contrivance he was enabled,
with the powerful help of his son, almost to do for the locomotive what
James Watt had done for the condensing engine. He found it clumsy and
inefficient, and he made it powerful, efficient, and useful. Both have
been described as the improvers of their respective engines; but, as
to all that is admirable in their structure or vast in their utility,
they are rather entitled to be described as their inventors. They
have both tended to increase indefinitely the mass of human comforts
and enjoyments, and to render them cheap and accessible to all. But
Stephenson's invention, by the influence which it is daily exercising
upon the civilization of the world, is even more remarkable than that
of Watt, and is calculated to have still more important consequences.
In this respect it is to be regarded as the grandest application of
steam-power that has yet been discovered.

George Stephenson's close and accurate observation provided him with
a fullness of information on many subjects which often appeared
surprising to those who had devoted to them a special study. On one
occasion the accuracy of his knowledge of birds came out in a curious
way at a convivial meeting of railway men in London. The engineers
and railway directors present knew each other as railway men and
nothing more. The talk had been all of railways and railway politics.
Stephenson was a great talker on those subjects, and was generally
allowed, from the interest of his conversation and the extent of his
experience, to take the lead. At length one of the party broke in with,
"Come, now, Stephenson, we have had nothing but railways! can not we
have a change, and try if we can talk a little about something else?"
"Well," said Stephenson, "I'll give you a wide range of subjects; what
shall it be about?" "Say _birds' nests_!" rejoined the other, who
prided himself on his special knowledge of the subject. "Then birds'
nests be it." A long and animated conversation ensued: the bird-nesting
of his boyhood--the blackbird's nest which his father had held him up
in his arms to look at when a child at Wylam--the hedges in which he
had found the thrush's and the linnet's nests--the mossy bank where
the robin built--the cleft in the branch of the young tree where the
chaffinch had reared its dwelling--all rose up clear in his mind's eye,
and led him back to the scenes of his boyhood at Callerton and Dewley
Burn. The color and number of the birds' eggs--the period of their
incubation--the materials employed by them for the walls and lining
of their nests, were described by him so vividly, and illustrated by
such graphic anecdotes, that one of the party remarked that, if George
Stephenson had not been the greatest engineer of his day, he might have
been one of the greatest naturalists.

His powers of conversation were very great. He was so thoughtful,
original, and suggestive. There was scarcely a department of science on
which he had not formed some novel and sometimes daring theory. Thus
Mr. Gooch, his pupil, who lived with him when at Liverpool, informs
us that when sitting over the fire, he would frequently broach his
favorite theory of the sun's light and heat being the original source
of the light and heat given forth by the burning coal. "It fed the
plants of which that coal is made," he would say, "and has been bottled
up in the earth ever since, to be given out again now for the use of
man." His son Robert once said of him, "My father flashed his bull's
eye full upon a subject, and brought it out in its most vivid light
in an instant: his strong common sense and his varied experience,
operating on a thoughtful mind, were his most powerful illuminators."

The Bishop of Oxford related the following anecdote of him at a recent
public meeting in London: "He heard the other day of an answer given
by the great self-taught man, Stephenson, when he was speaking with
something of distrust of what were called competitive examinations.
Stephenson said, 'I distrust them for this reason--they will lead, it
seems to me, to an unlimited power of cram;' and he added, 'Let me give
you one piece of advice--never to judge of your goose by its stuffing!'"

George Stephenson had once a conversation with a watchmaker, whom he
astonished by the extent and minuteness of his knowledge as to the
parts of a watch. The watchmaker knew him to be an eminent engineer,
and asked how he had acquired so extensive a knowledge of a branch
of business so much out of his sphere. "It is very easily to be
explained," said Stephenson; "I worked long at watch-cleaning myself,
and when I was at a loss, I was never ashamed to ask for information."

His hand was open to his former fellow-workmen whom old age had left in
poverty. To poor Robert Gray, of Newburn, who acted as his brideman on
his marriage to Fanny Henderson, he left a pension for life. He would
slip a five-pound note into the hand of a poor man or a widow in such
a way as not to offend their delicacy, but to make them feel as if the
obligation were all on his side. When Farmer Paterson, who married a
sister of George's first wife, Fanny Henderson, died and left a large
young family fatherless, poverty stared them in the face. "But ye
ken," said our informant, "_George struck in fayther for them_." And
perhaps the providential character of the act could not have been more
graphically expressed than in these simple words.

On his visit to Newcastle, he would frequently meet the friends of
his early days, occupying very nearly the same station in life, while
he had meanwhile risen to almost world-wide fame; but he was not
less hearty in his greeting of them than if their relative position
had remained the same. Thus, one day, after shaking hands with Mr.
Brandling on alighting from his carriage, he proceeded to shake hands
with his coachman, Anthony Wigham, a still older friend, though he only
sat on the box.

Robert Stephenson inherited his father's kindly spirit and benevolent
disposition. We have already stated that he was often called in as
an umpire to mediate between conflicting parties, more particularly
between contractors and engineers. On one occasion Brunel complained
to him that he could not get on with his contractors, who were never
satisfied, and were always quarreling with him. "You hold them too
tightly to the letter of your agreement," said Stephenson; "treat them
fairly and liberally." "But they try to take advantage of me at all
points," rejoined Brunel. "Perhaps you suspect them too much?" said
Stephenson. "I suspect all men to be rogues," said the other, "till I
find them to be honest." "For my part," said Stephenson, "I take all
men to be honest till I find them to be rogues." "Ah! then, I fear we
shall never agree," concluded Brunel.

Robert almost worshiped his father's memory, and was ever ready
to attribute to him the chief merit of his own achievements as an
engineer. "It was his thorough training," we once heard him say, "his
example, and his character, which made me the man I am." On a more
public occasion he said, "It is my great pride to remember that,
whatever may have been done, and however extensive may have been my own
connection with railway development, all I know and all I have done is
primarily due to the parent whose memory I cherish and revere."[108] To
Mr. Lough, the sculptor, he said he had never had but two loves--one
for his father, the other for his wife.

Like his father, he was eminently practical, and yet always open to the
influence and guidance of correct theory. His main consideration in
laying out his lines of railway was what would best answer the intended
purpose, or, to use his own words, to secure the maximum of result
with the minimum of means. He was pre-eminently a safe man, because
cautious, tentative, and experimental; following closely the lines of
conduct trodden by his father, and often quoting his maxims.

In society Robert Stephenson was simple, unobtrusive, and modest, but
charming and even fascinating in an eminent degree. Sir John Lawrence
has said of him that he was, of all others, the man he most delighted
to meet in England--he was so manly yet gentle, and withal so great.
While admired and beloved by men of such calibre, he was equally a
favorite with women and children. He put himself upon the level of all,
and charmed them no less by his inexpressible kindliness of manner
than by his simple yet impressive conversation.

His great wealth enabled him to perform many generous acts in a right
noble and yet modest manner, not letting his right hand know what
his left hand did. Of the numerous kindly acts of his which have
been made public, we may mention the graceful manner in which he
repaid the obligations which both himself and his father owed to the
Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Institute when working together
as fellow experimenters many years before in their humble cottage at
Killingworth. The Institute was struggling under a debt of £6200,
which impaired its usefulness as an educational agency. Mr. Stephenson
offered to pay one half the sum provided the local supporters of the
Institute would raise the remainder, and conditional also on the annual
subscription being reduced from two guineas to one, in order that the
usefulness of the institution might be extended. His generous offer was
accepted and the debt extinguished.

Both father and son were offered knighthood, and both declined it.
During the summer of 1847, George Stephenson was invited to offer
himself as a candidate for the representation of South Shields in
Parliament. But his politics were at best of a very undefined sort.
Indeed, his life had been so much occupied with subjects of a practical
character that he had scarcely troubled himself to form any decided
opinion on the party political topics of the day, and to stand the
cross-fire of the electors on the hustings might possibly have proved
an even more distressing ordeal than the cross-questioning of the
barristers in the Committees of the House of Commons. "Politics," he
used to say, "are all matters of theory--there is no stability in them;
they shift about like the sands of the sea; and I should feel quite
out of my element among them." He had, accordingly, the good sense
respectfully to decline the honor of contesting the representation of
South Shields.

We have, however, been informed by Sir Joseph Paxton that, although
George Stephenson held no strong opinions on political questions
generally, there was one question on which he entertained a decided
conviction, and that was the question of Free Trade. The words used
by him on one occasion to Sir Joseph were very strong. "England,"
said he, "is, and must be, a shopkeeper; and our docks and harbors are
only so many wholesale shops, the doors of which should always be kept
wide open." It is curious that his son should have taken precisely the
opposite view of this question, and acted throughout with the most
rigid party among the Protectionists, supporting the Navigation Laws
and opposing Free Trade, even to the extent of going into the lobby
with Colonel Sibthorp, Mr. Spooner, and the fifty-three "cannon-balls,"
on the 26th of November, 1852. Robert Stephenson to the last spoke
in strong terms as to the "betrayal of the Protectionist party" by
their chosen leader, and he went so far as to say that he "could never
forgive Peel."

But Robert Stephenson will be judged in after times by his achievements
as an engineer rather than by his acts as a politician; and, happily,
these last were far outweighed in value by the immense practical
services which he rendered to trade, commerce, and civilization,
through the facilities which the railways constructed by him afforded
for free intercommunication between men in all parts of the world.
Speaking in the midst of his friends at Newcastle in 1850, he observed:

  "It seems to me but as yesterday that I was engaged as an assistant
  in laying out the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Since then,
  the Liverpool and Manchester, and a hundred other great works
  have sprung into existence. As I look back upon these stupendous
  undertakings, accomplished in so short a time, it seems as
  though we had realized in our generation the fabled powers of
  the magician's wand. Hills have been cut down and valleys filled
  up; and when these simple expedients have not sufficed, high and
  magnificent viaducts have been raised, and, if mountains stood in
  the way, tunnels of unexampled magnitude have pierced them through,
  bearing their triumphant attestation to the indomitable energy of
  the nation, and the unrivaled skill of our artisans."

As respects the immense advantages of railways to mankind there can
not be two opinions. They exhibit, probably, the grandest organization
of capital and labor that the world has yet seen. Although they have
unhappily occasioned great loss to many, the loss has been that of
individuals, while, as a national system, the gain has already been
enormous. As tending to multiply and spread abroad the conveniences
of life, opening up new fields of industry, bringing nations nearer
to each other, and thus promoting the great ends of civilization, the
founding of the railway system by George Stephenson and his son must be
regarded as one of the most important events, if not the very greatest,
in the first half of this nineteenth century.

[Illustration: THE STEPHENSON MEMORIAL SCHOOLS, WILLINGTON QUAY.]

FOOTNOTES:

[106] The dams of "crib-work" were formed by laying flattened pine
logs along the whole outer edge of the work, and at intervals of from
5 to 10 feet parallel therewith throughout the whole of the breadth,
connected with transverse timbers firmly treenailed and notched into
them. When one course was formed, another was laid upon and firmly
treenailed to it. After two or three courses were laid, transverse
timbers were placed over them close together, so as to form a flooring,
on which stone was placed to suit the crib as the work progressed. When
the under side of the crib touched the bottom, it was carefully filled
with loose stones and clay puddle to the water level. The process of
puddling and pumping out the water, and building up the pier within the
dam thus formed, then proceeded in the usual manner. In some cases a
powerful steam dredge was employed to clear out the puddle-chambers.

[107] Mr. Stephenson entertained a very strong opinion as to the
inexpediency of making this canal, and the impracticability of keeping
it open except at an enormous expense. Of course it was possible
to make the canal provided there was money enough raised for the
purpose. But, even if made, he held that it would not long be used,
for there would not be traffic enough to pay working expenses. In
1846, Mr. Stephenson carefully examined the country along the line
of the proposed canal, from Tineh on the Mediterranean, to Suez on
the Red Sea, in company with the agents of M. Talabot, a French
engineer, and M. de Negrelli, an Austrian engineer. They ascertained
that there was no difference of level between the two seas, and that
consequently a canal capable of being scoured by the waters of either
was impracticable. On the occasion of Captain Pim's reading a paper on
the subject of the revived project of the canal before the Geographical
Society on the 11th of April, 1859, Mr. Stephenson took part in the
discussion which followed. He held that any harbor constructed at
Port Said, however far it might be extended into the sea, would only
act as a mud-trap, and that it would be impracticable to keep such
a port open. Mr. George Rennie had compared the proposed breakwater
at Pelusium with the breakwater at Portland, on which Mr. Stephenson
observed, "Why, at Portland, the stones are carried out from the shore
and thrown into the sea, but at Pelusium there is no solid shore, and
all the stones must be brought 100 miles. Can there be any comparison
between a breakwater at Portland and one in the Mediterranean on a
lee-shore, where there is no stone and no foundation whatever? It is
only the silt of the Nile. The Nile brings down millions of tons of
mud yearly, and hence the Delta formed at its mouth. The moment you
construct a harbor at Port Said and project piers into the sea, you
immediately arrest the course of the mud, and will never be able to
keep the port open. It would be the most extraordinary thing in the
world to project two jetties into an open sea on a lee-shore, which
has for almost three months in the year a northeast wind blowing upon
it. There is no seaman, except in fair weather, who would venture to
approach such a place. To render it at all accessible and safe, there
must be a harbor of refuge made, and we know from experience in our
own country what a large question that would open up. But even suppose
such a harbor to be made. The current carries the mud of the Nile in
an easterly direction; and if you provide a harbor of refuge, which
means a quiescent harbor, it will act merely as a gigantic mud-trap. I
believe it to be nearly if not absolutely true, that there is no large
harbor in the world maintained on the delta of a large river. Any such
harbor would be silted up in a few years. And whoever has traveled over
the district between Port Said and Suez, and seen the moving sands,
must see that it would be necessary to dredge, not only that harbor,
but the canal itself." Mr. Stephenson's conclusion accordingly was that
the scheme was impracticable, that it would not justify the expenditure
necessary to complete it, and that, if ever executed, it would prove a
commercial failure.

[108] Address as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
January, 1856.



INDEX.


  Accident, G. Stephenson's stage-coach, 389.

  Accidents in coal-mines, 175, 196.

  Adam, Mr., counsel for Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill, 265.

  Adhesion of wheel and rail, 82, 152, 156, 165.

  Albert, Prince, an early traveler by rail, 390.

  Alderson, Mr., counsel against Liverpool and Manchester
        Railway Bill, 268, 271, 274, 275.

  Allcard, Wm., 283.

  Alton Grange, G. Stephenson's house at, 344.

  Ambergate, land-slip at, 372;
    lime-works at, 394, 395.

  Anderson, Dr., his early advocacy of railroads, 73.

  Arnold, Dr., on railways, 390.

  Atmospheric railways, 402, 403, 426-428.


  Bald, Robert, mining engineer, 198, 212.

  Barrow, Sir John, on railway speed, 262.

  Beaumont, Mr., his wooden wagon-ways, 48.

  Belgium, railways in, 382;
    G. Stephenson's visits to, 382, 383, 415.

  Benton Colliery and village, 138, 140, 151.

  Berkeley, Mr., on railways, 341.

  Berwick, Royal Border Bridge at, 430.

  Bird-nesting, G. Stephenson's love of, 106, 109, 380, 491.

  Black Callerton Colliery, 109, 116, 117.

  Blackett, Mr. Wylam, 102, 153, 154, 157-161.

  Blast, the steam, its invention, 170.

  Blenkinsop, Mr., Leeds, his locomotive, 155-157, 162.

  Blisworth Cutting, 355.

  Boiler, the multitubular, its invention, 316-318.

  Booth, Henry, 256, 312, 318, 319.

  Boulton, Matthew, his tubular boiler, 316-318.

  Boulton and Watt, and the locomotive, 63-68.

  Bradshaw, Mr., his opposition to Liverpool and
        Manchester line, 255, 258.

  Braithwaite and Ericsson's "Novelty," 322-324.

  Brake, G. Stephenson's self-acting, 334, 398.

  Brakeing of colliery engines, 116-118, 131.

  Brandling, Messrs., 184, 191, 192, 431.

  Brandreth's "Cycloped," 322.

  Bridge building, rapid progress of, 431, 432.

  Bridges--
    Royal Border, 430;
    High-Level, Newcastle, 431;
    Britannia (Menai), 439-442;
    Conway, 451;
    Victoria, Lower Canada, 476.

  Britannia Bridge, North Wales, 449, 452-459.

  Brougham, William, counsel for Liverpool and
        Manchester Bill, 262, 265.

  Bruce, Mr., R. Stephenson's schoolmaster, 141.

  Brunel, I. K., 423-427, 486.

  Brunton's "Mechanical Traveler," 157.

  Brussels, railway celebrations at, 383, 416.

  Buckland, Dr., 467.

  Bull Bridge, near Ambergate, 373.

  Bull, Edward, his Cornish engine, 76;
    William, partner of Trevithick, 76, 88.

  Burrell, G. Stephenson's partner, 207.

  Burstall's "Perseverance," 322, 326.


  Callerton Colliery and village, 109, 116, 117.

  Canada, railways in, _Pref._, v., 476.

  Canal Companies' opposition to railways, 260, 341.

  Cardiff and Merthyr Railroad, 73.

  Carrying stock of railways, _Pref._, ix., 334.

  Cattle brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xx.

  Chapman's locomotive, 157, 163.

  "Charlotte Dundas," the first practical steam-boat, 70.

  Chat Moss, surveying on, 252, 264;
    railway constructed on, 283-288.

  Chester and Birkenhead Railway, 402;
    and Holyhead Railway, 438.

  Chesterfield, town of, 395, 471.

  Clanny, Dr., his safety-lamp, 179, 196.

  Clark, Edwin, R. Stephenson's assistant, 448.

  Claycross Colliery, 394, 420.

  Coach, first railway, 240.

  Coal, working of, 100, 101;
    supply of, to London, _Pref._, xxv.;
    haulage of, 153, 161;
    supply of, by railways, 386, 392.

  Coal Railways, G. Stephenson on, 393.

  Cochrane, Lord, and Peruvian revolution, 89.

  Coe, William, 116, 117, 121, 125.

  Coffin, Sir Isaac, on railways, 280.

  Collieries, G. Stephenson's, at Snibston, 344;
    at Claycross, 392.

  Colombia, R. Stephenson's residence in, 301-308.

  Companies, joint-stock railway, 339, 404.

  Contractors and railways, 353, 360, 361, 493.

  Conversation, G. Stephenson's love of, 463, 491.

  Conway, tubular bridge at, 450, 451.

  Cooper, Sir A., R. Stephenson's interview with, 350.

  Cornish engineers, early, 75, 76.

  Correspondence, G. Stephenson's, 297, 379, 380.

  Crib-work, Victoria Bridge, 479, 480.

  Cropper, Isaac, Liverpool, 293, 313, 325.

  "Crowdie night," a, 465.

  Croydon and Merstham Railroad, 74, 216.

  Cubitt, W., evidence of, on Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 272.

  Cugnot, N., his road locomotive, 60.

  Curr, John, his cast-iron tram-way, 50.

  Cuttings--
    Olive Mount, 291;
    Tring, 354;
    Blisworth, 355;
    Ambergate, 372;
    Oakenshaw, 372.


  Darlington, railway projected at, 218.

  Darwin, Erasmus, his fiery chariot, 53-59.

  Davy, Sir H., on Trevithick's steam-carriage, 79;
    his paper on fire-damp, 179;
    his safety-lamp, 189;
    testimonial to, 191;
    his lamp compared with Stephenson's, 195.

  Denman, Lord, 463.

  Derby, Earl of, and Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 252, 258, 280.

  Dewley Burn Colliery, 107-111.

  Direct lines, rage for, 408.

  Dixon, John, assists in survey of Stockton and Darlington
        Railway, 219, 236;
    resident engineer Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 283.

  Dodds, Ralph, Killingworth, 132, 139.

  Dutton Viaduct, 366.


  East Coast route to Scotland, 426.

  Edgeworth, R. L., early speculations on railways, 56, 57.

  Eggs, brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xxii.

  Egypt, R. Stephenson's tubular bridges in, 475;
    Suez Canal, 484, 485.

  Electric telegraphing on railways, _Pref._, xiii.

  Emerson, G. Stephenson's meeting with, 469, 470.

  Ericsson's "Novelty," 322-324.

  Evans, Oliver, his steam-carriage, 71, 72;
    his boiler, 77.

  Explosions from fire-damp, 175.


  Fairbairn, William, C.E., early friendship with
        G. Stephenson, 124, 125;
    experiments on iron tubes for R. Stephenson, 446.

  Fire-damp, explosions of, 175.

  Fish brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xxi.

  Fitch, John, American engineer, 71.

  Food brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xix.

  Forth-Street Works, Newcastle, 232, 396.

  Foster, Jonathan, Wylam, 158.

  Foundations--of bridge on the Derwent, 372;
    of High-Level Bridge, Newcastle, 434;
    of Victoria Bridge, Montreal, 479.

  Free Trade, G. Stephenson's notions of, 494, 495.

  Friction, G. Stephenson's early experiments in, 202;
    and gradients, 400.

  Frolic, G. Stephenson's love of, 135, 375, 465.


  Gauge of railways, 234, 424.

  "Geordy" safety-lamp, 175-195.

  Gilbert, Davies, and Trevithick, 79, 82, 83.

  Giles, Francis, C.E., his evidence against Liverpool and Manchester
        Railway Bill, 273, 275, 289.

  Gooch, Thomas, C.E., 277, 295, 328, 330.

  Government and railways, 337, 338.

  Gradients and friction, 202, 400.

  Grand Allies, Killingworth, 135.

  Grand Junction Railway, 341, 365.

  Grand Trunk Railway, Canada, 476.

  Gray, Thomas, and the locomotive, 156, 311.

  Great Western Railway, 340, 342, 424.

  Greenwich Railway opened as a "show," _Pref._, xv.

  Gurney, Goldsworthy, 171, 317.


  Hackworth, T., and the steam-blast, 174;
    his locomotive "Sanspareil," 322, 324, 325, 326.

  Half-lap joint, G. Stephenson's, 200.

  Harrison, Mr., counsel against Liverpool and Manchester Bill, 265,
        272, 276.

  Harvey, Mr., engineer, Hayle, 76.

  Hedley, William, Wylam, 159, 160, 171.

  Henderson, Fanny, G. Stephenson's first wife, 118, 123, 125, 127.

  Heppel, Kit, Killingworth, 132, 135.

  Hetton Railway constructed by G. Stephenson, 208.

  High-Level Bridge, Newcastle, 433.

  Hindmarsh, Miss, G. Stephenson's second wife, 214.

  Hodgkinson, Professor, his calculations as to strength of iron
        tubes, 447.

  Holyhead, railway to, 438.

  Hornblower, Jonathan, 75, 76.

  Horticulture, G. Stephenson's experiments in, 460, 461.

  Horse traction on railways, 48, 57, 74, 153, 166, 234, 240.

  Howick, Lord, his support of atmospheric railways, 427;
    G. Stephenson's interview with, 428, 429.

  Hudson, George, the "Railway King," 407, 411.

  Huskisson, Mr., an early advocate of railways, 278, 280;
    fatal accident to, 331.

  Hydraulic press used to lift the tubes at the Britannia Bridge, 456.


  Ice-flood at Montreal, 481, 482.

  Inclined planes, self-acting, 149, 150, 162.

  India, railways in, _Pref._, iv.

  Iron bridge building, progress in, 432, 443.

  Italian railways, _Pref._, iv.


  James, William, surveys Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 248;
    visit to Killingworth, 250;
    arrangement with Stephenson and Losh, 251;
    compelled to relinquish the survey, 253, 254.

  James, W. H., his tubular boiler, 317.

  Jameson, Professor, Edinburg, 213.

  Jessop, William, his cast-iron edge-rail, 51.

  Joy, Mr., counsel for Liverpool and Manchester Bill, 265, 268.


  Keelmen of the Tyne, 101, 102.

  Kent, opposition to railways in, 342.

  Killingworth, 126, 129;
    High Pit, 131;
    locomotive, 168;
    underground machinery, 198;
    visited by Edward Pease, 230;
    W. James, 250;
    promoters of Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 257.

  Kilmarnock and Troon tram-road, 206.

  Kilsby Tunnel, 342, 357-361, 363.


  Lambton, Mr. (Earl of Durham), 225.

  Lamp, invention of the safety, 175.

  Land-slip at Ambergate, 372.

  Landlords and railways, 223, 252, 341, 352, 469.

  Lardner, Dr., on undulating lines, 400.

  Leicester and Swannington Railway, 343.

  Leopold, King, G. Stephenson's interviews with, 382, 383, 416.

  Lime-works at Ambergate, 394, 395.

  Littleborough Tunnel, 368.

  Liverpool and Manchester Railway projected, 247;
    survey by W. James, 249;
    George Stephenson appointed engineer, 254;
    virulent opposition, 259, 260;
    the bill in committee, 265;
    rejected, 277;
    renewed application, 278;
    the bill passed, 280;
    the railway constructed, 281;
    discussion as to the power to be employed to work the line, 311;
    prize offered for the best locomotive, 314;
    the competition at Rainhill, 322;
    triumph of the "Rocket," 326;
    public opening of the railway, 330;
    its success, 332.

  Locke, Joseph, C.E., resident engineer on Liverpool and Manchester
        Railway, 283.

  Locomotive engine gradually perfected, 47;
    Sir I. Newton's idea, 53;
    Darwin's, 53-59;
    Cugnot's, 60-63;
    James Watt's, 60, 64;
    William Murdock's model locomotive, 66;
    William Symington's model, 68-70;
    Oliver Evans's 71;
    Richard Trevithick's steam-carriage and first locomotive, 77-82;
    Blenkinsop's Leeds locomotive, 155;
    Blackett's Wylam locomotive, 157-161;
    Stephenson's Killingworth locomotive, 164-170;
    farther improvements by Stephenson, 201, 202;
    locomotives constructed for Stockton and Darlington Railway, 235;
    the "Rocket," 319;
    farther improvements in locomotives, 335;
    number of locomotives in the United Kingdom, _Pref._, ix., x.;
    self-feeding apparatus of, _ib._, xiv.

  Locomotive workshops at Newcastle, the Stephensons', 232, 396.

  London and Birmingham Railway, 349-364.

  London, railways in, opening or the Greenwich line, _Pref._, xv.;
    magnitude of suburban traffic, _ib._, xvi.;
    new lines opened, _ib._, xvi.;
    population increased by, _ib._, xviii.;
    provisioning of London, _ib._, xix.;
    coal supply of, _ib._, xxv.

  Losh, Mr. Stephenson's partner, 201, 233.

  Lough's statue of G. Stephenson, 472.


  Mackworth, Sir H., his sailing-wagon, 52.

  Mail service by railway, _Pref._, xxvi.

  Manchester, railways projected in connection with, 340;
    and Leeds Railway, 366.

  Mania, the railway, 405, 406.

  Maps--
    of Newcastle district, 98;
    Stockton and Darlington Railway, 224;
    Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 250-251;
    Leicester and Swannington Railway, 343;
    London and Birmingham Railway, 354;
    Midland Railway, 370;
    Straits of Menai, 442.

  Mechanics' Institutes, G. Stephenson at meetings of, 397.

  Menai, bridge over Straits of, 439.

  Merchandise, traffic of London, _Pref._, xxvi.

  Merstham tram-road, 74, 217.

  Merthyr tram-road, 73;
    Trevithick's locomotive tried on, 80.

  Middlesborough-on-Tees, growth of, 245.

  Midland Railway, 370.

  Milk brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xxiv.

  Miller, Mr., Dalswinton, and steam navigation, 70.

  Montreal, Victoria Bridge at, 476.

  Moore, Francis, his patent for steam-carriages, 63.

  Morecambe Bay, G. Stephenson's proposed line across, 376.

  Moss, Chat (see _Chat Moss_).

  Multitubular boiler, invention of the, 318.

  Murdock, William, his model locomotive, 66;
    Watt discourages his application to the subject, 67, 77.

  Murray, Matthew, and the Leeds locomotive, 155.


  Nasmyth's steam-hammer first applied to pile-driving, 434.

  Navvies, Railway, 362.

  Newcastle-on-Tyne, early history, 97;
    Literary and Philosophical Institute, 142, 185, 189, 209, 494;
    Mechanics' Institute, 397;
    High-Level Bridge, 431.

  Newcastle and Berwick Railway, 426.

  Newcomen's atmospheric engine, 100.

  Neville's tubular boiler, 317, 318.

  Newton, Sir I., his idea of steam locomotion, 53.

  Nicholson's steam-jet, 82, 171.

  Nile, R. Stephenson's tubular bridges over the, 475.

  North Midland Railway, 370, 373, 374.

  North, Roger, description of early tram-roads, 49.

  Northampton, opposition of, to railways, 342.

  Northumberland Atmospheric Railway, 427.

  "Novelty" locomotive, 323.


  Oaks Pit Colliery explosion, 195.

  Offices, Stephenson's London, 381, 407.

  Old Quay Navigation, Liverpool, 256.

  Olive Mount Cutting, 291.

  Openings of railways--
    Hetton, 209;
    Stockton and Darlington, 236;
    Liverpool and Manchester, 330;
    London and Birmingham, 384;
    in Midland Counties, 384;
    East Coast route to Scotland, 426, 437:
    Britannia Bridge, 458;
    Trent Valley, 469.

  Opposition to railways--
    in country districts, 337, 341;
    at Northampton, 342;
    in Kent, 342;
    at Eton, 342;
    to London and Birmingham, 350.

  Organization--of early railways, 330, 333;
    of modern railways, _Pref._, xi.

  Outram's railway, first use of stone blocks, 51.


  Parliament and railways, 338, 406, 410.

  Parr Moss, railway across, 288.

  Passenger-carriage, the first, 240.

  Passenger-traffic, beginnings of, _Pref._, vii., xv., 240, 241,
        333, 338;
    of London, _Pref._, xvii.

  Pease, Edward, promotes Stockton and Darlington Railway, his
        character, 222;
    anticipations concerning railways, 225;
    intercourse with George Stephenson, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232;
    assists George Stephenson with capital, 232;
    faith in the locomotive, 235, 246;
    letter to Robert Stephenson, 306, 307.

  Peel, Sir R., on undulating lines, 409, 410;
    G. Stephenson's visit to, 467.

  Penmaen Mawr, railway under, 439.

  Pen-y-darran, Trevithick's locomotive made and tried at, 80-82.

  Permanent way, _Pref._, viii., xi., 159, 200.

  Peruvian mining, Trevithick's adventures in connection with, 87.

  Petherick, J., his description of Trevithick's steam-carriage, 78, 79.

  Phillips, Sir Richard, on railroads, 217.

  Pile-driving by steam, 434

  Pitmen, habits and character of Newcastle, 100, 101.

  Plate-ways, 50, 82.

  Politics, G. and R. Stephenson's, 494.

  Population of London, how influenced by railways, _Pref._, xviii.

  Postal service and railways, _Pref._, xxvii.

  Potatoes brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xxiii.

  Poultry brought to London by rail, _Pref._, xxii.

  Primrose Hill Tunnel, 356.

  Professional charges, G. Stephenson's, 382.

  Provisioning of London, _Pref._, xix.

  Pyrenean pastoral, 418.


  _Quarterly Review_ on railway speed, 263.

  Queen, the, her first use of the railway, 390;
    opens the High-Level and Royal Border Bridges, 437;
    visits the Britannia Bridge, 456.


  Rails--
    stone blocks first used, 48;
    planks, 48;
    plates of iron, 50;
    cast-iron rails, 50;
    flanched rails, 51;
    tram-plates at Merthyr, 81;
    Wylam wagon-way, 153;
    rack-rail, 156, 157, 159, 160;
    heavier cast-iron rails used, 160;
    roughly laid, 200;
    Stephenson's half-lap joint, 200;
    Stephenson recommends wrought-iron rails, 233;
    temporary rails in constructing roads, 284;
    Vignolles's and Ericsson's central friction, 311;
    strained by high speed, 399.

  Railway locomotive (see _Locomotive_).

  Railway king, the, 407, 411.

  Railway speed (see _Speed_).

  Railway speculation and mania, 374, 401-405.

  Railways, length of, constructed, _Pref._, iii.;
    in India, _ib._, iv.;
    in United States, _ib._, vi.;
    carrying stock of, _ib._, ix.;
    effects of, _ib._, xv.;
    in London, _ib._, xv.;
    number of workmen employed on, _ib._, xxviii.

  Railways constructed and opened--
    Cardiff and Merthyr, 73;
    Sirhowy, 73;
    Wandsworth, Croydon, and Merstham, 73, 74;
    Wylam, 160;
    Kilmarnock and Troon, 206;
    Hetton, 207;
    Stockton and Darlington, 224;
    Liverpool and Manchester, 247;
    Canterbury and Whitstable, 339;
    Grand Junction, 340, 365;
    Leicester and Swannington, 343;
    London and Birmingham, 349;
    Manchester and Leeds, 366;
    Midland, 370;
    in Belgium, 382;
    Chester and Birkenhead, 402;
    Newcastle and Darlington, 412;
    Newcastle and Berwick, 414, 426;
    Royal North of Spain, 417;
    Chester and Holyhead, 438;
    Trent Valley Railway, 469;
    Grand Trunk, Lower Canada, 476.

  Rainhill, locomotive contest at, 322.

  Ramsbottom's locomotive self-feeding apparatus, _Pref._, xiv.

  Rastrick, Mr., C.E., 153, 312, 315.

  Ravensworth, Lord, 135, 192.

  Rennie, John, C.E., 220, 221;
    Messrs. Rennie and Liverpool and Manchester line, 279, 281.

  Residential area of London, enlarged by railways, _Pref._, xvii.

  Richardson, Thomas, Lombard Street, 230, 232, 266, 267, 307.

  Road locomotion--
    Stevin's sailing-coach, 52;
    Mackworth's and Edgeworth's sailing-wagons, 52, 53, 57;
    Cugnot's road locomotive, 61;
    Murdock's model, 66;
    Symington's steam-carriage, 68;
    Oliver Evans's locomotive, 71, 72;
    Trevithick's steam-carriage, 77;
    G. Stephenson's views of locomotion on common roads, 202-205;
    House of Commons report in favor of, 338.

  Robins at Alton Grange, anecdote of, 381.

  "Rocket" locomotive, the, 319-328.

  Roscoe, Mr., his farm on Chat Moss, 282, 283.

  Ross, A. M., joint engineer of Victoria Bridge, Montreal, 477.

  Royal Border Bridge, Berwick, 429.


  Safety-lamp--
    Dr. Clanny's, 179;
    George Stephenson's first lamp, 180;
    second and third lamps, 186;
    Sir H. Davy's paper on fire-damp, 179;
    his lamp, 187;
    dates when lamps produced, 188;
    controversy Davy _v._ Stephenson, 187;
    comparative merits of lamps, 195.

  Safety of railway traveling, _Pref._, x.

  Sailing-coaches and wagons, 52, 53, 57.

  Saint Fond on colliery wagon-roads, 49.

  Saint Lawrence River, Victoria Bridge across, 476-484.

  Sandars, Mr., Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 248, 253, 254, 255,
        262, 263, 297, 313.

  Sankey Viaduct, 292, 293.

  "Sanspareil" locomotive, Hackworth's, 324, 325.

  Scarborough, railway to, 374.

  Screw-propeller patented by Trevithick, 86.

  Seguin, M., his tubular boiler, 317, 318.

  Self-feeding apparatus of boilers, _Pref._, xiv.

  Sheep carried to London by rail, _Pref._, xxi.

  Sibthorp, Col., on railways, 341, 390, 391.

  Signaling of railway trains, _Pref._, xi.

  Simplon, Midland Railway compared with road over the, 371.

  Sirhowy Railroad, 73.

  Snibston, George Stephenson's sinking for coal at, 344.

  Sopwith, Mr., F.R.S., 416, 467.

  South Devon atmospheric railway, 428.

  Spain, George Stephenson's visit to, 418.

  Spankie, Mr. Sergeant, counsel for Liverpool and Manchester Railway
        Bill, 271.

  Speculation in railways, 374, 401;
    G. Stephenson on, 406, 407;
    R. Stephenson and, 425.

  Speed, railway, _Pref._, viii.;
    on Liverpool and Manchester line, 332;
    George Stephenson on, 398, 399.

  Spur-gear, George Stephenson's, 164, 165.

  Stage-coach traveling, _Pref._, vii., 337, 387, 389.

  Statues of George Stephenson, 472.

  Steam-blast, invention of the, 168, 170;
    rival claims, 170, 171;
    of the "Rocket," 320.

  Steam-boat, the first working, 70.

  Stephenson family, the--
    Robert and Mabel, George's father and mother, 103-105;
    brothers and sisters, 111, 112;
    old Robert, 123;
    maintained by his son George, 129.

  Stephenson, George, birth and birthplace, 103, 104;
    his parents, 105;
    boyhood, 107-110;
    fireman and engine-man, 109-113;
    learns to read, 114;
    learns to brake, 116, 117;
    makes and mends shoes and "falls in love," 118;
    thrashes a bully, 119, 120;
    self-improvement, 121;
    removes to Willington, 122;
    marries Fanny Henderson, 123;
    studies mechanics, perpetual motion, 124;
    cleans clocks, 125;
    birth of only son and removal to Killingworth, 126;
    death of his wife, 127;
    goes to Scotland, his pump boot, 128;
    returns to Killingworth, _ibid._;
    brakesman at West Moor pit, 129;
    joins in a brakeing contract, 130, 131;
    cures a pumping-engine, 132-134;
    appointed engine-wright, 135;
    education of his son, 139-141;
    his cottage at West Moor, 146;
    the sun-dial, 148, 149;
    studies the locomotive, 151, 161-163;
    his first traveling-engine, 163-170;
    invents his safety-lamp, 179-186;
    improves underground machinery at Killingworth, 198;
    patent for improved rails and chairs, 200, 201;
    experiments on friction, 202;
    constructs Hetton Railroad, 208;
    marries Elizabeth Hindmarsh, 214;
    appointed engineer of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, 228, 229;
    commences locomotive factory at Newcastle, 232;
    supplies locomotives to Stockton and Darlington Railway, 235;
    appointed engineer to Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 254;
    obstructions to the survey, 259, 260;
    his evidence in committee, 266;
    bill rejected, 277;
    reappointed engineer, 281;
    construction of Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 282-295;
    battle of the locomotive, 310-315;
    triumph of the "Rocket" at Rainhill, 319-328;
    organization of the railway traffic, 333;
    improvements of the locomotive, 335;
    the self-acting brake, 334, 398;
    leases the Snibston estate, 344;
    engineer of Manchester and Leeds Railway, 366;
    engineer of North Midland, 371;
    of York and North Midland, 373;
    quickness of observation, 375;
    proposed line across Morecambe Bay, 376;
    immense labors, 377;
    extensive correspondence, 379, 380;
    London office, 381;
    visits to Belgium, 382, 383;
    leases Claycross estate and colliery, 394;
    on railway speculation, 406, 407;
    third visit to Belgium, 415;
    visit to Spain, 417;
    interview with Lord Howick, 428, 429;
    life in retirement at Tapton, 460;
    visit to Sir Robert Peel, 467;
    theory about sun's light, 468;
    illness and death, 470;
    statues of, 472;
    characteristics, 487-492.

  Stephenson, Robert, his birth, 126;
    boyhood and education, 140-143;
    boyish tricks, 143, 144;
    scientific amusements, 145;
    teaches algebra, 148;
    joint production with his father of a sun-dial, 148, 149;
    assists his father in safety-lamp experiments, 181, 184;
    Newcastle Institute, 209;
    apprenticed as coal-viewer, 209;
    coal-pit explosion, narrow escape, joint studies with his
        father, 210;
    sent to Edinburg University, 211;
    his notes of lectures, 212;
    life in Edinburg, 213;
    geological excursion in the Highlands, return to Killingworth,
        213, 214;
    assists Mr. James in survey of Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
        252;
    makes drawings for engines, 301;
    engages with Colombian Mining Association, and residence in South
        America, 301-306;
    resigns his situation, 306;
    meeting with Trevithick at Cartagena, 308;
    shipwreck, 308;
    tour in the United States, and return home, 309;
    cooperates with his father in the locomotive competition, 315;
    builds the "Rocket," 319;
    engineer of Leicester and Swannington Railway, 343;
    engineer of London and Birmingham Railway, 349;
    marriage to Miss Sanderson, 353;
    report on atmospheric system, 404;
    succeeds his father generally as engineer, 421;
    his extensive practice, 422, 423;
    his caution, 425, 448, 456;
    engineer of High-Level Bridge, Newcastle, 431;
    engineer of Chester and Holyhead Railway, 438;
    designs the first iron tubular bridge, 444;
    opens the Britannia Bridge, 457;
    designs tubular bridges over the Nile, 475;
    designs the Victoria Tubular Bridge, Lower Canada, 477;
    member of House of Commons, 484;
    honors, 485;
    present at launch of "Great Eastern," 486;
    illness and death, 487;
    characteristics, 492-494.

  Stevin's sailing-coach, 52.

  Stockton and Darlington Railway projected and surveyed, 222;
    Edward Pease, promoter, 222;
    act obtained, 224;
    George Stephenson resurveys and constructs line, 228, 229;
    line opened, 236;
    coal-traffic, 239;
    first passenger-traffic, 240, 241;
    growth of Middlesborough, 245.

  Straits of Menai, bridge over, 441.

  Strathmore, Earl of, 135, 192.

  Suez Canal, Robert Stephenson's opinion of, 484, 485.

  Summers and Ogle's tubular boiler, 317.

  Sun-dial at Killingworth, 148, 149, 396.

  Sun's light and coal formation, G. Stephenson's ideas on, 468, 491.

  Sunshine, effect of, on tubes of Britannia Bridge, 458.

  Superheated steam, Trevithick's use of, 91.

  Swanwick, Frederick, G. Stephenson's secretary, 297, 299, 315.

  Sylvester, Mr., on maximum speed, 264.

  Symington, William, his working model of a road locomotive, 68;
    co-operation with Miller of Dalswinton in applying power to
        boats, 70;
    his misfortunes and death, 70.


  Tapton House, George Stephenson's residence at, 392, 395, 460.

  Telegraph signaling on railways, _Pref._, xiii.

  Thames Tunnel begun by Trevithick, 85, 86.

  Thirlwall, William, engineer, 108.

  Thomas, Mr., of Denton, on railways, 73.

  Traffic, passenger, beginnings of, _Pref._, vi., xv., 240, 241, 333,
        385, 388;
    cattle, _Pref._, xx.;
    coal, _ib._, xxv., 153, 161, 386, 392;
    food, _Pref._, xix.;
    merchandise, _ib._, xxvi.;
    poultry, etc., _ib._, xxii.;
    postal, _ib._, xxvi.

  Train service of London, _Pref._, xvii.

  Tram-ways, early, 48, 49, 73, 106, 152.

  Trevithick, Richard, birth and education, 74;
    engineering ability in youth, 75;
    partner with Andrew Vivian at Camborne, 76;
    his improved engine and boiler, 77;
    his steam-carriage for roads, 77-79;
    carriage exhibited in London, 79, 80;
    constructs the first railway locomotive, 80;
    dredges the Thames by steam-power, 83;
    his high-pressure engines and new patents, 83, 84;
    partly constructs a Thames tunnel, 85, 86;
    returns to Camborne, new patents, 86;
    his tubular boiler, engines for Peru, 86, 87;
    goes to Lima, received with honors, 88;
    civil war and ruin, 89;
    meets Robert Stephenson at Cartagena, 90;
    shipwreck and return to England, 91;
    new inventions, his last days and death in poverty, 92, 93;
    his character, his important inventions, _ibid._;
    his locomotive, 152, 153, 170, 317.

  Tring Cutting, 354.

  Trinity Church, Chesterfield, G. Stephenson's burial-place, 471.

  "Tubbing" in coal-pits, 344.

  Tubes, floating of, at Conway, 451, 452;
    at Menai Strait, 452;
    lifting of the, 455;
    erection of, at Victoria Bridge, Montreal, 480.

  Tubular boilers by various inventors, 317.

  Tubular bridges--
    over Menai Straits, 443;
    at Conway, 451, 452;
    at Damietta and Benha, Lower Egypt, 475;
    at Montreal, 480.

  Tunnels--
    at Liverpool, 290;
    at Primrose Hill, 356;
    at Kilsby, 357;
    at Littleborough, 368.

  Turner, Rev. William, Newcastle, 185.


  Undulating Railways, theory of, 400.

  United States, railways in, _Pref._, v.

  Uvillé, M., and Trevithick, 87-89.


  Vegetables carried to London by rail, _Pref._, xxiii.

  Viaducts--
    Sankey, 292;
    Dutton, 366;
    Berwick, 430;
    Newcastle, 431.

  Victoria Bridge, Montreal, 477.

  Vignolles, Charles, C.E., 279, 291, 311.

  Vivian, Andrew, Trevithick's partner, 76.


  Walker, James, C.E., report on fixed and locomotive engines, 312.

  Wallsend, 97.

  Walmsley, Sir Joshua, 418, 419.

  Waters, Mr., Gateshead, 158.

  Watt, James, his model locomotive, 60;
    his scheme of 1784, 64, 65;
    discourages application of steam to locomotion, 67.

  "Way-leave" tram-ways, 49.

  Wellington, Duke of, and railways, 330-332, 390.

  West Moor Colliery, 177, 214.

  Wharncliffe, Lord, and George Stephenson, 135, 367.

  Wheat carried to London by rail, _Pref._, xx.

  Whinfield, Mr., Gateshead, 154.

  Wigham, John, G. Stephenson's teacher, 138.

  Williams, Mr. Scorrier, his gratitude to Trevithick, 77.

  Willington Quay, G. Stephenson at, 122.

  Wind, power of, employed in locomotion, 52, 57.

  Wood, Nicholas, testimony concerning Stephenson's invention of the
        steam-blast, 171-173;
    makes drawing for Stephenson's safety-lamp, 180;
    assists in experiments, 180, 185, 189, 196, 198;
    in colliery explosions, 210;
    on the locomotive, 262, 314, 315.

  Woolf, Cornish engineer, 84, 317.

  Workmen, railway, _Pref._, xxviii., 336, 362.

  Wylam Colliery and village, 102-104;
    wagon-way, 153.


  York and North Midland Railway, 373, 374;
    public opening of, 384.

  Young, Arthur, on early tram-ways, 49.


THE END.



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  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
  Bold text is denoted by =equals signs=.
  The oe and OE ligatures have been replaced by 'oe' and 'OE'.

  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
  within the text and consultation of external sources.

  Except for those changes noted below, misspelling by the author,
  inconsistent or archaic usage, has been retained. For example,
  chainman, chain-man; lifetime, life-time; mail train, mail-train;
  wrought iron, wrought-iron; 'savans' retained (archaic form of
  'savants').

  p. ix 'Kingdon' changed to 'Kingdom'.
  p. 97 'Frith' changed to 'Firth'.
  p. 115 "Robin Cowen's" changed to "Robin Cowens's".
  p. 135 'and, and Mr.' changed to 'and Mr.'
  p. 184 'o' with macron replaced by 'o' in 'hydrogen,'.
  p. 208 'compararatively' changed to 'comparatively'.
  p. 212 'Frith' changed to 'Firth'.
  p. 220 'Frith' changed to 'Firth'.
  p. 239 'orginal' changed to 'original'.
  p. 330 'cenveniently' changed to 'conveniently'.
  p. 410 'tisue' changed to 'tissue'.
  p. 416 'enconiums' changed to 'encomiums'.
  p. 445 'cleet' changed to 'cleat'.
  Index entry: 'Egypt' page '507' changed to '475'.





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