 CHAPTER III ENGINEER AT WILLINGTON KEY AND KILLINGWOOD George Stevenson 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 over. His friend Coe described him to the author as a standing example of manly character. On pay Saturday afternoons, when the pit men held their fortnightly holiday, occupying themselves chiefly in cock-fighting and dog-fighting in the enjoining fields, followed by adjournments to the Yale 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 it. In the evenings he improved himself in the arts of reading and writing, and occasionally took a turn at modelling. It was at Calliton, 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 in 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 Calliton for about two years, he 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 to take a cottage dwelling at Willington Key and furnish it in a humble but comfortable style for the reception of his bride. The Willington Key lies on the north bank of the Tine about six miles below Newcastle. It consists of a line of houses straggling along the riverside, and high behind it towers up the huge mound of ballast emptied out of the ships which resort to the key for their cargoes of coal for the London market. The ballast is thrown out of the ship's hole into wagons laid alongside, which are run up to the summit of the ballast hill and emptied out there. At the foot of the great mound of short rubbish was the fixed engine of which George Stevenson acted as breaksman. The cottage in which he took up his abode was a small two-storey dwelling, standing a little back from the key with a bit of garden ground in front. The Stevenson family 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 occupation, the marriage took place. It was celebrated in Newburn Church on the 28th of November, 1802. After the ceremony, George, with his newly wedded wife, proceeded to the house of his father at Jolly's Close. The old man was now becoming infirm, and though he still worked as an engine fireman, he contrived with difficulty to keep his head above water. When the visit had been paid, the bridal party set out for their new home at Willington Key, with that they went in a manner quite common before travelling by railway came into use. Two farm-horses, borrowed from a neighbouring farmer, were each provided with a saddle and pillion, and George, having mounted one, his wife seated herself behind him, holding on by his waist. The bridesman and bridesmaid 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 Wall's End to Willington Key, a ride of about fifteen miles. George Stevenson'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 labourer. He set himself to study diligently 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 his wife's side in his cottage-dwelling in the winter evenings, he was usually occupied in studying mechanical subjects or in modelling 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 wet his inventive faculties, and to call forth his dormant powers. He 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, is not known, but his son Robert was of opinion that he had heard of the apparatus of this kind described in the history of inventions. As he had then no access to books and indeed could barely read with ease, it is probable that he had been told of the contrivance, and set about testing its value according to his own methods. Much of his spare time continued to be occupied by labour more immediately profitable, regarded in the pecuniary point of view. In the evenings after his day's labour at his engine, he would occasionally employ himself for an hour or two in casting bowels out of the collierships, by which means he was enabled to earn a few extra shillings weekly. Mr William Fairburn of Manchester has informed us that, while Stephenson was employed at Willington, he himself was working in the neighbourhood 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 Fairburn was accustomed to go down to the key to see his friend, and on such occasions he would frequently take charge of George's engine while he took a turn at heaving ballast out of the ship's 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 of humble working men in an obscure northern village. Mr Fairburn was also a frequent visitor at George's cottage on the key, where, though there was no luxury, there was comfort, cleanliness, and a pervading spirit of industry. Even at home, George was never for a moment idle. When there was no ballast to heave out at the key, 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. But an accident occurred in Stevenson'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 alarm neighbours rushing in through quantities of water on 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 everything 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 much damaged by the steam with which the room had been filled, and its wheels were so clogged by the dust and soot that it was brought to a complete standstill. George was always ready to turn his hand to anything, and his ingenuity, never at fault, immediately set to work to repair the unfortunate clock. He was advised to send it 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 enabled him to do this readily, and he succeeded so well that shortly after the neighbours sent him their clocks to clean, and he soon became one of the most famous clock-doctors in the neighbourhood. It was while living at Willington Key that George Stevenson's only son was born on the 16th of October, 1803. The child was a great favourite with his father, and added much to the happiness of his evening hours. George's phyloprogenitiveness, as phrenologists call it, had been exercised hitherto upon birds, dogs, rabbits, and even the poor old gin-horses which he had driven at the Calliton Pit, but in his boy he now found a much more genial object for the exercise of his affection. The christening took place in the school-house at Wall's End, the old parish church being at the time in so dilapidated the condition from the creeping or subsidence of the ground consequent upon the excavation of the coal that it was considered dangerous to enter it. On this occasion Robert Gray and Anne Henderson, who had officiated as bridesmen and bridesmaid at the wedding, came over again to Willington and stood godfather and godmother to little Robert, so named after his grandfather. After working for several years more as a bridesman at the Willington machine, George Stevenson was induced to leave his situation there for a similar one at the Westmore Colliery, Killingworth. It was not without considerable persuasion that he was induced to leave the key 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 colliers in that neighbourhood. The workings of the coal are of vast extent, and give employment to a large number of work-people. To this place Stevenson first came as breaksman about the beginning of 1805. He had not been long in his new place ere his wife died in 1806, shortly after giving birth to a daughter, who survived the mother only a few months. George deeply felt the loss of his wife, for they had been very happy together. Their lot had been sweetened by a daily successful toil. The husband was sober and hard-working, and his wife 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 George felt as one that had thence forth to tread the journey of life alone. Shortly after this event, while his grief was still fresh, he received an invitation from some gentlemen concerned in the large spinning works near Montrose in Scotland to proceed dither and superintend the working of one of Bolton and Watts engines. He accepted the offer, and made arrangements to leave Killingworth for a time. Having left his little boy in good keeping, he set out upon his long 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 afterwards 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-strutter. 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 raced is admitted. The barrels soon became worn, and the bucket and clackleather destroyed, so that it became necessary to devise a remedy. And with this object, the engineman 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 being drawn up without any admixture of sand, the difficulty was thus conquered. Being paid good wages, Stevenson contrived during the year he worked at Montrose to save a sum of twenty-eight pounds, which he took back with him to Killingworth. Longing to get back to his kindred, his heart yearning for the son whom he had left behind, our engineman took leave of his employers, and trudged back to Northumberland on foot as he had gone. While on his journey southward he arrived late one evening, foot sore and wearied, at the door of a small farmer's cottage, at which he knocked, and requested shelter for the night. It was refused, and then he entreated that, being tired and unable to proceed further, the farmer 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 traveller, then retiring with her husband, the two confabulated a little apart, and finally they invited Stevenson into the cottage. Always full of conversation and anecdote, he soon made himself at home in the farmer's family, and spent with them a few 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 Stevenson had become a thriving man, he did not forget the humble pair who had suckered and entertained him on his way. He sought their cottage again, when age had silvered their hair, and when he left the aged couple they may have been reminded of the old saying that we may sometimes entertain angels and the wares. Reaching home Stevenson 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 accidentally 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, and 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 fifteen pounds, and shortly after he removed the aged pair from jollies close to a comfortable cottage adjoining the Tram Road near the west moor at Killingworth, where the old man lived for many years, supported entirely by his son. Stevenson was again taken on as a breaksman at the west moor pit. He does not seem to have been very hopeful as to his prospects in life about this time, 1807-08. Indeed, the condition of the working class generally was very discouraging. England was engaged in a great war which pressed upon the industry, and severely tried the resources of the country. There was a constant demand for men to fill the army. The working people were also liable to be pressed for the navy, or drawn for the militia, and though they could not fail to be discontented under such circumstances, they scarcely dared even to mutter their discontent to their neighbours. Stevenson was 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 six pounds, which, with the remainder of his savings, enabled him to provide a militiamen 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 there 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 Anne, 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 afterwards to a friend of his thoughts at the time he said, You know, the frode from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth, I remember once when I went along that road I wet bitterly, for I knew not where my lot in life would be cast. In 1808, Stevenson, with two other breaksmen, took a small contract under the colliery Les Sees for breaking the engines at the West Moor pit. The breaksmen found the oil and tallow, they divided the work amongst them, and were paid so much per score for their labour. It was the interest of the breaksmen to economize the working as much as possible. Then George no sooner entered upon the contract than he proceeded to devise ways and means of making it pay. He observed that the ropes which had other pits in the neighborhood lasted about three months, at the West Moor pit, became worn out in about a month. He immediately set about ascertaining the cause of the defect, and finding it to be occasioned by excessive friction, he proceeded with the sanction of the head engine right and the colliery owners to shift the pulley wheels, and rearrange the gearing which had the effect of greatly diminishing the tear and wear, besides allowing the work of the colliery to proceed without interruption. About the same time he attempted an improvement in the winding engine which he worked by placing a valve between the air pump and the 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. By mastering its details he was enabled, as opportunity occurred, to turn to practical account the knowledge he thus diligently and patiently acquired. Such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself. In the year 1810 a new pit was sunk by the Grand Allies, the Lessies of the Mines, at the village of Killingworth, now known as the Killingworth High Pit. An atmospheric or newcomer engine made by Smeaton was fixed there for the purpose of pumping out the water from the shaft, but somehow it failed to clear the pit. As one of the workmen has since described the circumstance, she couldn't keep her jackhead in water. All the enginemen in the neighbourhood were tried, as well as Crowther of the Owesburn, but they were clean bed. The engine had been fruitlessly pumping for nearly twelve months, and began to be spoken of as a total failure. Stevenson had gone to look at it when in the course of erection, and then observed to the overman that he thought it was defective. He also gave it as his opinion that, if there were much water in the mine, the engine would never keep it under. Of course, as he was only a breaksman, 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 bankhead where he worked his break, he could see the chimney smoking at the high pit, and as the men were passing to and from their work he would call out an inquire if they'd 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. On 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 thoughtfully in his mind, and seemed to have satisfied himself as to the cause of the failure. Kit Hepple, one of the sinkers, asked him, Well, George, what's your muck of a—do you think you could do anything to improve her? Said George, I could alter a mon and make a draw. In a week's time I could send you to the bottom. Fourthwith Hepple 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. At the worst he could only fail, as the rest had done. In the evening Dodds went in search of Stevenson, and met him on the road dressed in his Sunday suit on the way to the preaching in the Methodist Chapel, which he attended. Well, George, said Dodds, they tell me you think you can put the engine at thy 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're clean, drowned out, and cannot get a stop further. The engineer's here about an old bit, and if you can really succeed in accomplishing what they cannot do, you may depend on it. I'll make you a man for life. Stevenson began his operations early the next morning. The only condition he made before setting to work was that he should select his own workmen. There was, as he knew, a great deal of jealousy among the regular men, that a colliery breaksman should pretend to know more about their engine than they themselves did, an 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 qua non. The workman, said he, must either be all wigs 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 system 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. Stevenson 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 all 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 explained why she was better as she was, now she'll 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. It 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 Stevenson had promised. Thus the alterations affected in the pumping apparatus proved completely successful. Dodds was particularly gratified with the manner in which the job had been done, and he made Stevenson 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 afterwards 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 breaksman from the handles of his engine at Westmore, and appointed him engineman 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 further advancement. Stevenson's skill as an engine doctor soon became noisy abroad, and he was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the old, weasy and ineffective pumping machines in the neighbourhood. In this capacity he soon left the regular men far behind, though they in their turn were very much disposed to treat the killingsworth breaksman 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 further working of the ochre was almost entirely stopped. Ordinary pumps were tried and failed, and then a wind-bell 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 a little bigger than a kale-pot that would clear them out in the 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, Stevenson was now in his prime, and he still continued to be zealous in measuring his strength and agility with his fellow workman. 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, or 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 Hepple challenged him to leap from one high wall to another with the deep gap between. To Hepple'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 feet 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 Mitchison, the bank-horsekeeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him, set such fellows as you on horseback, and you'll soon ride to the devil. But Tommy Mitchison lived to tell the joke, and to confess that, after all, there had been a better issue to George's horsemanship than that which he predicted. Old Cree, the engine-right at killing with Hypit having been killed by an accident, George Stevenson was, in 1812, appointed engine-right of the colliery at a salary of a hundred pounds a year. He was also allowed the use of a galloway to ride upon in his visits of inspection till the collier is leased by the Grand Allies in that neighbourhood. The Grand Allies were a company of gentlemen, consisting of Sir Thomas Liddell, afterwards Lord Ravensworth, the Earl of Strathmore, and Mr. Stuart Whartley, afterwards Lord Warncliffe, the less ease of the killing with collieries. Having been informed of the merits of Stevenson, of his indefatigable industry, and the skill which he had displayed in the repairs of the pumping engines, they readily acceded to Mr. Dodd's recommendation that he should be appointed the colliery engine-right, and as we shall afterwards find, they continued to honour him by distinguished marks of their approval. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Lives of the Engineers George and Robert Stevenson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain read by Andy Mentor. Lives of the Engineers George and Robert Stevenson by Samuel Smiles Chapter 4 The Stevenson's at Killingworth Education and Self-Education of Father and Son George Stevenson 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 is to be found in the alacrity and industry with which he takes advantage of the opportunities which present themselves for well-doing. Our engineman 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, ever 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 afterwards used to lament the time he had lost in these futile efforts, and said that if he had enjoyed the opportunity which most young men now have of learning from books what previous experimenters had accomplished, he would have been spared much labour 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, though he found that his supposed invention had long been known and recorded in scientific books. Often he thought that 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, even through his very efforts after the impracticable. Many of his evenings were now spent in the society of John Wiggum, whose father occupied the Glebe farm at Benton, close at hand. John was a fair penman and a sound arithmetician, and Stevenson sought his society chiefly for the purpose of improving himself in writing and figures. Under Andrew Robertson he had never quite mastered the rule of three, and it was only when Wiggum took him in hand that he made much progress in the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with him to the Wiggum's cottage when he had his sum set that he might work them out while tending his engine on the following day. When too busy to be able to call upon Wiggum he sent the slate to have the former sums corrected and new ones set. Sometimes also at leisure moments he was unable 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 Stevenson was enabled to master successively the various rules of arithmetic. John Wiggum was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good talker, fond of the 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 Stevenson, who regarded him as a very clever and ingenious person. Wiggum taught him to draw plans and sections, though in this branch Stevenson proved so apt that he soon surpassed his master. A volume of Ferguson's lectures on mechanics, which fell into their hands, was of 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 Stevenson, while Wiggum 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 did after life Stevenson gratefully remembered the assistance which, when a humble workman, he had derived from John Wiggum, the farmer's son. His leisure moments thus carefully improved. It will be inferred that Stevenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appeared that on the invitation of his master he had, on one or two occasions, been induced to join him in a four-noon glass of ale in the public house of the village. But one day, about noon, when Dodds had got him as far as the public house door, on his invitation to come in and take a glass of ale, Stevenson 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 but too frequent. But another consideration besides his own self-improvement had already begun to exercise an important influence on 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, scarcely able to reach so high as to put a clockhead 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 very bad, Robert. I think my man caught 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'd be burnt out again. So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the roadside school at Longbenton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk, but the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a breaksman on the pithead 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 noble determination that no labour 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 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 shoelasts for the shoemakers of the neighbourhood and cutting out the pitman's clothes for their wives. And we have been told that to this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth made after Geordie Stevie'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 labour under the same defect, but that I would put him on 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 neighbour's clocks and watches at night after my daily labour was done, and thus I procured the means of educating my son. Carrying out the resolution as to his boy's education, Robert was sent to Mr Bruce's school in Percy Street, New Castle, at Midsummer, 1815, when he was about 12 years old. His father bought for him a donkey on which he rode into New Castle and back daily, and there are many still living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely grey 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 Pitman, and the other boys would occasionally tease him for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his killing-worth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off 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 in 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 modelling 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 a facility I possess of applying this kind of knowledge to practical purposes and modifying it according to circumstances. 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 evenings 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 the Arts and Sciences, which father and son studied together, but many of the most valuable works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not lent out. These Robert was instructed to read and study, and bring away with him descriptions and sketches for his father's information. His father also practised him in reading plans and drawings without reference to the written descriptions. He used to observe that a good plan should always explain itself, and play a single drawing of an engine or machine before the youth 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 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 in contriving models of pumping engines, or endeavouring 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 in the person of a loving and beloved father imprinted itself deeply upon the boy's heart in characters never to be effaced. A spirit of self-improvement was thus early and carefully planted and fostered in Robert's mind, which continued to influence him through all life, and to 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 killing with labourer went asked by Robert on one of his last visits to Newcastle if he remembered him, replied with emotion, I indeed, haven't I paid your head many a time when you came with your father's bait for your all way was a sat empty. The author had the pleasure in 1854 of accompanying Robert Stevenson on a visit to his old home and haunts at Killingworth. He had so often travelled 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 years. His eyes glistened when he came in sight of Killingworth pithead, pointing to a humble red-tiled house by the roadside at Benton. He said, You see that house? That was Rutter's where I learnt my ABC and made the 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-flawed 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 cuddly, 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 die late upon the shape of his ears, petlocks, and quarters, and usually end by pronouncing him to be a real blood. I was a great favourite 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 cuddly. On the way from Benton to High Killingworth, Mr. Stevenson 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 amongst the women and children. He would go tearing into old Nanny the Huckster's shop in the village and demand in a savage voice, What's your best hand, the pound? What floor are the under? What jacks for prime bacon? His questions often end with the miserable order accompanied with the tremendous oath of Gizapeniro, and the barbie herring. The poor woman was usually set all overshake 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. Me and men in Buckrum as everybody 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, stand and deliver. He dropped down upon his knees in the dirt, declaring he was a poor man with a small family and asking for mercy and imploring us as gentlemen, for God's sake to let him be. We couldn't stand this any longer and set up a shout of laughter. Recognizing our boys' voices, he sprang to his feet 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 alehouse. 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 sent 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 back of some of Farmer Wiggum'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 pailing, waiting for the master to mount. Bringing the end of the wire just over the pony's cropper, so smart an electric shock was given that the brute was almost knocked down. At this juncture the father issued from the door riding with bin hand and was witness to the scientific trick just played upon his galloway. Ah, you mischievous scoundrel! cried he to the boy who ran off. He inwardly chuckled with pride nevertheless at Robert's successful experiment. At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in the cottage standing by the side of the road leading from the Westmore colliery to Killingworth. The railway from the Westmore pit crosses this road close by the east end of the cottage. The dwelling originally consisted of but one apartment on the ground floor with the garret overhead to which access was obtained by means of a stepladder. But with his own hands Stephenson built an oven, and in the course of time he added rooms to the cottage until it became a comfortable four-room dwelling in which he lived as long as he remained at Killingworth. 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 would come and perch upon it. The 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 afterwards 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. Neighbours 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 Pittman's wife, George handed it to his son. Put her in the oven, Robert, said he, for a quarter of an hour or so. 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 leaks and astounding cabbages. There was a great competition among the villagers in the growth of vegetables, all of whom he excelled, excepting one of his neighbours, whose cabbages sometimes outshone his. In the protection of his garden crops from the ravages of the birds, he invented a strange sort of flakrow, 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 effectually baffled hundreds of preceding inventors. His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder among the killing-worth villagers. He won the women's admiration by connecting their cradles with the smoke-jack and making them self-acting. Then he astonished the pitman 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 underwater, with which he was afterwards want to amuse the brandling family at Gosforth, going into the fish-bond at night, lamp in hand, attracting and catching the fish, which rushed wildly towards the flame. Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with a 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 humour of the thing or to secure fair play from the appointed judge, he took it to the Morrison's in Newcastle and got them to put their stamp upon it, so that it is possible the Killingworth Brakesman, afterwards the inventor of the safety lamp and the originator of the railway system, and John Morrison, the last maker, afterwards the translator of the scriptures into the Chinese language, may have confronted each other in solemn contemplation over the successful last, which won the verdict coveted by its maker. Sometimes he would endeavour to impart to his fellow workmen the results of his scientific reading. Everything that he learnt 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 Pitman 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 endeavour to communicate to others the information which he had gathered at school, and Dr Bruce has related that when visiting Killingworth on one occasion he found him engaged in teaching algebra to such of the Pitman'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 sundial to be placed over their cottage door at Westmore. I expostulated with him at first, said Robert, that I had not learnt 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 is shining. I assure you not a little was thought of that piece of work by the Pitman when it was put up and began to tell its tale of time. The date carved upon the dial is August the 11th, 1816. Both father and son were in afterlife very proud of the joint production. Many years after, George took a party of Savants 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 sundial, 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 while making his calculation of the latitude of Killingworth. From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit, George Stevenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of manual labour, having, as we have seen, advanced himself to the grade of a higher-class workman. But 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 done gala way to ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher. When Robert Weatherly offered to give him an old gig, his travelling, 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, Stevenson 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 towards the coal-loading place near Willington, where he had officiated as breaksman, and he so arranged it that the full wagons descending drew the empty wagons up to the railroad. This was one of the first self-acting inclines laid down in the district. Stevenson had now much better opportunities than Hedder too for improving himself in mechanics. His familiar acquaintance with the steam-engine proved a great value to him. His shrewd insight and his intimate practical acquaintance with its mechanism enabled him to apprehend, as if by intuition, its most obstruous and difficult combinations. The practical 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 right in his efforts after improvement. The subject of the locomotive engine was already closely occupying Stevenson's attention, although it was still regarded as a curious and costly toy of comparatively little real use. But he had, at an early period, detected its practical value, and formed an adequate conception of the might which has yet slumbered within it, and he now bent his entire faculties to the development of its extraordinary powers. Chapter 5 Early History of the Locomotive George Stevenson 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 affected were confined almost entirely to the road. The railway wagons still continued to be drawn by horses. By improving and flattening the tramway, considerable economy in horsepower had indeed 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. Many expedients had been tried with this object. One of the earliest was that of hoisting sails upon the wagons, and driving them along the wagon-way as a ship is driven through the water by the wind. This method seems to have been employed by Sir Humphrey Mackworth, an ingenious coal miner at Neath in Glmorgenshire about the end of the seventeenth century. After having been lost sight of for more than a century, the same plan of impelling carriages was revived by Richard Lovell Edgworth with the addition of a portable railway, since revived also in Boydoll's patent. But although Mr. Edgworth devoted himself to the subject for many years, he failed in securing the adoption of his sailing carriage. It is indeed quite clear that a power so uncertain as wind could never be relied on for ordinary traffic, and Mr. Edgworth's project was consequently left to repose in the limbo of the patent office, with thousands of other equally useless, though ingenious, contrivances. A much more favourite scheme was the application of steam power for the purpose of carriage traction. Savory, the inventor of the working steam engine, was the first to propose its employment to propel vehicles along the common roads. And in 1759 Dr. Robinson, then a young man studying at Glasgow College, threw out the same idea to his friend James Watt. But the scheme was not matured. The first locomotive steam carriage was built at Paris by the French engineer Cuneau, a native of Lorraine. It is said to have been invented for the purpose of dragging cannon into the field independent of horses. The original model of this machine was made in 1763. Count Sacks was so much pleased with it that on his recommendation a full-sized engine was constructed at the cost of the French Monarch. And in 1769 it was tried in the presence of the Dechoisseux, Minister of War, General Gréboval and other officers. And at one of the experiments it ran with such force as to lock down a wall in its way. But the new vehicle, loaded with four persons, could not travel faster than two and a half miles an hour. The boiler was insufficient in size, and it could only work for about fifteen minutes, after which it was necessary to wait until the steam had again risen to a sufficient pressure. To remedy this defect, Cuneau constructed a new machine in 1770, the working of which was more satisfactory. It was composed of two parts, the four part consisting of a small steam engine formed of a round copper boiler with a furnace inside, provided with two small chimneys and two single-acting brass-steamed cylinders, whose pistons acted alternately upon the single driving-wheel. The hind-apart consisted merely of a rude carriage on two wheels to carry the load, furnished with a seat in front for the conductor. This engine was tried in the streets of Paris, but when passing near where the Madeleine now stands, it overbalanced itself on turning a corner and fell over with a crash, after which its employment being thought dangerous, it was locked up in the arsenal to prevent further mischief. The machine is, however, still to be seen in the collection of the Conservatoire d'État des Métiers at Paris. It has very much the look of a long brewer's cart, with the addition of a circular boiler hung on one end. Rough though it looks, it was a highly creditable piece of work, considering the period at which it was executed. And as the first machine constructed for the purpose of travelling on ordinary roads by the power of steam, it is certainly a most curious and interesting mechanical relic, well-worthy of preservation. But though Cognot's road locomotive remained locked up from public site, the subject was not dead, for we find inventors employing themselves from time to time in attempting to solve the problem of steam locomotion in places far remote from Paris. The idea had taken root in the minds of inventors, and was striving to grow into a reality. Thus Oliver Evans, the American, invented the steam carriage in 1772 to travel on common roads. In 1787 he obtained from the state of Maryland an exclusive right to make and use steam carriages, but his invention never came into use. Then in 1784 William Simington, one of the early inventors of the steamboat, was similarly occupied in Scotland in endeavouring to develop the latent powers of the steam carriage. He had a working model of one constructed, which he exhibited in 1786 to the professors of Edinburgh College, but the state of the Scotch roads was then so bad that he found it impracticable to proceed further with his scheme, which he shortly after abandoned in favour of steam navigation. The same year in which Simington was occupied upon his steam carriage, William Murdock, the friend and assistant of what, constructed his model of a locomotive at the opposite end of the island at Red Ruth in Cornwall. His model was of small dimensions, standing little more than a foot high, and it was until recently in the possession of the son of the inventor at whose house we saw it a few years ago. It acted on the high pressure principle, and like Cuneo's engine ran upon three wheels, the boiler being heated by a spirit lamp. Small though the machine was, it went so fast on one occasion that it fairly outran its inventor. It seems that one night, after returning from his duties at the Red Ruth 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 boiled speedily, and off started the engine with the inventor after it. He soon 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 towards 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 Proprio Persona. No further steps were however taken by Murdock to embody his idea of a locomotive carriage in a more practical form. The idea was next taken up by Murdock's pupil, Richard Trevithick, who resolved on building a steam carriage adapted for common roads as well as railways. He took out a patent to secure the right of his invention in 1802. Andrew Vivian, his cousin, joined with him in the patent, Vivian finding the money and Trevithick the reins. The steam carriage built on this patent presented the appearance of an ordinary stagecoach on four wheels. The engine had one horizontal cylinder, which, together with the boiler and the furnace box, was placed in the rear of the hind axle. The motion of the piston was transmitted to a separate crank axle, from which, through the medium of spur gear, the axle of the driving wheel, which was mounted with a flywheel, derived its motion. The steam cocks and the force pump, as also the bellows used for the purpose of quickening combustion in the furnace, were worked off the same crank axle. John Petherick of Camborn has related that he remembers this first English steamcoach passing along the principal street of his native town. Considerable difficulty was experienced in keeping up the pressure of steam, but when there was pressure enough Trevithick would call upon the people to jump up so as to create a load upon the engine. It was soon covered with men attracted by the novelty, nor did their number seem to make any difference in the speed of the engine, so long as there was steam enough, but it was constantly running short, and the horizontal bellows failed to keep it up. This road locomotive of Trevithick's was one of the first high-pressure working engines constructed on the principal of moving a piston by the elasticity of steam against the pressure only of the atmosphere. Such an engine had been described by Leopold, though in his apparatus it was proposed that the pressure should act only on one side of the piston. In Trevithick's engine the piston was not only raised, but was also depressed by the action of the steam, being in this respect an entirely original invention and of great merit. The steam was admitted from the boiler under the piston moving in a cylinder, impelling it upward. When the motion had reached its limit, the communication between the piston and the underside was shut off, and the steam allowed to escape into the atmosphere. A passage then opened between the boiler and the upper side of the piston, which was pressed downwards. The steam was again allowed to escape as before. Thus the power of the engine was equal to the difference between the pressure of the atmosphere and the elasticity of the steam in the boiler. The steam carriage excited considerable interest in the remote district near Land's End where it had been erected. Being so far removed from the great movements and enterprise of the commercial world, Trevithick and Vivian determined upon exhibiting their machine in the metropolis. They accordingly set out with it to Plymouth, whence it was conveyed by sea to London. The carriage safely reached the metropolis, and excited much public interest. It also attracted the notice of scientific men, among others of Mr Davies Gilbert, president of the Royal Society, and Sir Humphrey Davy, both Cornishmen like Trevithick, who went to see the private performances of the engine and were greatly pleased with it. Writing to a Cornish friend shortly after its arrival in town, Sir Humphrey said, I shall soon hope to hear that the Roads of England are the haunts of Captain Trevithick's Dragons, a characteristic name. The machine was afterwards publicly exhibited in an enclosed piece of ground near Euston Square, where the London and Northwestern station now stands, and it dragged behind it a wheel carriage full of passengers. On the second day of the performance crowds flocked to see it, but Trevithick, in one of his odd freaks, shut up the place, and shortly after removed the engine. It is however probable that the inventor came to the conclusion that the State of the Roads at that time was such as to preclude its coming into general use for the purposes of ordinary traffic. While the steam carriage was being exhibited, the gentleman was laying heavy wages as to the weight which could be hauled by a single horse on the Wandsworth and Croydon Iron Tramway, and the number and weight of wagons drawn by the horse was 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. The idea was not however entirely new to him, for although his first engine had been constructed with a view to its employment upon common roads, the specification of his patent distinctly alludes to the application of his engine to travelling on railroads. Having been employed at the iron works of Penidaran in South Wales to erect a forge engine for the company, a convenient opportunity presented itself on the completion of this work for carrying out his design of a locomotive to haul the minerals along the Penidaran Tramway. Such an engine was erected by him in 1803 in the blacksmith's shop at the company's works, and it was finished and ready for trial before the end of the year. The boiler of this second engine was cylindrical in form, flat at the ends, and made of wrought iron. The furnace and flue were inside the boiler, within which the single cylinder, eight inches in diameter and four foot six inches stroke, was placed horizontally. As in the first engine, the motion of the wheels was produced by spur gear, to which was also added a flywheel on one side to secure a rotatory motion in the crank at the end of each stroke of the piston in the single cylinder. The waste steam was thrown into the chimney through a tube inserted into it at right angles, but it will be obvious that this arrangement was not calculated to produce any result in the way of a steam blast in the chimney. In fact, the waste steam seems to have been turned into the chimney in order to get rid of the nuisance caused by throwing the jet directly into the air. Trevithic was here hovering on the verge of a great discovery, but he was not aware of the action of the blast in contributing to increase the draft and thus quicken combustion. It is clear from the fact that he employed bellows for this special purpose, and at a much later date, 1815, he took out a patent, which included a method of urging the fire by means of fanners. At the first trial of this engine, it succeeded in dragging after it several wagons containing ten tons of bar iron at the rate of about five miles an hour. Rhys Jones, who worked at the fitting of the engine and remembers its performances, says she was used for bringing down metal from the furnaces to the old forge. She worked very well, but frequently from her weight broke the tram-plates and the hooks between the trams. After working for some time in this way, she took a load of iron from Penny Darren 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 ran off the road and had to be brought back to Penny Darren by horses. The engine was never after used as a locomotive. It seems to have been felt that unless the road were entirely reconstructed, so as to bear the heavy weight of the locomotive, so much greater than that of the tram-wagons, to carry which the original rails had been laid down, the regular employment of Travithic's high-pressure tram engine was altogether impracticable. And as the Odeners of the works were not prepared to incur so serious a cost, it was determined to take the locomotive off the road and employ it as an engine for other purposes. It was accordingly dismounted and used for some time after as a pumping engine, for which purpose it was found well adapted. Travithic himself seems from this time to have taken no further steps to bring the locomotive into general use. We find him, shortly after, engaged upon schemes of a more promising character, abandoning the engine to other mechanical inventors, though little improvement was made in it for several years. An imaginary difficulty seems to have tended, amongst other obstacles, to prevent its adoption. It is 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 progress. Hence Travithic in his patent provided that the periphery of the driving-wheel should be made rough by the projection of bolts or cross-grooves, so that the adhesion of the wheels to the road might be secured. Following up the presumed necessity for a more effectual adhesion between the wheels and the rails, Mr Blenkinsoth of Leeds in 1811 took out a patent for a racked or toothed rail laid along one side of the road, into which the toothed wheel of his locomotive worked as pinions work into a rack. The boiler of his engine was supported by a carriage with four wheels without teeth and rested immediately upon the axles. These wheels were entirely independent of the working parts of the engine, and therefore merely supported its weight upon the rails, and progress being effected by means of the cogged wheel working into the cogged rail. The engine had two cylinders, instead of one, as in Travithic's engine. The invention of the double cylinder was due to Matthew Murray of Leeds, one of the best mechanical engineers of his time. Mr Blenkinsoth, who was not a mechanic, having consulted him as to all the practical arrangements. The connecting rods gave the motion to two pinions by cranks of right angles to each other, these pinions communicating the motion to the wheel which worked into the cogged rail. Mr Blenkinsoth's engine began running on the railway from the Middleton Colliery to Leeds, about three and a half miles, on the 12th of August 1812. They continued for many years to be one of the principal curiosities of the place, and were visited by strangers from all parts. In 1816 the Grand Duke Nicholas, afterwards emperor of Russia, observed the working of Blenkinsoth's locomotive with curious interest and admiration. An engine dragged as many as 30 coal wagons at a speed of about three and a quarter miles per hour. These engines continued for many years to be thus employed in the haulage of coal, and furnished the first instance of the regular employment of locomotive power for commercial purposes. The Messers 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 its action that it 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 soon abandoned. Another remarkable expedient was adopted by Mr Brunton of the Butlerly Works, Derbyshire, who in 1813 patented his mechanical traveller to go upon legs, working alternately like those of a horse. 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 bystanders, wounding many more. The ease and other contrivances with the same object, projected about the same time, show that invention was actively at work, and that many minds were anxiously laboring to solve the important problem of locomotive traction upon railways. But the difficulties contended with by these early inventors, and the step-by-step progress which they made, will probably be best illustrated by the experiments conducted by Mr Blackett of Wylam, which are all the more worthy of notice as the persevering efforts of this gentleman in a great measure paved the way for the labours of George Stevenson, who shortly after took up the question of steam locomotion, and brought it to a successful issue. The Wylam Wagonway 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 Stevenson had worked, and the village of Lemmington, some four miles down the tine, where the coals were loaded into keels or barges, and floated down past Newcastle to be shipped for London. Each children 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 wagonway passed, as before stated, close in front of the cottage in which George Stevenson was born, and one of the earliest sites which met his infant eyes was this wooden tram-road worked by horses. Mr. Blackhead was the first colliery owner in the north who took an active interest in the locomotive. Having formed the acquaintance of Trevithic in London, and inspected the performances of his engine, he determined to repeat the Penny-Darren experiment upon the Wylam Wagonway. He accordingly obtained from Trevithic in October 1804 a plan of his engine provided with friction wheels, and employed Mr. John Winfield of Pipewell Gate, Gateshead, to construct it at his foundry there. The engine was constructed under the superintendent's of one John Steel, an ingenious mechanic who had been in Wales and worked under Trevithic in fitting the engine at Penny-Darren. When the Gateshead locomotive was finished, a temporary way was laid down in the works, on which it was run backwards and forwards many times. For some reason, however, it is said because the engine was deemed 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 foundry, in which service it long continued to be employed. Several years elapsed before Mr. Blackhead took any further steps to carry out his idea. The final abandonment of Trevithic's locomotive at Penny-Darren perhaps contributed to deter him from proceeding further, but he had the wooden tramway taken up in 1808 and a plateway 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 now enabled to draw two or even three laden wagons. Encouraged by the success of Mr. Blenkinsop's experiment at Leeds, Mr. Blackhead determined to follow his example, and in 1812 he ordered a second engine to work with a tooth-driving wheel upon a rack rail. This locomotive was constructed by Thomas Waters of Gateshead, under the superintendent of Jonathan Foster, Mr. Blackhead's principal engine right. It was a combination of Trevithic's and Blenkinsop's engine, but it was a more awkward construction than either. The boiler was of cast iron, the engine was provided with a single cylinder, six inches in diameter, with a flywheel working at one side to carry the crank over the dead points. 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 hole 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 labour the cumbers machine was got upon the road. At first it would not move an inch. Its maker, Tommy Walters, 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 had described to the author, she flew all to pieces, and it was the biggest wonder in the world that we were not all blown up. The incompetent and useless engine was declared to be a failure. It was shortly afterwards dismounted and sold, and Mr. Blackit'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 Lemmington, and he determined on another trial. He accordingly directed his engine right to proceed with the building of a third engine in the Wylam workshops. This new locomotive had a single eight-inch cylinder, was provided with a flywheel, like its predecessor, and the driving wheel was cogged on one side to enable it to travel in the rack rail later along the road. This 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 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. It was under repair as often as at work. At length it became so cranky that the horses were usually sent out after it to drag it when it gave up, and the workmen generally declared it to be a perfect plague. Mr. Blackit did not obtain credit among his neighbours for these experiments. Many laughed at his machines, regarding them only in the light of crotchets, frequently quoting the proverb that 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 this second locomotive, Mr. Blackit persevered with his experiments. He was zealously assisted by Jonathan Foster, the engine-right, and William Headley, the viewer of the colliery, a highly ingenious person who proved a great use in carrying out the experiments to a successful issue. One of the chief causes of failure, being the rackrail, the idea occurred to Mr. Headley that it might be possible to secure adhesion enough between the wheel and the rail by the mere weight of the engine, and he proceeded to make a series of experiments for the purposes of determining this problem. He had a frame placed on four wheels, and fitted up with windlesses attached by gearing to the several wheels. The frame having been properly weighted, six men were set to work the windlesses. 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 found the proportion which the power brought 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 hitherto prevailed on this subject completely exploded, and it was satisfactorily proved that rackrails, two wheels, endless chains, and legs were alike unnecessary for the efficient traction of loaded wagons upon a moderately level road. From this time forward considerably less difficulty was experienced in working the coal trains upon the Wylam tram-road. At length the rackrail 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 to largely increase the heating surface, and thus give increased power to the 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 neighbouring gentleman threatened to have it put down. To diminish the noise as much as possible, Mr. Blackit gave orders that so soon as any horse or 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 hearing. Much interruption was thus caused to the working of the railway, and it excited considerable dissatisfaction amongst the workmen. The following plan was adopted to abate the nuisance. A reservoir was provided immediately behind the chimney, 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. While Mr. Blackit was thus experimenting and building locomotives at Wylam, George Stevenson was anxiously studying the same subject at Killingworth. He was no sooner appointed engine right of the collies than his attention was directed to the means of more economically hauling the coal from the pits to the riverside. 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 to drawing coal out of the deeper workings of the Killingworth mines, by which he succeeded in affecting a large reduction in the expenditure on manual and horse labour. The coals, when brought above ground, had next to be laboriously dragged by horses to the shipping-stiles 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 costly. With the view of economising labour, Stevenson laid down inclined planes where the nature of the ground would admit of this expedient. 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 horses, the keep of which was at that time very costly from the high price of corn, was still a great decider-atom, and the best practical minds in the colluries were actively engaged in the attempt to solve the problem. In the first place, Stevenson 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 to inspect the improvements made by Mr. Blackett from time to time, both in the locomotive and in the plateway along which it worked. Jonathan Foster informed us that, after one of these visits, Stevenson declared to him his conviction that a much more effective engine might be made, but 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 colliaries of Kenton and Cox Lodge on the 2nd of September, 1813. This locomotive drew sixteen children wagons containing an aggregate weight of seventy tons at the rate of about three miles an hour. George Stevenson and several of the killing with men were amongst the crowd of spectators that day, and after examining the engine and observing its performance, he observed 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 Cox Lodge 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, had proved practical failures. Mr. Blackidge was as yet both clumsy and expensive. Chapmans had been removed from the Heat and Tramway in 1812, and was regarded as a total failure, and the Blenkin-Sopper engine at Cox Lodge 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 soon after blown up, there was an end of that engine, and the colliery owners did not feel encouraged to try any further experiment. An efficient and canonical working locomotive therefore still remained to be invented, and to accomplish this object Mr. Stevenson now applied himself. Profiting by what his predecessors had done, worn by their failures, and encouraged by their partial successes, he commenced his labours. There was still wanting the man who should accomplish for the locomotive what James Watt had done for the steam engine, and come behind 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 in the same manner as James Watt is to be regarded as the inventor of the working condensing engine. This was the great work on which George Stevenson now entered, though probably without any adequate idea of the ultimate importance of his labours to society and civilisation. He proceeded to bring the subject of constructing a travelling 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 favourable opinion of the new engine, right, from the improvements which he had effected in the colliery engines, both above and below ground, and after considering the matter and hearing Stevenson's explanations, he authorised 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 Stevenson, many years after, 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 entrust 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 right had, however, many obstacles to encounter before he could fairly get 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 colliers were rude and clumsy, and there were no such facilities as now exist for turning out machinery of an entirely new character. Stevenson was under the necessity of working with such men and tools as were at his command, and he had, in great measure, to train and instruct the workmen himself. The engine was built in the workshops at the Westmore, the leading mechanic employed being the colliery blacksmith, an excellent workman in his way though quite new to the work now entrusted to him. In this first locomotive constructed at Quillingworth, Stevenson to some extent followed the plan of Blenkinsop's engine. The boiler was cylindrical of wrought iron, 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, working the propelling gear with crossheads 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 cog 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 plateway, 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 absence of springs. The wheels of the locomotive were all smoothed, Mr. Stevenson 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 Stevenson 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 of the expediency of adopting smooth wheels on his engine and it was so finished accordingly. The engine was, after much labour and anxiety and frequent alterations of parts, at length brought to completion, having been about ten months in hand. It was placed upon the killing with railway on the 25th of July, 1814, and its powers were tried on the same day. On an ascending gradient of one in 450, the engine succeeded in drawing after it eight loaded carriages of 30 tonnes 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 cumbersome 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 for 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 travelling of the engine. As the principal test of the success of the locomotive was its economy, as compared with horsepower, careful calculations were made with a view to ascertaining this important point. The result was it was found that the working of the engine was at first barely economical, and at the end of the year the steam power and the horsepower were ascertained to be as nearly as possible upon a power in point of cost. The fate of the locomotive in great measure depended on this very engine, its speed was not beyond that of a horse's walk, and the heating surface presented to the fire being comparatively small, sufficient steam could not be raised to enable it to accomplish more on an average than about four miles an hour. The result was anything but decisive, and the locomotive might have been condemned as useless, had not our engineer at this juncture applied the steam blast, and by its means carried his experiment to a triumphant issue. The steam, after performing its duty in the cylinders, was at first allowed to escape into the open atmosphere with the hissing blast to the terror of horses and cattle. It was complained of as a nuisance, and an action at law against the colliery lessies was threatened unless it was stopped. Stevenson's attention had been drawn to the much greater velocity with which the steam issued from the exit pipe, compared with that at which the smoke escaped from the chimney. He conceived that by conveying the induction steam into the chimney by means of a small pipe, after it had performed its office in the cylinders, allowing it to escape in a vertical direction, its velocity would be imparted to the smoke from the fire, or to the ascending current of air in the chimney, thereby increasing the draft, and consequently the intensity of combustion in the furnace. The experiment was no sooner made than the power of the engine was at once more than doubled. Combustion was stimulated by the blast, consequently the capability of the boiler to generate steam was greatly increased, and the effective power of the engine augmented in precisely the same proportion, without in any way adding to its weight. This simple but beautiful expedient was really fraught with the most important consequences to railway communication, and it is not too much to say that the success of the locomotive has been in great measure been 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 advantage of the multi-tubular boiler, afterwards invented, could never have been fairly tested, and the locomotives might still have been dragging themselves unwieldy along at little more than five or six miles an hour. The steam blast had scarcely been adopted with so decided a success, when Stevenson, observing the numerous defects in his engine, and profiting by the experience which he had already acquired, determined to construct a second engine, in which to embody his improvements in their best form. Careful and cautious observation of the working of his locomotive had convinced him that the complication arising out of the action of the two cylinders being combined by spur wheels would prevent its coming into practical use. He accordingly directed his attention to an entire change in the construction and mechanical arrangements of the machine, and in the following year, conjointly with Mr. Dodds, who provided the necessary funds, he took out a patent dated the 28th of February, 1815, for an engine which combined in remarkable degree the essential requisites of an economical locomotive, that is to say few parts, simplicity in their action, and directness in the mode by which the power was communicated to the wheels supporting the engine. This locomotive, like the first, had two vertical cylinders, which communicated directly with each pair of the four wheels that supported the engine, by means of a crosshead, 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 parts of the engine, which was a rigid mass, with the wheels lolling upon the irregular surface of the rails, for it was evident that the two rails of the line, or way, more especially in those early days of imperfect construction of the permanent road, could not always be maintained at the same level, that the wheel at one end of the axle might be depressed into one part of the line which had subsided, while the other wheel would be comparatively elevated, and in such a position of the axle and wheels, it was obvious that a rigid communication between the crosshead 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 crosshead, so as to permit the crosshead to preserve complete parallelism with the axle of the wheels, with which it was in communication. In order to obtain that degree of flexibility combined with direct action, which was essential for ensuring power and avoiding needless friction and jars from irregularities in the road, Stevenson made use of the ball-and-socket joint for effecting a union between the ends of the crossheads, where they united with the connecting rods, and between the ends of the connecting rods, where they were united with the crankpins attached to each driving-wheel. By this arrangement the parallelism between the crosshead and the axle was at all times maintained and preserved, without producing any serious jar or friction on any part of the machine. Another important point was to combine each pair of wheels by means of some simple mechanism instead of by the cog wheels, which had formerly been used, and with this object Stevenson made the cranks in each axle at right angles to each other, with rods communicating horizontally between them. A locomotive was constructed upon this plan in 1815, and was found to answer extremely well, but at that period the mechanical skill of the country was not equal to forging cranked axles of the soundness and strength necessary to stand the jar's incident to locomotive work. Stevenson was accordingly compelled to fall back upon a substitute, which, although less simple and efficient, was within the mechanical capabilities of the workmen of that day, in respect of construction, as well as repair. He adopted a chain which rolled over indented wheels placed in the centre of each axle, and was so arranged that the two pairs of wheels were effectively coupled and made to keep pace with each other. The chain, however, after a few years' use became stretched, and any engines were liable to irregularity in their working, especially in changing from working back to working forward again. 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 axles inside, as specified in the original patent. This expedient completely answered the purpose required, without involving any expensive or difficult workmanship. Thus, in 1815, by dent of patient and persevering labour, by careful observation of the works of others, and never neglecting to avail himself of their suggestions, Stevenson succeeded in manufacturing an engine which included the following important improvements on all previous attempts in the same direction—biz, simple and direct communication between the cylinders 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 the fuel by employing the waste steam which had formerly been allowed to escape uselessly into the air. Although many improvements in detail were afterwards introduced in the locomotive by George Stevenson himself, as well as by his equally distinguished son, 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, in fact, be regarded as the type of the present locomotive engine.