One Sunday, when the party had just returned from church, they were
standing together on the terrace near the Hall, and observed in the
distance a railway-train flashing along, tossing behind its long white
plume of steam.  "Now, Buckland," said Stephenson, "I have a poser for
you.  Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?"
"Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines."  "But
what drives the engine?"  "Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver."
"What do you say to the light of the sun?"  "How can that be?" asked the
doctor.  "It is nothing else," said the engineer, "it is light bottled up
in the earth for tens of thousands of years,--light, absorbed by plants
and vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the
process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form,--and now,
after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that
latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in
that locomotive, for great human purposes."

During the same visit, Mr. Stephenson, one evening repeated his
experiment with blood drawn from the finger, submitting it to the
microscope in order to show the curious circulation of the globules.  He
set the example by pricking his own thumb; and the other guests, by
turns, in like manner, gave up a small portion of their blood for the
purpose of ascertaining the comparative livelinesss of their circulation.
When Sir Robert Peel's turn came, Mr. Stephenson said he was curious to
know "how the blood globules of a great politician would conduct
themselves."  Sir Robert held forth his finger for the purpose of being
pricked; but once, and again, he sensitively shrunk back, and at length
the experiment, so far as he was concerned, was abandoned.  Sir Robert
Peel's sensitiveness to pain was extreme, and yet he was destined, a few
years after, to die a death of the most distressing agony.

In 1847, the year before his death, Mr. Stephenson was again invited to
join a distinguished party at Drayton Manor, and to assist in the
ceremony of formally opening the Trent Valley Railway, which had been
originally designed and laid out by himself many years before.  The first
sod of the railway had been cut by the Prime Minister, in November, 1845,
during the time when Mr. Stephenson was abroad on the business of the
Spanish railway.  The formal opening took place on the 26th June, 1847,
the line having thus been constructed in less than two years.

What a change had come over the spirit of the landed gentry since the
time when George Stephenson had first projected a railway through that
district!  Then they were up in arms against him, characterising him as
the devastator and spoiler of their estates; now he was hailed as one of
the greatest benefactors of the age.  Sir Robert Peel, the chief
political personage in England, welcomed him as a guest and friend, and
spoke of him as the chief among practical philosophers.  A dozen members
of Parliament, seven baronets, with all the landed magnates of the
district, assembled to celebrate the opening of the railway.  The clergy
were there to bless the enterprise, and to bid all hail to railway
progress, as "enabling them to carry on with greater facility those
operations in connexion with religion which were calculated to be so
beneficial to the country."  The army, speaking through the mouth of
General A'Court, acknowledged the vast importance of railways, as tending
to improve the military defences of the country.  And representatives
from eight corporations were there to acknowledge the great benefits
which railways had conferred upon the merchants, tradesmen, and working
classes of their respective towns and cities.

In the spring of 1848 Mr. Stephenson was invited to Whittington House,
near Chesterfield, the residence of his friend and former pupil, Mr.
Swanwick, to meet the distinguished American, Emerson.  Upon being
introduced, they did not immediately engage in conversation; but
presently Stephenson jumped up, took Emerson by the collar, and giving
him one of his friendly shakes, asked how it was that in England we could
always tell an American?  This led to an interesting conversation, in the
course of which Emerson said how much he had been everywhere struck by
the haleness and comeliness of the English men and women; and then they
diverged into a further discussion of the influences which air, climate,
moisture, soil, and other conditions exercised upon the physical and
moral development of a people.  The conversation was next directed to the
subject of electricity, upon which Stephenson launched out
enthusiastically, explaining his views by several simple and striking
illustrations.  From thence it gradually turned to the events of his own
life, which he related in so graphic a manner as completely to rivet the
attention of the American.  Afterwards Emerson said, "that it was worth
crossing the Atlantic to have seen Stephenson alone; he had such native
force of character and vigour of intellect."

The rest of Mr. Stephenson's days were spent quietly at Tapton, amongst
his dogs, his rabbits, and his birds.  When not engaged about the works
connected with his collieries, he was occupied in horticulture and
farming.  He continued proud of his flowers, his fruits, and his crops;
and the old spirit of competition was still strong within him.  Although
he had for some time been in delicate health, and his hand shook from
nervous affection, he appeared to possess a sound constitution.  Emerson
had observed of him that he had the lives of many men in him.  But
perhaps the American spoke figuratively, in reference to his vast stores
of experience.  It appeared that he had never completely recovered from
the attack of pleurisy which seized him during his return from Spain.  As
late, however, as the 26th July, 1848, he felt himself sufficiently well
to be able to attend a meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers
at Birmingham, and to read to the members his paper "On the Fallacies of
the Rotatory Engine."  It was his last appearance before them.  Shortly
after his return to Tapton, he had an attack of intermittent fever, from
which he seemed to be recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from
the lungs carried him off, on the 12th August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh
year of his age.  When all was over, Robert wrote to Edward Pease, "With
deep pain I inform you, as one of his oldest friends, of the death of my
dear father this morning at 12 o'clock, after about ten days' illness
from severe fever."  Mr. Starbuck, who was also present, wrote, "The
favourable symptoms of yesterday morning were towards evening followed by
a serious change for the worse.  This continued during the night, and
early this morning it became evident that he was sinking.  At a few
minutes before 12 to-day he breathed his last.  All that the most devoted
and unremitting care of Mrs. Stephenson {354} and the skill of medicine
could accomplish, has been done, but in vain."

George Stephenson's remains were followed to the grave by a large body of
his workpeople, by whom he was greatly admired and beloved.  They
remembered him as a kind master, who was ever ready actively to promote
all measures for their moral, physical, and mental improvement.  The
inhabitants of Chesterfield evinced their respect for the deceased by
suspending business, closing their shops, and joining in the funeral
procession, which was headed by the corporation of the town.  Many of the
surrounding gentry also attended.  The body was interred in Trinity
Church, Chesterfield, where a simple tablet marks the great engineer's
last resting-place.

The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liverpool and Manchester and
Grand Junction Companies had commissioned, was on its way to England when
his death occurred; and it served for a monument, though his best
monument will always be his works.  The statue referred to was placed in
St. George's Hall, Liverpool.  A full-length statue of him, by Bailey,
was also erected a few years later, in the noble vestibule of the London
and North-Western Station, in Euston Square.  A subscription for the
purpose was set on foot by the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which
he had been the founder and president.  A few advertisements were
inserted in the newspapers, inviting subscriptions; and it is a notable
fact that the voluntary offerings included an average of two shillings
each from 3150 working men, who embraced this opportunity of doing honour
to their distinguished fellow workman.

                 [Picture: Trinity Church, Chesterfield]

But unquestionably the finest and most appropriate statue to the memory
of George Stephenson is that erected in 1862, after the design of John
Lough, at Newcastle-upon Tyne.  It is in the immediate neighbourhood of
the Literary and Philosophical Institute, to which both George and his
son Robert were so much indebted in their early years; close to the great
Stephenson locomotive foundry established by the shrewdness of the
father; and in the vicinity of the High Level Bridge, one of the grandest
products of the genius of the son.  The head of Stephenson, as expressed
in this noble work, is massive, characteristic, and faithful; and the
attitude of the figure is simple yet manly and energetic.  It stands on a
pedestal, at the respective corners of which are sculptured the recumbent
figures of a pitman, a mechanic, an engine-driver, and a plate-layer.
The statue appropriately stands in a very thoroughfare of working-men,
thousands of whom see it daily as they pass to and from their work; and
we can imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson's manly figure,
applying to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to Robert Burns, with
perhaps still greater appropriateness:--

    "Before the proudest of the earth
       We stand, with an uplifted brow;
    Like us, thou wast a toiling man,--
       And we are noble, now!"

The portrait prefixed to this volume gives a good indication of George
Stephenson's shrewd, kind, honest, manly face.  His fair, clear
countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health.  The forehead
was large and high, projecting over the eyes, and there was that massive
breadth across the lower part which is usually observed in men of eminent
constructive skill.  The mouth was firmly marked, and shrewdness and
humour lurked there as well as in the keen grey eye.  His frame was
compact, well-knit, and rather spare.  His hair became grey at an early
age, and towards the close of his life it was of a pure silky whiteness.
He dressed neatly in black, wearing a white neckcloth; and his face, his
person, and his deportment at once arrested attention, and marked the
Gentleman.

            [Picture: Tablet in Trinity Church, Chesterfield]

                   [Picture: Victoria Bridge, Montreal]




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


George Stephenson bequeathed to his son his valuable collieries, his
share in the engine manufactory at Newcastle, and his large accumulation
of savings, which, together with the fortune he had himself amassed by
railway work, gave Robert the position of an engineer millionaire--the
first of his order.  He continued, however, to live in a quiet style; and
although he bought occasional pictures and statues, and indulged in the
luxury of a yacht, he did not live up to his income, which went on
rapidly accumulating until his death.

There was no longer the necessity for applying himself to the laborious
business of a parliamentary engineer, in which he had now been occupied
for some fifteen years.  Shortly after his father's death, Edward Pease
strongly recommended him to give up the more harassing work of his
profession; and his reply (15th June, 1850) was as follows:--"The
suggestion which your kind note contains is quite in accordance with my
own feelings and intentions respecting retirement; but I find it a very
difficult matter to bring to a close so complicated a connexion in
business as that which has been established by twenty-five years of
active and arduous professional duty.  Comparative retirement is,
however, my intention; and I trust that your prayer for the Divine
blessing to grant me happiness and quiet comfort will be fulfilled.  I
cannot but feel deeply grateful to the Great Disposer of events for the
success which has hitherto attended my exertions in life; and I trust
that the future will also be marked by a continuance of His mercies."

Although Robert Stephenson, in conformity with this expressed intention,
for the most part declined to undertake new business, he did not
altogether lay aside his harness; and he lived to repeat his tubular
bridges both in Lower Canada and in Egypt.  The success of the tubular
system, as adopted at Menai and Conway, was such as to recommend it for
adoption wherever great span was required; and the peculiar circumstances
connected with the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the Nile, may be
said to have compelled its adoption in carrying railways across those
great rivers.

The Victoria Bridge, of which Robert Stephenson was the designer and
chief engineer, is, without exception, the greatest work of the kind in
the world.  For gigantic proportions and vast length and strength there
is nothing to compare with it in ancient or modern times.  The entire
bridge, with its approaches, is only about sixty yards short of _two
miles_, being five times longer than the Britannia across the Menai
Straits, seven and a half times longer than Waterloo Bridge, and more
than ten times longer than the new Chelsea Bridge across the Thames!  It
has not less than twenty-four spans of 242 feet each, and one great
central span--itself an immense bridge--of 330 feet.  The road is carried
within iron tubes 60 feet above the level of the St. Lawrence, which runs
beneath at a speed of about ten miles an hour, and in winter brings down
the ice of two thousand square miles of lakes and rivers, with their
numerous tributaries.  The weight of iron in the tubes is about ten
thousand tons, supported on massive piers, which contain, some six, and
others ten thousand tons of solid masonry.

So gigantic a work, involving so heavy an expenditure--about 1,300,000
pounds--was not projected without sufficient cause.  The Grand Trunk
Railway of Canada, upwards of 1200 miles in length, traverses British
North America from the shores of the Atlantic to the rich prairie country
of the Far West.  It opens up a vast extent of fertile territory for
future immigration, and provides a ready means for transporting the
varied products of the Western States to the seaboard.  So long as the
St. Lawrence was relied upon, the inhabitants along the Great Valley were
precluded from communication with each other for nearly six months of the
year, during which the navigation was closed by the ice.

The Grand Trunk Railway was designed to furnish a line of communication
through this great district at all seasons; following the course of the
St. Lawrence along its north bank, and uniting the principal towns of
Canada.  But stopping short on the north shore, it was still an
incomplete work; unconnected, except by a dangerous and often
impracticable ferry, with Montreal, the capital of the province, and shut
off from connection with the United States, as well as with the coast to
which the commerce of Canada naturally tends.  Without a bridge at
Montreal, therefore, it was felt that the system of Canadian railway
communication would have been incomplete, and the benefits of the Grand
Trunk Railway in a great measure nugatory.

As early as 1846 the construction of a bridge across the St. Lawrence at
Montreal was strongly advocated by the local press for the purpose of
directly connecting that city with the then projected Atlantic and St.
Lawrence Railway.  A survey of the bridge was made, and the scheme was
reported to be practicable.  A period of colonial depression, however,
intervened, and although the project was not lost sight of, it was not
until 1852, when the Grand Trunk Railway Company began their operations,
that there seemed to be any reasonable prospect of its being carried out.
In that year, Mr. A. M. Ross--who had superintended, under Robert
Stephenson, the construction of the tubular bridge over the
Conway--visited Canada, and inspected the site of the proposed bridge,
when he readily arrived at the conclusion that a like structure was
suitable for the crossing of the St. Lawrence.  He returned to England to
confer with Robert Stephenson on the subject, and the result was the plan
of the Victoria Bridge, of which Robert Stephenson was the designer, and
Mr. A. M. Ross the joint and resident engineer.

The particular kind of structure to be adopted, however, formed the
subject of much preliminary discussion.  Even after the design of a
tubular bridge had been adopted, and the piers were commenced, the plan
was made the subject of severe criticism, on the ground of its alleged
excessive cost.  It therefore became necessary for Mr. Stephenson to
vindicate the propriety of his design in a report to the directors of the
railway, in which he satisfactorily proved that as respected strength,
efficiency, and economy, with a view to permanency, the plan of the
Victoria Bridge was unimpeachable.  There were various methods proposed
for spanning the St. Lawrence.  The suspension bridge, such as that over
the river Niagara, was found inapplicable for several reasons, but
chiefly because of its defective rigidity, which greatly limited the
speed and weight of the trains, and consequently the amount of traffic
which could be passed over such a bridge.  Thus, taking the length of the
Victoria Bridge into account, it was found that not more than 20 trains
could pass within the 24 hours, a number insufficient for the
accommodation of the anticipated traffic.  To introduce such an amount of
material into the suspension bridge as would supply increased rigidity,
would only be approximating to the original beam, and neutralizing any
advantages in point of cheapness which might be derivable from this form
of structure, without securing the essential stiffness and strength.
Iron arches were also considered inapplicable, because of the large
headway required for the passage of the ice in winter, and the necessity
which existed for keeping the springing of the arches clear of the
water-line.  This would have involved the raising of the entire road, and
a largely increased expenditure on the upper works.  The question was
therefore reduced to the consideration of the kind of _horizontal beam_
or _girder_ to be employed.

Horizontal girders are of three kinds.  The _Tubular_ is constructed of
riveted rectangular boiler plates.  Where the span is large, the road
passes within the tube; where the span is comparatively small, the
roadway is supported by two or more rectangular beams.  Next there is the
_Lattice_ girder, borrowed from the loose rough timber bridges of the
American engineers, consisting of a top and bottom flange connected by a
number of flat iron bars, riveted across each other at a certain angle,
the roadway resting on the top, or being suspended at the bottom between
the lattice on either side.  Bridges on the same construction are now
extensively used for crossing the broad rivers of India, and are
especially designed with a view to their easy transport and erection.
The _Trellis_ or Warren girder is a modification of the same plan,
consisting of a top and bottom flange, with a connecting web of diagonal
flat bars, forming a complete system of triangulation--hence the name of
"Triangular girder," by which it is generally known.  The merit of this
form consists in its comparative rigidity, strength, lightness, and
economy of material These bridges are also extensively employed in
spanning the rivers of India.  One of the best specimens is the Crumlin
viaduct, 200 feet high at one point, which spans the river and valley of
the Ebbw near the village of Crumlin in South Wales.  This viaduct is
about a third of a mile long, divided into two parts by a ridge of hills
which runs through the centre of the valley--each part forming a separate
viaduct, the one of seven equal spans of 150 feet, the other of three
spans of the same diameter.  The bridge has been very skilfully designed
and constructed, and, by reason of its great dimensions and novel
arrangements, is entitled to be regarded as one of the most remarkable
engineering works of the day.

"In calculating the strength of these different classes of girders," Mr.
Stephenson observed, "one ruling principle appertains, and is common to
all of them.  Primarily and essentially, the ultimate strength is
considered to exist in the top and bottom,--the former being exposed to a
compression force by the action of the load, and the latter to a force of
tension; therefore, whatever be the class or denomination of girders,
they must all be alike in amount of effective material in these members,
if their spans and depths are the same, and they have to sustain the same
amount of load.  Hence, the question of comparative merit amongst the
different classes of construction of beams or girders is really narrowed
to the method of connecting the top and bottom _webs_, so called."  In
the tubular system the connexion is effected by continuous boiler plates
riveted together; and in the lattice and trellis bridges by flat iron
bars, more or less numerous, forming a series of struts and ties.  Those
engineers who advocate the employment of the latter form of construction,
set forth as its principal advantage the saving of material which is
effected by employing bars instead of iron plates; whereas Mr. Stephenson
and his followers urge, that in point of economy the boiler plate side is
equal to the bars, whilst in point of effective strength and rigidity it
is decidedly superior.  To show the comparative economy of material, he
contrasted the lattice girder bridge over the river Trent, on the Great
Northern Railway near Newark, with the tubes of the Victoria Bridge.  In
the former case, where the span is 240.5 feet, and the bridge 13 feet
wide, the weight including bearings is 292 tons; in the latter, where the
span is 242 feet, the width of the tube 16 feet, the weight including
bearings is 275 tons, showing a balance in favour of the Victoria Tube of
17 tons.  The comparison between the Newark Dyke Bridge and the Tubular
Bridge over the river Aire is equally favourable to the latter; and no
one can have travelled over the Great Northern line to York without
noting that, as respects rigidity under the passing train, the Tubular
Bridge is decidedly superior.  It is ascertained that the deflection
caused by a passing load is considerably greater in the former case; and
Mr. Stephenson was also of opinion that the sides of all trellis or
lattice girders are useless, except for the purpose of connecting the top
and bottom, and keeping them in their position.  They depend upon their
connexion with the top and bottom webs for their own support; and since
they could not sustain their shape, but would collapse immediately on
their being disconnected from their top and bottom members, it is evident
that they add to the strain upon them, and consequently to that extent
reduce the ultimate strength of the beams.  "I admit," he added, "that
there is no formula for valuing the _solid_ sides for strains, and that
at present we only ascribe to them the value or use of connecting the top
and bottom; yet we are aware that, from their continuity and solidity,
they are of value to resist horizontal and many other strains,
independently of the top and bottom, by which they add very much to the
stiffness of the beam; and the fact of their containing more material
than is necessary to connect the top and bottom webs, has by no means
been fairly established."  Another important advantage of the Tubular
bridge over the Trellis or Lattice structure, consists in its greater
safety in event of a train running off the line,--a contingency which has
more than once occurred on a tubular bridge without detriment, whereas in
event of such an accident occurring on a Trellis or Lattice bridge, it
must infallibly be destroyed.  Where the proposed bridge is of the
unusual length of a mile and a quarter, it is obvious that this
consideration must have had no small weight with the directors, who
eventually decided on proceeding with the Tubular Bridge according to Mr.
Stephenson's original design.

From the first projection of the Victoria Bridge, the difficulties of
executing such a work across a wide river, down which an avalanche of ice
rushes to the sea every spring, were pronounced almost insurmountable by
those best acquainted with the locality.  The ice of two thousand miles
of inland lakes and upper rivers, besides their tributaries, is then
poured down stream, and, in the neighbourhood of Montreal especially, it
is often piled up to the height of from forty to fifty feet, placing the
surrounding country under water, and doing severe damage to the massive
stone buildings along the noble river front of the city.  To resist so
prodigious a pressure, it was necessary that the piers of the proposed
bridge should be of the most solid and massive description.  Their
foundations are placed in the solid rock; for none of the artificial
methods of obtaining foundations, suggested by some engineers for
cheapness' sake, were found practicable in this case.  Where the force
exercised against the piers was likely to be so great, it was felt that
timber ice-breakers, timber or cast-iron piling, or even rubble-work,
would have proved but temporary expedients.  The two centre piers are
eighteen feet wide, and the remaining twenty-two piers fifteen feet; to
arrest and break the ice, an inclined plane, composed of great blocks of
stone, was added to the up-river side of each pier--each block weighing
from seven to ten tons, and the whole were firmly clamped together with
iron rivets.

To convey some idea of the immense force which these piers are required
to resist, we may briefly describe the breaking up of the ice in March,
1858, while the bridge was under construction.  Fourteen out of the
twenty-four piers were then finished, together with the formidable
abutments and approaches to the bridge.  The ice in the river began to
show signs of weakness on the 29th March, but it was not until the 31st
that a general movement became observable, which continued for an hour,
when it suddenly stopped, and the water rose rapidly.  On the following
day, at noon, a grand movement commenced; the waters rose about four feet
in two minutes, up to a level with many of the Montreal streets.  The
fields of ice at the same time were suddenly elevated to an incredible
height; and so overwhelming were they in appearance, that crowds of the
townspeople, who had assembled on the quay to watch the progress of the
flood, ran for their lives.  This movement lasted about twenty minutes,
during which the jammed ice destroyed several portions of the quay-wall,
grinding the hardest blocks to atoms.  The embanked approaches to the
Victoria Bridge had tremendous forces to resist.  In the full channel of
the stream, the ice in its passage between the piers was broken up by the
force of the blow immediately on its coming in contact with the
cutwaters.  Sometimes thick sheets of ice were seen to rise up and rear
on end against the piers, but by the force of the current they were
speedily made to roll over into the stream, and in a moment after were
out of sight.  For the two next days the river was still high, until on
the 4th April the waters seemed suddenly to give way, and by the
following day the river was flowing clear and smooth as a millpond,
nothing of winter remaining except the masses of bordage ice which were
strewn along the shores of the stream.  On examination of the piers of
the bridge, it was found that they had admirably resisted the tremendous
pressure; and though the timber "cribwork" erected to facilitate the
placing of floating pontoons to form the dams, was found considerably
disturbed and in some places seriously damaged, the piers, with the
exception of one or two heavy stone blocks, which were still unfinished,
escaped uninjured.  One heavy block of many tons' weight was carried to a
considerable distance, and must have been torn out of its place by sheer
force, as several of the broken fragments were found left in the pier.

The works in connection with the Victoria Bridge were begun on the 22nd
July, 1854, when the first stone was laid, and continued uninterruptedly
during a period of 5.5 years, until the 17th December, 1859, when the
bridge was finished and taken off the contractor's hands.  It was
formally opened for traffic early in 1860; though Robert Stephenson did
not live to see its completion.

The tubular system was also applied by the same engineer, in a modified
form, in the two bridges across the Nile, near Damietta in Lower Egypt.
That near Benha contains eight spans or openings of 80 feet each, and two
centre spans, formed by one of the largest swing bridges ever
constructed,--the total length of the swing-beam being 157 feet,--a clear
water-way of 60 feet being provided on either side of the centre pier.
The only novelty in these bridges consisted in the road being carried
_upon_ the tubes instead of within them; their erection being carried out
in the usual manner, by means of workmen, materials, and plant sent out
from England.

During the later years of his life, Mr. Stephenson took considerable
interest in public affairs and in scientific investigations.  In 1847 he
entered the House of Commons as member for Whitby; but he does not seem
to have been very devoted in his attendance, and only appeared on
divisions when there was a "whip" of the party to which he belonged.  He
was a member of the Sanitary and Sewage Commissions, and of the
Commission which sat on Westminster Bridge.  The last occasions on which
he addressed the House were on the Suez Canal and the cleansing of the
Serpentine.  He pronounced the Suez Canal to be an impracticable scheme.
"I have surveyed the line," said he, "I have travelled the whole distance
on foot, and I declare there is no fall between the two seas.  Honourable
members talk about a canal.  A canal is impossible--the thing would only
be a ditch."

Besides constructing the railway between Alexandria and Cairo, he was
consulted, like his father, by the King of Belgium, as to the railways of
that country; and he was made Knight of the Order of Leopold because of
the improvements which he had made in locomotive engines, so much to the
advantage of the Belgian system of inland transit.  He was consulted by
the King of Sweden as to the railway between Christiana and Lake Miosen,
and in consideration of his services was decorated with the Grand Cross
of the Order of St. Olaf.  He also visited Switzerland, Piedmont, and
Denmark, to advise as to the system of railway communication best suited
for those countries.  At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 the Emperor of
France decorated him with the Legion of Honour in consideration of his
public services; and at home the University of Oxford made him a Doctor
of Civil Laws.  In 1855 he was elected President of the Institute of
Civil Engineers, which office he held with honour and filled with
distinguished ability for two years, giving place to his friend Mr. Locke
at the end of 1857.

Mr. Stephenson was frequently called upon to act as arbitrator between
contractors and railway companies, or between one company and
another,--great value being attached to his opinion on account of his
weighty judgment, his great experience, and his upright character, and we
believe his decisions were invariably stamped by the qualities of
impartiality and justice.  He was always ready to lend a helping hand to
a friend, and no petty jealousy stood between him and his rivals in the
engineering world.  The author remembers being with Mr. Stephenson one
evening at his house in Gloucester Square, when a note was put into his
hands from his friend Brunel, then engaged in his first fruitless efforts
to launch the _Great Eastern_.  It was to ask Stephenson to come down to
Blackwall early next morning, and give him the benefit of his judgment.
Shortly after six next morning Stephenson was in Scott Russell's
building-yard, and he remained there until dusk.  About midday, while
superintending the launching operations, the baulk of timber on which he
stood canted up, and he fell up to his middle in the Thames mud.  He was
dressed as usual, without great-coat (though the day was bitter cold),
and with only thin boots upon his feet.  He was urged to leave the yard,
and change his dress, or at least dry himself; but with his usual
disregard of health, he replied, "Oh, never mind me--I'm quite used to
this sort of thing;" and he went paddling about in the mud, smoking his
cigar, until almost dark, when the day's work was brought to an end.  The
result of this exposure was an attack of inflammation of the lungs, which
kept him to his bed for a fortnight.

He was habitually careless of his health, and perhaps he indulged in
narcotics to a prejudicial extent.  Hence he often became "hipped" and
sometimes ill.  When Mr. Sopwith accompanied him to Egypt in the
_Titania_, in 1856, he succeeded in persuading Mr. Stephenson to limit
his indulgence in cigars and stimulants, and the consequence was that by
the end of the voyage he felt himself, as he said, "quite a new man."
Arrived at Marseilles, he telegraphed from thence a message to Great
George Street, prescribing certain stringent and salutary rules for
observance in the office there on his return.  But he was of a facile,
social disposition, and the old associations proved too strong for him.
When he sailed for Norway, in the autumn of 1859, though then ailing in
health, he looked a man who had still plenty of life in him.  By the time
he returned, his fatal illness had seized him.  He was attacked by
congestion of the liver, which first developed itself in jaundice, and
then ran into dropsy, of which he died on the 12th October, in the
fifty-sixth year of his age. {368}  He was buried by the side of Telford
in Westminster Abbey, amidst the departed great men of his country, and
was attended to his resting-place by many of the intimate friends of his
boyhood and his manhood.  Among those who assembled round his grave were
some of the greatest men of thought and action in England, who embraced
the sad occasion to pay the last mark of their respect to this
illustrious son of one of England's greatest working men.

     [Picture: Robert Stephenson's Burial-place in Westminster Abbey]

It would be out of keeping with the subject thus drawn to a conclusion,
to pronounce any panegyric on the character and achievements of George
and Robert Stephenson.  These for the most part speak for themselves.
Both were emphatically true men, exhibiting in their lives many sterling
qualities.  No beginning could have been less promising than that of the
elder Stephenson.  Born in a poor condition, yet rich in spirit, he was
from the first compelled to rely upon himself; and every step of advance
which he made was conquered by patient labour.  Whether working as a
brakesman or an engineer, his mind was always full of the work in hand.
He gave himself thoroughly up to it.  Like the painter, he might say that
he had become great "by neglecting nothing."  Whatever he was engaged
upon, he was as careful of the details as if each were itself the whole.
He did all thoroughly and honestly.  There was no "scamping" with him.
When a workman he put his brains and labour into his work; and when a
master he put his conscience and character into it.  He would have no
slop-work executed merely for the sake of profit.  The materials must be
as genuine as the workmanship was skilful.  The structures which he
designed and executed were distinguished for their thoroughness and
solidity; his locomotives were famous for their durability and excellent
working qualities.  The engines which he sent to the United States in
1832 are still in good condition; and even the engines built by him for
the Killingworth Colliery, upwards of thirty years ago, are working
steadily there to this day.  All his work was honest, representing the
actual character of the man.

He was ready to turn his hand to anything--shoes and clocks, railways and
locomotives.  He contrived his safety-lamp with the object of saving
pitmen's lives, and perilled his own life in testing it.  Whatever work
was nearest him, he turned to and did it.  With him to resolve was to do.
Many men knew far more than he; but none were more ready forthwith to
apply what he did know to practical purposes.  It was while working at
Willington as a brakes-man, that he first learnt how best to handle a
spade in throwing ballast out of the ships' holds.  This casual
employment seems to have left upon his mind the strongest impression of
what "hard work" was; and he often used to revert to it, and say to the
young men about him, "Ah, ye lads! there's none o' ye know what _wark_
is."  Mr. Gooch says he was proud of the dexterity in handling a spade
which he had thus acquired, and that he has frequently seen him take the
shovel from a labourer in some railway cutting, and show him how to use
it more deftly in filling waggons of earth, gravel, or sand.  Sir Joshua
Walmsley has also informed us, that, when examining the works of the
Orleans and Tours Railway, Mr. Stephenson, seeing a large number of
excavators filling and wheeling sand in a cutting, at a great waste of
time and labour, went up to the men and said he would show them how to
fill their barrows in half the time.  He showed them the proper position
in which to stand so as to exercise the greatest amount of power with the
least expenditure of strength; and he filled the barrow with comparative
ease again and again in their presence, to the great delight of the
workmen.  When passing through his own workshops, he would point out to
his men how to save labour, and to get through their work skilfully and
with ease.  His energy imparted itself to others, quickening and
influencing them as strong characters always do--flowing down into
theirs, and bringing out their best powers.

His deportment towards the workmen employed under him was familiar, yet
firm and consistent.  As he respected their manhood, so did they respect
his masterhood.  Although he comported himself towards his men as if they
occupied very much the same level as himself, he yet possessed that
peculiar capacity for governing which enabled him always to preserve
among them the strictest discipline, and to secure their cheerful and
hearty services.  Mr. Ingham, M.P. for South Shields, on going over the
workshops at Newcastle, was particularly struck with this quality of the
master in his bearing towards his men.  "There was nothing," said he, "of
undue familiarity in their intercourse, but they spoke to each other as
man to man; and nothing seemed to please the master more than to point
out illustrations of the ingenuity of his artisans.  He took up a rivet,
and expatiated on the skill with which it had been fashioned by the
workman's hand--its perfectness and truth.  He was always proud of his
workmen and his pupils; and, while indifferent and careless as to what
might be said of himself, he fired up in a moment if disparagement were
thrown upon any one whom he had taught or trained."

In manner, George Stephenson was simple, modest, and unassuming, but
always manly.  He was frank and social in spirit.  When a humble workman,
he had carefully preserved his sense of self-respect.  His companions
looked up to him, and his example was worth even more to many of them
than books or schools.  His devoted love of knowledge made his poverty
respectable, and adorned his humble calling.  When he rose to a more
elevated station, and associated with men of the highest position and
influence in Britain, he took his place amongst them with perfect
self-possession.  They wondered at the quiet ease and simple dignity of
his deportment; and men in the best ranks of life have said of him that
"He was one of Nature's gentlemen."

Probably no military chiefs were ever more beloved by their soldiers than
were both father and son by the army of men who, under their guidance,
worked at labours of profit, made labours of love by their earnest will
and purpose.  True leaders of men and lords of industry, they were always
ready to recognise and encourage talent in those who worked for and with
them.  Thus it was pleasant, at the openings of the Stephenson lines, to
hear the chief engineers attributing the successful completion of the
works to their able assistants; whilst the assistants, on the other hand,
ascribed the glory to their chiefs.

Mr. Stephenson, though a thrifty and frugal man, was essentially
unsordid.  His rugged path in early life made him careful of his
resources.  He never saved to hoard, but saved for a purpose, such as the
maintenance of his parents or the education of his son.  In later years
he became a prosperous and even a wealthy man; but riches never closed
his heart, nor stole away the elasticity of his soul.  He enjoyed life
cheerfully, because hopefully.  When he entered upon a commercial
enterprise, whether for others or for himself, he looked carefully at the
ways and means.  Unless they would "pay," he held back.  "He would have
nothing to do," he declared, "with stock-jobbing speculations."  His
refusal to sell his name to the schemes of the railway mania--his survey
of the Spanish lines without remuneration--his offer to postpone his
claim for payment from a poor company until their affairs became more
prosperous--are instances of the unsordid spirit in which he acted.

Another marked feature in Mr. Stephenson's character was his patience.
Notwithstanding the strength of his convictions as to the great uses to
which the locomotive might be applied, he waited long and patiently for
the opportunity of bringing it into notice; and for years after he had
completed an efficient engine he went on quietly devoting himself to the
ordinary work of the colliery.  He made no noise nor stir about his
locomotive, but allowed another to take credit for the experiments on
velocity and friction made with it by himself upon the Killingworth
railroad.

By patient industry and laborious contrivance, he was enabled, with the
powerful help of his son, to do for the locomotive what James Watt had
done for the condensing engine.  He found it clumsy and inefficient; and
he made it powerful, efficient, and useful.  Both have been described as
the improvers of their respective engines; but, as to all that is
admirable in their structure or vast in their utility, they are rather
entitled to be described as their Inventors.  While the invention of Watt
increased the power, and at the same time so regulated the action of the
steam-engine, as to make it capable of being applied alike to the hardest
work and to the finest manufactures, the invention of Stephenson gave an
effective power to the locomotive, which enabled it to perform the work
of teams of the most powerful horses, and to outstrip the speed of the
fleetest.  Watt's invention exercised a wonderfully quickening influence
on every branch of industry, and multiplied a thousand-fold the amount of
manufactured productions; and Stephenson's enabled these to be
distributed with an economy and despatch such as had never before been
thought possible.  They have both tended to increase indefinitely the
mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and to render them cheap and
accessible to all.  But Stephenson's invention, by the influence which it
is daily exercising upon the civilisation of the world, is even more
remarkable than that of Watt, and is calculated to have still more
important consequences.  In this respect, it is to be regarded as the
grandest application of steam power that has yet been discovered.

The Locomotive, like the condensing engine, exhibits the realisation of
various capital, but wholly distinct, ideas, promulgated by many
ingenious inventors.  Stephenson, like Watt, exhibited a power of
selection, combination, and invention of his own, by which--while
availing himself of all that had been done before him, and superadding
the many skilful contrivances devised by himself--he was at length
enabled to bring his engine into a condition of marvellous power and
efficiency.  He gathered together the scattered threads of ingenuity
which already existed, and combined them into one firm and complete
fabric of his own.  He realised the plans which others had imperfectly
formed; and was the first to construct, what so many others had
unsuccessfully attempted, the practical and economical working
locomotive.

Mr. Stephenson's close and accurate observation provided him with a
fulness of information on many subjects, which often appeared surprising
to those who had devoted to them a special study.  On one occasion the
accuracy of his knowledge of birds came out in a curious way at a
convivial meeting of railway men in London.  The engineers and railway
directors present knew each other as railway men and nothing more.  The
talk had been all of railways and railway politics.  Mr. Stephenson was a
great talker on those subjects, and was generally allowed, from the
interest of his conversation and the extent of his experience, to take
the lead.  At length one of the party broke in with "Come now,
Stephenson, we have had nothing but railways; cannot we have a change and
try if we can talk a little about something else?"  "Well," said Mr.
Stephenson, "I'll give you a wide range of subjects; what shall it be
about?"  "Say _birds' nests_!" rejoined the other, who prided himself on
his special knowledge of this subject.  "Then birds' nests be it."  A
long and animated conversation ensued: the bird-nesting of his boyhood,
the blackbird's nest which his father had held him up in his arms to look
at when a child at Wylam, the hedges in which he had found the thrush's
and the linnet's nests, the mossy bank where the robin built, the cleft
in the branch of the young tree where the chaffinch had reared its
dwelling--all rose up clear in his mind's eye, and led him back to the
scenes of his boyhood at Callerton and Dewley Burn.  The colour and
number of the bird's eggs, the period of their incubation, the materials
employed by them for the walls and lining of their nests, were described
by him so vividly, and illustrated by such graphic anecdotes, that one of
the party remarked that, if George Stephenson had not been the greatest
engineer of his day, he might have been one of the greatest naturalists.

His powers of conversation were very great.  He was so thoughtful, so
original, and so suggestive.  There was scarcely a department of science
on which he had not formed some novel and sometimes daring theory.  Thus
Mr. Gooch, his pupil, who lived with him when at Liverpool, informs us
that when sitting over the fire, he would frequently broach his favourite
theory of the sun's light and heat being the original source of the light
and heat given forth by the burning coal.  "It fed the plants of which
that coal is made," he would say, "and has been bottled up in the earth
ever since, to be given out again now for the use of man."  His son
Robert once said of him, "My father flashed his bull's eye full upon a
subject, and brought it out in its most vivid light in an instant: his
strong common sense, and his varied experience operating upon a
thoughtful mind, were his most powerful illuminators."

Mr. Stephenson had once a conversation with a watchmaker, whom he
astonished by the extent and minuteness of his knowledge as to the parts
of a watch.  The watchmaker knew him to be an eminent engineer, and asked
him how he had acquired so extensive a knowledge of a branch of business
so much out of his sphere.  "It is very easy to be explained," said Mr.
Stephenson; "I worked long at watch-cleaning myself, and when I was at a
loss, I was never ashamed to ask for information."

Towards the close of his life he frequently went down to Newcastle, and
visited the scenes of his boyhood.  "I have been to Callerton," said he
one day to a friend, "and seen the fields in which I used to pull turnips
at twopence a day; and many a cold finger, I can tell you, I had."

His hand was open to his former fellow-workmen whom old age had left in
poverty.  To poor Robert Gray, of Newburn, who acted as his bridesman on
his marriage to Fanny Henderson, he left a pension for life.  He would
slip a five-pound note into the hand of a poor man or a widow in such a
way as not to offend their delicacy, but to make them feel as if the
obligation were all on his side.  When Farmer Paterson, who married a
sister of George's first wife, Fanny Henderson, died and left a large
young family fatherless, poverty stared them in the face.  "But ye ken,"
said our informant, "_George struck in fayther for them_."  And perhaps
the providential character of the act could not have been more
graphically expressed than in these simple words.

On his visit to Newcastle, he would frequently meet the friends of his
early days, occupying very nearly the same station, whilst he had
meanwhile risen to almost world-wide fame.  But he was no less hearty in
his greeting of them than if their relative position had continued the
same.  Thus, one day, after shaking hands with Mr. Brandling on alighting
from his carriage, he proceeded to shake hands with his coachman, Anthony
Wigham, a still older friend, though he only sat on the box.

Robert Stephenson inherited his father's kindly spirit and benevolent
disposition.  He almost worshipped his father's memory, and was ever
ready to attribute to him the chief merit of his own achievements as an
engineer.  "It was his thorough training," we once heard him say, "his
example, and his character, which made me the man I am."  On a more
public occasion he said, "It is my great pride to remember, that whatever
may have been done, and however extensive may have been my own connection
with railway development, all I know and all I have done is primarily due
to the parent whose memory I cherish and revere." {377}  To Mr. Lough,
the sculptor, he said he had never had but two loves--one for his father,
the other for his wife.