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


George Stephenson had now been diligently employed for several years in
the work of self-improvement, and he experienced the usual results in
increasing mental strength, capability, and skill.  Perhaps the secret of
every man's best success 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, lo! he found that his supposed invention had long
been known and recorded in scientific books.  Often he thought he had hit
upon discoveries, which he subsequently found were but old and exploded
fallacies.  Yet his very struggle to overcome the difficulties which lay
in his way, was of itself an education of the best sort.  By wrestling
with them, he strengthened his judgment and sharpened his skill,
stimulating and cultivating his inventiveness and mechanical ingenuity.
Being very much in earnest, he was compelled to consider the subject of
his special inquiry in all its relations; and thus he gradually acquired
practical ability even through his very efforts after the impracticable.

Many of his evenings were now spent in the society of John Wigham, whose
father occupied the Glebe Farm at Benton, close at hand.  John was a fair
penman and a sound arithmetician, and Stephenson 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 Wigham took him in hand that he made much progress
in the higher branches of arithmetic.  He generally took his slate with
him to the Wighams' cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work
them out while tending his engine on the following day.  When too busy to
be able to call upon Wigham, he sent the slate to have the former sums
corrected and new ones set.  Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was
enabled to do a little "figuring" with chalk upon the sides of the
coal-waggons.  So much patient perseverance could not but eventually
succeed; and by dint of practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to
master successively the various rules of arithmetic.

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

His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that
Stephenson continued a sober man.  Though his notions were never extreme
on this point, he was systematically temperate.  It appears that on the
invitation of his master, he had, on one or two occasions, been induced
to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public-house of the
village.  But one day, about noon, when Dodds had got him as far as the
public-house door, on his invitation to "come in and take a glass o'
yel," Stephenson made a dead stop, and said, firmly, "No, sir, you must
excuse me; I have made a resolution to drink no more at this time of
day."  And he went back.  He desired to retain the character of a steady
workman; and the instances of men about him who had made shipwreck of
their character through intemperance, were then, as now, unhappily 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 clock-head on
when placed upon the table, his father would make him mount a chair for
the purpose; and to "help father" was the proudest work which the boy
then, and ever after, could take part in.  When the little engine was set
up at the Ochre Quarry to pump it dry, Robert was scarcely absent for an
hour.  He watched the machine very eagerly when it was set to work; and
he was very much annoyed at the fire burning away the grates.  The man
who fired the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a laugh at
the boy, he said, "Those bars are getting varra bad, Robert; I think we
main cut up some of that hard wood, and put it in instead."  "What would
be the use of that, you fool?" said the boy quickly.  "You would no
sooner have put them in than they would be burnt out again!"

So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the
road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk.  But
the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind,
scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks.  While working as a
brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father had often bethought
him of the obstructions he had himself encountered in life through his
want of schooling; and he formed the 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.

              [Picture: Rutter's School House, Long Benton]

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 shoe-lasts for the shoe-makers of the
neighbourhood, and cutting out the pitmen's clothes for their wives; and
we have been told that to this day there are clothes worn at Killingworth
made after "Geordy Steevie's cut."  To give his own words:--"In the
earlier period of my career," said he, "when Robert was a little boy, I
saw how deficient I was in education, and I made up my mind that he
should not labour under the same defect, but that I would put him to a
good school, and give him a liberal training.  I was, however, a poor
man; and how do you think I managed?  I betook myself to mending my
neighbours' clocks and watches at nights, after my daily labour was done,
and thus I procured the means of educating my son." {52}

Carrying out the resolution as to his boy's education, Robert was sent to
Mr. Bruce's school in Percy Street, Newcastle, at Midsummer, 1815, when
he was about twelve years old.  His father bought for him a donkey, on
which he rode into Newcastle and back daily; and there are many still
living who remember the little boy, dressed in his suit of homely 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 pitmen; and the other boys would
occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his
Killingworth Doric.  As the shyness got rubbed off, his love of fun began
to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own amongst the
other boys.  As a scholar he was steady and diligent, and his master was
accustomed to hold him up to the laggards of the school as an example of
good conduct and industry.  But his progress, though satisfactory, was by
no means extraordinary.  He used in after-life to pride himself on his
achievements in mensuration, though another boy, John Taylor, beat him at
arithmetic.  He also made considerable progress in mathematics; and in a
letter written to the son of his teacher, many years after, he said, "It
was to Mr. Bruce's tuition and methods of 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 the facility I possess of
applying this kind of knowledge to practical purposes and modifying it
according to circumstances."

                   [Picture: Bruce's School, Newcastle]

During the time Robert attended school at Newcastle, his father made the
boy's education instrumental to his own.  Robert was accustomed to spend
some of his spare time at the rooms of the Literary and Philosophical
Institute; and when he went home in the evening, he would recount to his
father the results of his reading.  Sometimes he was allowed to take with
him to Killingworth a volume of the 'Repertory of Arts and Sciences,'
which father and son studied together.  But many of the most valuable
works belonging to the Newcastle Library were not 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, placing a 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 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 Killingworth
labourer, when asked by Robert, on one of his last visits to Newcastle,
if he remembered him, replied with emotion, "Ay, indeed!  Haven't I paid
your head many a time when you came with your father's bait, for you were
always a sad hempy?"

The author had the pleasure, in the year 1854, of accompanying Robert
Stephenson on a visit to his old home and haunts at Killingworth.  He had
so often 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 days.  His eyes glistened when
he came in sight of Killingworth pit-head.  Pointing to a humble
red-tiled house by the road-side at Benton, he said, "You see that
house--that was Rutter's, where I learnt my A B C, and made a beginning
of my school learning.  And there," pointing to a colliery chimney on the
left, "there is Long Benton, where my father put up his first
pumping-engine; and a great success it was.  And this humble clay-floored
cottage you see here, is where my grandfather lived till the close of his
life.  Many a time have I ridden straight into the house, mounted on my
cuddy, and called upon grandfather to admire his points.  I remember the
old man feeling the animal all over--he was then quite blind--after which
he would dilate upon the shape of his ears, fetlocks, and quarters, and
usually end by pronouncing him to be a 'real blood.'  I was a great
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 cuddy."

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

On another occasion, Robert played a series of tricks of a somewhat
different character.  Like his father, he was very fond of reducing his
scientific reading to practice; and after studying Franklin's description
of the lightning experiment, he proceeded to expend his store of Saturday
pennies in purchasing about half a mile of copper wire at a brazier's
shop in Newcastle.  Having prepared his kite, he 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 backs of some of Farmer Wigham's cows,
he soon had them skipping about the field in all directions with their
tails up.  One day he had his kite flying at the cottage-door as his
father's galloway was hanging by the bridle to the paling, waiting for
the master to mount.  Bringing the end of the wire just over the pony's
crupper, so smart an electric shock was given it, that the brute was
almost knocked down.  At this juncture the father issued from the door,
riding-whip in hand, and was witness to the scientific trick just played
off upon his galloway.  "Ah! you mischievous scoondrel!" cried he to the
boy, who ran off.  He inwardly chuckled with pride, nevertheless, at
Robert's successful experiment. {57}

                [Picture: Stephenson's Cottage, West Moor]

At this time, and for many years after, Stephenson dwelt in a cottage
standing by the side of the road leading from the West Moor colliery to
Killingworth.  The railway from the West Moor 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 over-head, to which
access was obtained by means of a step-ladder.  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-roomed 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.  A
cage was built for "blackie" in the partition between the passage and the
room, a square of glass forming its outer wall; and Robert used
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 pitman's wife, George handed it to his
son; "Put her in the oven, Robert," said he, "for a quarter of an hour or
so."  It seemed an odd way of repairing a watch; nevertheless, the watch
was put into the oven, and at the end of the appointed time it was taken
out, going all right.  The wheels had merely got clogged by the oil
congealed by the cold; which at once explains the rationale of the remedy
adopted.

There was a little garden attached to the cottage, in which, while a
workman, Stephenson took a pride in growing gigantic leeks and astounding
cabbages.  There was great competition amongst 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 "fley-craw," which moved its arms with the wind; and he fastened
his garden-door by means of a piece of ingenious mechanism, so that no
one but himself could enter it.  His cottage was quite a curiosity-shop
of models of engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion machines.
The last-named contrivances, however, were only unsuccessful attempts to
solve a problem which had effectually baffled hundreds of preceding
inventors.  His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder
amongst the Killingworth villagers.  He won the women's admiration by
connecting their cradles with the smoke-jack, and making them
self-acting.  Then he astonished the pitmen by attaching an alarum to the
clock of the watchman whose duty it was to call them betimes in the
morning.  He also contrived a wonderful lamp which burned under water,
with which he was afterwards wont to amuse the Brandling family at
Gosforth,--going into the fish-pond at night, lamp in hand, attracting
and catching the fish, which rushed wildly towards the flame.

Dr. Bruce tells of a competition which Stephenson had with the joiner at
Killingworth, as to which of them could make the best shoe-last; and when
the former had done his work, either for the humour of the thing, or to
secure fair play from the appointed judge, he took it to the Morrisons in
Newcastle, and got them to put their stamp upon it.  So that it is
possible the Killingworth brakesman, 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 pitmen how the earth was round,
and kept turning round.  But his auditors flatly declared the thing to be
impossible, as it was clear that "at the bottom side they must fall off!"
"Ah!" said George, "you don't quite understand it yet."  His son Robert
also early endeavoured 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 pitmen's boys as would become his pupils.

                          [Picture: The Sundial]

While Robert was still at school, his father proposed to him during the
holidays that he should construct a sun-dial, to be placed over their
cottage-door at West Moor.  "I expostulated with him at first," said
Robert, "that I had not 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 pitmen when it was put
up, and began to tell its tale of time."  The date carved upon the dial
is "August 11th, MDCCCXVI."  Both father and son were in after-life very
proud of the joint production.  Many years after, George took a party of
savans, when attending the meeting of the British Association at
Newcastle, over to Killingworth to see the pits, and he did not fail to
direct their attention to the sun-dial; and Robert, on the last visit
which he made to the place, a short time before his death, took a friend
into the cottage, and pointed out to him the very desk, still there, at
which he had sat while making his calculations of the latitude of
Killingworth.

From the time of his appointment as engineer at the Killingworth Pit,
George Stephenson was in a measure relieved from the daily routine of
manual 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 dun galloway to
ride on, he said he never wanted to be any higher.  When Robert Whetherly
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,
Stephenson erected his first winding-engine to draw the coals out of the
pit, and also a pumping-engine for Long Benton Colliery, both of which
proved quite successful.  Amongst 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 brakesman; and he so arranged it, that the full waggons descending
drew the empty waggons up the railroad.  This was one of the first
self-acting inclines laid down in the district.

Stephenson had now much better opportunities than hitherto for improving
himself in mechanics.  His familiar acquaintance with the steam-engine
proved of 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 abstruse 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-wright in his efforts after
improvement.  The subject of the locomotive engine was already closely
occupying Stephenson'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 as yet slumbered within it; and he now bent
his entire faculties to the development of its extraordinary powers.

               [Picture: Colliers' Cottages at Long Benton]




CHAPTER V.
EARLY HISTORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE--GEORGE STEPHENSON BEGINS ITS
IMPROVEMENT.


The rapid increase in the coal-trade of the Tyne about the beginning of
the present century had the effect of stimulating the ingenuity of
mechanics, and encouraging them to devise improved methods of
transporting the coal from the pits to the shipping places.  From our
introductory chapter, it will have been observed that the improvements
which had thus far been effected were confined almost entirely to the
road.  The railway waggons still continued to be drawn by horses.  By
improving and flattening the tramway, considerable economy in horse-power
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 waggons, and driving them along the
waggon-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 Glamorganshire, 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 Boydell'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.  Savery, 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. Robison, then a young man
studying at Glasgow College, threw out the same idea to his friend James
Watt; but the scheme was not matured.

                        [Picture: Cugnot's Engine]

The first locomotive steam-carriage was built at Paris by the French
engineer Cugnot, 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 Saxe 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 Duc de Choiseul, Minister of War, General
Gribeauval, and other officers.  At one of the experiments it ran with
such force as to knock 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, Cugnot constructed a new machine in 1770, the working of which
was more satisfactory.  It was composed of two parts--the fore 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 steam cylinders, whose pistons acted alternately upon the single
driving-wheel.  The hinder part 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 des Arts et Metiers at Paris.  It has
very much the look of a long brewer's cart, with the addition of the
circular boiler hung on at 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 actual 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 Cugnot's road locomotive remained locked up from public sight,
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 a 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 Symington, 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.

                  [Picture: Section of Murdock's Model]

The same year in which Symington was occupied upon his steam-carriage,
William Murdock, the friend and assistant of Watt, constructed his model
of a locomotive at the opposite end of the island--at Redruth 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.  The annexed section
will give an idea of the arrangements of this machine.

It acted on the high-pressure principle, and, like Cugnot'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 Redruth mine, Murdock determined to try the working of his
model locomotive.  For this purpose he had recourse to the walk leading
to the church, about a mile from the town.  It was rather narrow, and was
bounded on each side by high hedges.  The night was dark, and Murdock set
out alone to try his experiment.  Having lit his lamp, the water 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 propria
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 brains.  The steam-carriage built
on this patent presented the appearance of an ordinary stage-coach 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 fly-wheel) 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 Camborne, has related that he remembers this first
English steam-coach 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 principle 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 under side was shut off, and the steam allowed to escape into the
atmosphere.  A passage being 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.

This steam-carriage excited considerable interest in the remote district
near the 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, amongst others
of Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society, and Sir Humphry
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 Humphry 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 North-Western 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 purposes of ordinary traffic.

While the steam-carriage was being exhibited, a gentleman was laying
heavy wagers as to the weight which could be hauled by a single horse on
the Wandsworth and Croydon iron tramway; and the number and weight of
waggons drawn by the horse were something surprising.  Trevithick very
probably put the two things together--the steam-horse and the
iron-way--and kept the performance in mind when he proceeded to construct
his second or railway locomotive.  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 Pen-y-darran, 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
Pen-y-darran tramway.  Such an engine was erected by him in 1803, in the
blacksmiths' 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 feet 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 fly-wheel 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.  Trevithick was here hovering on the verge of a
great discovery; but that he was not aware of the action of the blast in
contributing to increase the draught and thus quicken combustion, 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. {70}

            [Picture: Trevithick's High Pressure Tram-Engine]

At the first trial of this engine it succeeded in dragging after it
several waggons, containing ten tons of bar-iron, at the rate of about
five miles an hour.  Rees 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 Pen-y-darran down the Basin-road, upon which road she was
intended to work.  On the journey she broke a great many of the
tram-plates, and before reaching the basin ran off the road, and had to
be brought back to Pen-y-darran by horses.  The engine was never after
used as a locomotive." {71}

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-waggons, to carry which the original rails
had been laid down--the regular employment of Trevithick's high-pressure
tram-engine was altogether impracticable; and as the owners 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.
Trevithick 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; viz., the idea that, if a heavy
weight were placed behind the engine, the "grip" or "bite" of its smooth
wheels upon the equally smooth iron rail, must necessarily be so slight
that they would whirl round upon it, and, consequently, that the machine
would not make progress.  Hence Trevithick, in his patent, provided that
the periphery of the driving-wheels should be made rough by the
projection of bolts or cross-grooves, so that the adhesion of the wheels
to the road might be secured.

Following up the presumed necessity for a more effectual adhesion between
the wheels and the rails, Mr. Blenkinsop of Leeds, in 1811, took out a
patent for a racked or tooth-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, the progress being
effected by means of the cogged-wheel working into the cogged-rail.  The
engine had two cylinders, instead of one as in Trevithick'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. Blenkinsop, 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 at right
angles to each other; these pinions communicating the motion to the wheel
which worked into the cogged-rail.

Mr. Blenkinsop's engines began running on the railway from the Middleton
Collieries to Leeds, about 3.5 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
Blenkinsop's locomotive with curious interest and admiration.  An engine
dragged as many as thirty coal-waggons at a speed of about 3.25 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 Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812, endeavoured 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,
there was so great a loss of power by friction, and it was found to be so
expensive and difficult to keep in repair, that it was soon abandoned.
Another remarkable expedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterley
Works, Derbyshire, who, in 1813, patented his Mechanical Traveller, to go
_upon legs_ working alternately like those of a horse. {73}  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.  These, 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 labouring 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 Stephenson, who,
shortly after, took up the question of steam locomotion, and brought it
to a successful issue.

The Wylam waggon-way is one of the oldest in the north of England.  Down
to the year 1807 it was formed of wooden spars or rails, laid down
between the colliery at Wylam--where old Robert Stephenson had
worked--and the village of Lemington, some four miles down the Tyne,
where the coals were loaded into keels or barges, and floated down past
Newcastle, to be shipped for London.  Each chaldron-waggon had a man in
charge of it, and was originally drawn by one horse.  The rate at which
the waggons 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 waggon-way passed, as before stated, close in front of the
cottage in which George Stephenson was born; and one of the earliest
sights which met his infant eyes was this wooden tramroad worked by
horses.

Mr. Blackett was the first colliery owner in the North who took an active
interest in the locomotive.  Having formed the acquaintance of Trevithick
in London, and inspected the performances of his engine, he determined to
repeat the Pen-y-darran experiment upon the Wylam waggon-way.  He
accordingly obtained from Trevithick, in October, 1804, a plan of his
engine, provided with "friction-wheels," and employed Mr. John Whinfield,
of Pipewellgate, Gateshead, to construct it at his foundry there.  The
engine was constructed under the superintendence of one John Steele, an
ingenious mechanic who had been in Wales, and worked under Trevithick in
fitting the engine at Pen-y-darran.  When the Gateshead locomotive was
finished, a temporary way was laid down in the works, on which it was run
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. Blackett took any further steps to carry
out his idea.  The final abandonment of Trevithick's locomotive at
Pen-y-darran perhaps contributed to deter him from proceeding further;
but he had the wooden tramway taken up in 1808, and a plate-way of
cast-iron laid down instead--a single line furnished with sidings to
enable the laden waggons 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
waggons.

Encouraged by the success of Mr. Blenkinsop's experiment at Leeds, Mr.
Blackett determined to follow his example; and in 1812 he ordered a
second engine, to work with a toothed driving-wheel upon a rack-rail.
This locomotive was constructed by Thomas Waters, of Gateshead, under the
superintendence of Jonathan Foster, Mr. Blackett's principal
engine-wright.  It was a combination of Trevithick's and Blenkinsop's
engines; but it was of a more awkward construction than either.  The
boiler was of cast-iron.  The engine was provided with a single cylinder
six inches in diameter, with a fly-wheel 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
whole was about six tons.

When finished, it was conveyed to Wylam on a waggon, 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 cumbrous machine was got upon the road.  At first it would
not move an inch.  Its maker, Tommy Waters, became impatient, and at
length enraged, and taking hold of the lever of the safety valve,
declared in his desperation, that "either _she_ or _he_ should go."  At
length the machinery was set in motion, on which, as Jonathan Foster
described to the author "she flew all to pieces, and it was the biggest
wonder i' the world that we were not all blewn up."  The incompetent and
useless engine was declared to be a failure; it was shortly after
dismounted and sold; and Mr. Blackett's praiseworthy efforts thus far
proved in vain.