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pressed most warmly the gratitude and esteem he felt towards his revered instructor. 66 Mr. Turner," he said, was always ready to assist me with books, with instruments, and with counsel, gratuitously and cheerfully. He gave me the most valuable assistance and instruction, and to my dying day I can never forget the obligations which I owe to my venerable friend."

Mr. Turner's conduct towards George Stephenson was all the more worthy of admiration, because at that time the object of his friendly instruction and counsel occupied but the position of a comparatively obscure workman, of no means or influence, who had become known to him only through his anxious desire for information on scientific subjects. He could little have dreamt that the object of his almost fatherly attention would achieve a reputation so distinguished as that to which he afterwards reached, and that he would revolutionise by his inventions and improvements the internal communications of the civilised world. The circumstance is encouraging to those who, like Mr. Turner, are still daily devoting themselves with equal disinterestedness to the education of the working-classes in our schools and mechanics' institutes. Though the opportunity of lending a helping hand to such men as George Stephenson may but rarely occur, yet the labours of such teachers are never without excellent results.

CHAPTER V.

GEORGE STEPHENSON'S FIRST LOCOMOTIVES.

TOWARDS the end of last century, numerous projects were set on foot for the purpose of facilitating the conveyance of coal from the pits to the loading staiths. Various mechanical methods were suggested with this object. Mr. Edgeworth even proposed to impel the waggons by means of sails, like ships before the wind. But the most favourite plan was the employment of the power of steam. Savery, Watt, Robison, and others in England, and Oliver Evans in America, threw out suggestions with this object. Cugnot, a French engineer, in 1763, constructed a remarkable machine which is still to be seen in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers at Paris. It has the look of a long brewer's cart, with a circular boiler hung on at one end. Yet, rude though it looks, it appears that, when set in motion by its projector, its force was such that it knocked down a wall which stood in its way; and, its power being considered too great for ordinary use, it was eventually put aside as a dangerous machine.

The first English model of a steam-carriage was made in 1784, by William Murdock, the friend and assistant of Watt. It was on the high-pressure principle, and ran on three wheels. The boiler was heated by a spirit-lamp; and the whole machine was of very diminutive dimensions, standing little more than a foot high. Yet, on one occasion, the little engine went so fast, that it outran the speed of its inventor. It seems that one night, after returning from his duties in the mine at Redruth, in Cornwall, 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. The walk was

rather narrow, and was bounded on either side by high hedges. It was a dark night, and Murdock set out alone to try his experiment. Having lit his lamp, the water shortly began to boil, and off started the engine with the inventor after it. He soon heard distant shouts of despair. It was too dark to perceive objects; but he shortly found, on following up the machine, that the cries for assistance proceeded from the worthy pastor of the parish, who, going towards the town on business, 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 propriâ persona. No further steps, however, were taken by Murdock to embody his idea of a locomotive carriage in a more practical form.

Richard Trevithick, a captain in a Cornish tin-mine, and a pupil of William Murdock,-influenced, no doubt, by the successful action of the model engine which the latter had constructed-determined to build a steam-carriage adapted for use on common roads. He took out a patent to secure the right of his invention in the year 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 steamcocks 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. This was the first successful high-pressure engine constructed on the principle of moving a piston by the elasticity of steam against the pressure only of the atmosphere.

The steam-carriage excited considerable interest in the remote district near to the Land's End where it had been

constructed. Being so far removed from the great movements and enterprise of the commercial world, Trevithick and Vivian determined upon exhibiting the machine in the metropolis. They accordingly set out with it to Plymouth, whence it was to be conveyed by sea to London. Coleridge relates, that whilst the vehicle was proceeding along the road towards the port, at the top of its speed, and had just carried away a portion of the rails of a gentleman's garden, Andrew Vivian descried ahead of them a closed toll-gate, and called out to Trevithick, who was behind to slacken speed. He immediately shut off the steam; but the momentum was so great, that the carriage proceeded some distance, coming dead up, however, just on the right side of the gate, which was opened like lightning by the tollkeeper. “What have us got to pay here?" asked Vivian. The poor toll-man, trembling in every limb, his teeth chattering in his head, essayed a reply-"Na-na-na-na;❞— "What have us got to pay, I say?"—" No-noth-nothing to pay! My de-dear Mr. Devil, do drive on as fast as you can! nothing to pay!" The carriage safely reached the metropolis, and was there 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 the machine; but Trevithick, in one of his odd freaks, shut up the place, and shortly after removed the engine.

In the year following the exhibition of the steam-carriage, 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 proceeded to construct his second or railway locomotive. It was completed in 1804, and tried on the Merthyr Tydvil Railway in South Wales. On the occasion of its first trial, the engine succeeded in dragging after it several waggons containing ten

tons of bar-iron, at the rate of about five miles an hour. The boiler of this engine was cylindrical, flat at the ends, and constructed of cast-iron. The furnace and flue were inside the boiler, within which the single cylinder, of eight inches in diameter, and four feet six inches stroke, was immersed upright. 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. 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 stoam-blast in the chimney; and, that Trevithick was not aware of the action of the blast in contributing to increase the draught, is clear from the fact that he employed bellows for this special purpose; and at a much later date (in 1815) he took out a patent which included a method of urging the fire by means of fanners.

Although the locomotive tried upon the Merthyr Tydvil Railway succeeded in drawing a considerable weight, and travelled at a fair speed, it nevertheless proved, like the first steam-carriage, a practical failure. It was never employed to do regular work, but was abandoned after a few experiments. It was then dismounted, and the engine was subsequently fixed and used to pump one of the largest pumps on the mine, for which work it was found well adapted.

Trevithick having abandoned the locomotive for more promising schemes, no further progress was made with it for some years. An imaginary difficulty seems to have tended, amongst other obstacles, to prevent its adoption and improvement. This was the supposition that, if any heavy weight were placed behind the engine, the " grip" or "bite" of the smooth wheels of the locomotive upon the equally smooth iron rail must necessarily be so slight that the wheels would slip round upon the rail, and, consequently, that the machine would not make any progress.

Following up the presumed necessity for a more effectual adhesion between the wheels and the rails than that pre