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he should like to have seven, but he would be content to go six. I will show he cannot go six; and probably, for any practical purposes, I may be able to show that I can keep up with him by the canal.. .. Locomotive engines are liable to be operated upon by the weather. You are told they are affected by rain, and an attempt has been made to cover them; but the wind will affect them; and any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking of the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam till the boiler is ready to burst."* How amusing it now is to read these extraordinary views as to the formation of a railway over Chat Moss, and the impossibility of starting a locomotive engine in the face of a gale of wind! The men who then laughed at Stephenson's "mad projects," had but to live a few years longer to find that the laugh was all on the other side.

Evidence was called to show that the house property passed by the proposed railway would be greatly deteriorated

in some places almost destroyed; that the locomotive engines would be terrible nuisances, in consequence of the fire and smoke vomited forth by them; and that the value of land in the neighbourhood of Manchester alone would be deteriorated by no less than 20,000l.!† But the opposition mainly relied upon the evidence of the leading engineers— not, like Mr. Stephenson, self-taught men, but regular professionals. Mr. Francis Giles, C. E., was their great card. He had been twenty-two years an engineer, and could speak with some authority. His testimony was mainly directed to the utter impossibility of forming a railway over Chat Moss "No engineer in his senses," said he, "would go through Chat Moss if he wanted to make a railroad from Liverpool

*Report and Evidence, p. 354.

† Evidence, p. 379.

to Manchester."* Mr. Giles thus described this bottomless pit: "The surface of the Moss, is a sort of long, coarse, sedgy grass, tough enough to enable you to walk upon it, about half-leg deep; underneath that, on putting an iron into the soil (a boring-rod), it will, with its own weight, sink down. In the centre, where this railroad is to cross, it is all pulp from the top to the depth of 34 feet; at 34 feet there is a vein of 4 or 6 inches of clay; below that there are 2 or 3 feet of quicksand; and the bottom of that is hard clay, which keeps all the water in. The boring-rod will get down to the first vein of clay by its own weight; a slight pressure of the hand will carry it to the next vein of clay; a very little pressure indeed will get it to the additional depth of 2 or 3 feet, beyond which you must use more pressure to get it down to the foundation. If this sort of material were to be carried, it would greatly increase the expense; and it would be necessary to lay it aside, for the purpose of draining and drying, before any man in his senses would convey it along the railroad for the purpose I have been speaking of.

. . . In my judgment a railroad certainly cannot be safely made over Chat Moss without going to the bottom of the Moss. The soil ought all to be taken out, undoubtedly; in doing which, it will not be practicable to approach each end of the cutting, as you make it, with the carriages. No carriages would stand upon the Moss short of the bottom. My estimate for the whole cutting and embankment over Chat Moss is 270,0007. nearly, at those quantities and those prices which are decidedly correct. It will be necessary to take this Moss completely out at the bottom, in order to make a solid road." †

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Mr. Henry Robinson Palmer, C. E., gave his evidence to prove that resistance to a moving body going under four and

Evidence, p. 386.

† Ibid. pp. 383-386.

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

When these distinguished engineers had given their evidence, Mr. Alderson summed up in a speech which extended over two days. He declared Mr. Stephenson's plan to be "the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head of man to conceive. My learned friends," said he, "almost endeavoured to stop my examination; they wished me to put in the plan, but I had rather have the exhibition of Mr. Stephenson in that box. I say he never had a plan- I believe he never had one--I do not believe he is capable of making His is a mind perpetually fluctuating between opposite difficulties: he neither knows whether he is to make bridges over roads or rivers, of one size or of another; or to make embankments, or cuttings, or inclined planes, or in what way the thing is to be carried into effect. Whenever a difficulty is pressed, as in the case of a tunnel, he gets out of it at one end, and when you try to catch him at that, he gets out at the other." Mr. Alderson proceeded to declaim against the gross ignorance of this so-called engineer, who proposed to make "impossible ditches by the side of an impossible rail

one.

Evidence, p. 436.

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

*Report and Evidence, p. 478.

Mr.

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

The case, however, was not yet concluded. Mr. Stephenson (another of the counsel on the same side) declined addressing the Committee, after the speech of Mr. Alderson, "in which he had so clearly, so ably, and so fully shown the utter impracticability of the scheme;" but the case of the other numerous petitioners against the bill still remained to be gone into. Witnesses were called to prove the residential injury which would be caused by the "intolerable nuisance' of the smoke and fire from the locomotives; and others to prove that the price of coals and iron would "infallibly" be greatly raised throughout the country. This was part of the case of the Duke of Bridgewater's trustees, whose witnesses "proved" many very extraordinary things. The Leeds and Liverpool Coal Company were so fortunate as to pick up a witness from Hetton, who was ready to furnish some damaging evidence as to the use of Mr. Stephenson's locomotives on that railway. This was Mr. Thomas Wood, one of the Hetton company's clerks, whose evidence was to the effect that the locomotives, having been found ineffective, were about to be discontinued in favour of fixed engines. The locomotives, he said, were greatly affected by the weather, and the waggons had then to be drawn on by horses. The engines were also frequently getting off the road, and were liable to accident. The evidence of this witness, incompetent though he was to give an opinion on the subject, and exaggerated as his statements were afterwards proved to be,

*Report and Evidence, p. 485.

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