and goods by air. In 1824, Mr. Vallance of Brighton took out a patent for projecting passengers through a tube large enough to contain a train of carriages; the tube being previously exhausted of its atmospheric air. The same idea was afterwards taken up, in 1835, by Mr. Pinkus, an ingenious American. Scientific gentlemen, Dr. Lardner and Mr. Clegg amongst others, advocated the plan; and an association was formed to carry it into effect. Shares were created, and 18,000l. raised; and a model apparatus was exhibited in London. Mr. Vignolles took his friend Mr. Stephenson to see the model; and after carefully examining it, he observed emphatically," It won't do it is only the fixed engines and ropes over again, in another form." He did not think the principle would stand the test of practice, and he objected to the mode of applying the principle. Would it pay? He thought not. After all, it was only a modification of the stationary-engine plan; and every day's experience was proving that fixed engines could not compete with locomotives in point of efficiency and economy. He stood by the locomotive engine; and subsequent experience proved that he was right.

Messrs. Clegg and Samuda afterwards, in 1840, patented their plan of an atmospheric railway; and they publicly tested its working on an unfinished portion of the West London Railway. The results of the experiment were so satisfactory, that the directors of the Dublin and Kingstown line adopted it between Kingstown and Dalkey. The London and Croydon Company also adopted the atmospheric principle; and their line was opened in 1845. Great was the popularity of the atmospheric system; and still George Stephenson said, "It won't do it's only a gimcrack." Engineers of distinction said he was prejudiced, and that he looked upon the locomotive as a pet child of his own. "Wait a little," he replied, "and you will see that I am right."

Mr. Brunel approved of the atmospheric system; and had not his invention of the broad gauge proved him to be a man of genius? Mr. Cubitt, Mr. Vignolles, and Mr. James Walker, also men of great eminence, Dr. Lardner, and many others equally distinguished, approved of the atmospheric railway; and therefore it was becoming pretty clear that the locomotive system was about to be snuffed out. "Not so fast," said Mr. Stephenson. "Let us wait to see if it will pay." He never believed it would. It was ingenious, clever, scientific, and all that; but railways were commercial enterprises, not toys; and if the atmospheric railway could not work to a profit, it would not do. Considered in this light, he even went so far as to call it " a great humbug."

No one can say that the atmospheric railway had not a fair trial. The Government engineer, General Pasley, did for it what had never been done for the locomotive-he reported in its favour, whereas a former Government engineer, Mr. Telford, had inferentially reported against the use of locomotive power on railways. The House of Commons had reported in favour of the use of the steam-engine on common roads; and yet the railway locomotive had vitality enough in it to live through all. "Nothing will beat it," said George Stephenson, "for efficiency in all weathers, for economy in drawing loads of average weight, and for power and speed as occasion may require."

The atmospheric system was fairly and fully tried, and it was found wanting. It was admitted to be an exceedingly elegant mode of applying power; its devices were very skilful, and its mechanism was most ingenious. But it was costly, irregular in action, and, consequently, not to be depended upon. At best, it was but a modification of the stationary-engine system, which experience had proved to be so expensive that it was gradually being abandoned in favour of locomotive power. In fact, Mr. Stephenson's first verdict,

"It won't do," proved correct; and by the end of 1848, the whole of the atmospheric tubes were pulled up-including Mr. Brunel's immense tube on the South Devon Railway to make room for the locomotive engine.

About the year 1840, the fast school propounded another set of views respecting railways, which were entirely opposed to the practice and experience of Mr. Stephenson. They promulgated the idea that undulating railways of uneven, and even severe gradients, were as favourable for working as flat lines. Mr. Stephenson, throughout his professional career, was the unvarying advocate of level railways, in preference to more direct but uneven lines. His practice was to secure a road as nearly as possible on a level, following the course of the valleys when he could do so, and preferring to go round a difficulty rather than to tunnel through it or run over it, often making a considerable circuit in order to obtain good workable gradients. He studied so to lay out his lines that minerals and merchandise, as well as passengers, could be hauled along them in heavy loads at a comparatively small expenditure of locomotive power. He saw clearly that the longer flat line would eventually beat the shorter line of steep gradients, as respected paying qualities. It was perfectly clear to him that there must necessarily be a great waste of power in overcoming the irregularities of a heavy line. Thus, Mr. Stephenson had ascertained, by experiments made at Killingworth many years before, that the locomotive works at only half its power where it has a rising gradient of 1 in 260 to overcome; and when the gradient is so high as 1 in 100, not less than three-fourths of the propelling power of the engine is sacrificed in ascending the acclivity. Mr. Stephenson urged that, after all, the

* During the last half-year of the atmospheric experiment on this line, there was an expenditure of 24871. beyond the gross income of 26,782., or about 93 per cent.

power of the locomotive was but limited; and, although he had done more to increase its working qualities than any other engineer, it provoked him to find that every improvement which he made in it was neutralised by the steep gradients which the fast school of engineers were setting it to overcome. On one occasion, when Mr. Robert Stephenson stated before a Parliamentary Committee that every improvement which they were making in the locomotive was being rendered virtually nugatory by the difficult and almost impracticable gradients proposed upon so many of the new lines, his father, on his leaving the witness box, went up to him, and said, Robert, you never spoke truer words than those in all life."

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In the case of passenger lines, where the load is light, and time an object of importance, short lines of comparatively heavy gradients are practicable — thanks to the great power which Mr. Stephenson and his son have given to the engine; but when the traffic consists, in any considerable proportion, of minerals or merchandise, experience has amply proved the wisdom of Mr. Stephenson's preference for level lines, though of greater length.

But engineers were growing bolder, and ambitious to do greater things. Among others, Dr. Lardner, who had originally been somewhat sceptical about the powers of the locomotive, now promulgated the idea that a railway constructed with rising and falling gradients would be practically as easy to work as a line perfectly level. Mr. Badnell went beyond him, for he held that an undulating railway was even much better than a level one for purposes of working. For a time, this theory found favour, and the "undulating system was extensively adopted; but Mr. Stephenson never ceased to inveigh against it; and experience has amply proved that his judgment was correct.

* Treatise on Railway Improvements. By Mr. Richard Badnell, C. E.

The engineers of the fast school were also becoming increasingly sanguine about the speed of railway travelling. Dr. Lardner considered that an average rate of a hundred miles an hour might be attained by the locomotive upon a railway, though he afterwards found cause to alter his opinion. Mr. Stephenson, who only a few years before was considered insane for suggesting a speed of twelve miles an hour, was now thought behind the age when he recommended that the rate of railway travelling should not exceed forty miles an hour. He said, "I do not like either forty or fifty miles an hour upon any line; I think it is an unnecessary speed; and if there is danger upon a railway, it is high velocity that creates it." He had, indeed, constructed for the Great Western Railway an engine capable of running fifty miles an hour with a load, and eighty miles without one. But he never was in favour of a hurricane speed of this sort, believing it could only be accomplished at an unnecessary increase both of danger and expense. On this subject he afterwards observed, "The first time I went to Parliament to give evidence on the locomotive engine, when I stated that I would make that machine travel at twelve miles an hour, I was thought to be mad. You will be surprised when I tell you that, during my recent examination before a Committee of the House of Commons on the management of railways, I stated, in my opinion, that the speed of the locomotive should not exceed forty miles an hour. I have been censured by many for giving that opinion. It is true that I have said the engine might be made to travel 100 miles an hour; but I always put a qualification on this, namely, as to what speed would best suit the public. I assure you I have been buffeted about in Parliament not a little on this question of railway speed."† Although Mr. Stephenson occasionally

* Evidence before the Select Committee on Railways, 27th May, 1841. Speech at Belper Mechanics' Institute, 6th July, 1841.