22

72

STUDY OF THE STEAM-ENGINE.

CHAP. V.

engine proved of great value to him. His shrewd insight, together with 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 in the light of a curious and costly toy, of comparatively little real use. But he had at an early period detected the practical value of the machine, and formed an adequate conception of the might which as yet slumbered within it; and he was not slow in bending the whole faculties of his mind to the development of its extraordinary powers.

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. In Waller's Essay on Mines,' published in 1698, the writer highly eulogises Sir Humphrey's "new sailing-waggons, for the cheap carriage of his coal to the waterside, whereby one horse does the work of ten at all times; but when any wind is stirring (which is

74

SAILING WAGGONS.

CHAP. VI.

seldom wanting near the sea) one man and a small sail do the work of twenty.'

This method of impelling coal-waggons, however, could not have come into general use, as it was lost sight of for more than a century, when it was again proposed as a new method of transit by Richard Lovell Edgworth, with the addition of a portable railway,2 since revived 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.3 He made numerous experiments with his machines on Hare Hatch Common, but they were abandoned in consequence of the dangerous results which threatened to attend them. 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 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

1 The writer adds, "I believe he (Sir Humphrey Mackworth) is the first gentleman in this part of the world that hath set up sailing-engines on land, driven by the wind; not for any curiosity, or vain applause, but for real profit, whereby he could not fail of Bishop Melkin's blessing on his undertakings, in case he were in a capacity to bestow it."-An Essay on the Value of the Mines late of Sir Carberry Price.' By William Waller, Gent., Steward of the said Mines. London, 1698.

2

Specification of patent, No. 953.

3 Mr. Edgworth says in his' Memoirs,' that he devoted himself to improving his scheme for a period of not less than forty years, during which he made above a hundred working models in a great variety of forms; and he adds, that he gained far more in amusement than he lost by unsuccessful labour. "Indeed," he says, "the only mortification that affected me was my discovery, many years after I had taken out my patent, that the rudiments of my whole scheme were mentioned in an obscure memoir of the French Academy.”

CHAP. VI.

CUGNOT'S LOCOMOTIVE.

75

75

was not matured. Watt afterwards, in the specification of his patent of 1769, described an engine of the kind suggested by his friend Robison, in which the expansive force of steam was proposed as the motive power; but no steps were taken to reduce the invention to practice.

The first locomotive steam-carriage was built at Paris by a French engineer named Cugnot, a native of Lorraine. It is said to have been invented for the purpose of dragging cannon into the field independent of the help of horses.' The first model of this machine was made in 1763. Marshal Saxe was so much pleased with it that on his recommendation a full-sized engine was constructed at the Arsenal 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 onward with such force that it knocked down a wall which stood in its way. It was found, however, that the new vehicle, loaded with four persons, could not travel faster than two miles and a half in the hour. The size of the boiler not being sufficient to keep up the steam, it could only work for about fifteen minutes at a time; 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, which gave somewhat more satisfactory results.

Le Vieux-Neuf: Histoire An- | Modernes.' Par Edouard Fournier. cenne des Inventions et Découvertes Paris, 1859.

76

EVANS AND SYMINGTON.

CHAP. VI.

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 Métiers 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. Nevertheless 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 from time to time employing themselves in attempting to solve the problem of steam locomotion in places far remote from Paris. The idea had taken root, 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 develope the latent powers of the steam-carriage. He had