62 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and using the left on the lever of the throttle valve, that lever on 

 which all force and safety depends, and you will be answered by a 

 blank stare of wonder at such a question, or there will be something 

 said about the wagon-driver sitting on the right of the seat, about the 

 use of the strong right hand ready for the application of brakes, for 

 whistling, for the reversing lever, for bell-ringing, etc. All of which 

 ih most wide of the mark. 



In the beginning of engine building, there was no " cab " and even 

 in England to-day there is none ; and also no seat for the engineer 

 to sit upon. He simply looks out in the face of the wind and storm 

 along the right hand side of his boiler, at the track in front of him. 

 The very earliest machines, The Newton, 1680; The Cugnot, 1769 ; The 

 Murdoch, 1784; The Symington, 1786 ; were directed by the engineer or 

 driver in front of the boiler, and by both hands. But as early as 1790, 

 with The Bead, the engineer had learned that he must stand behind his 

 boiler, although the older method of operating from the front of the 

 boiler reappeared as late as 1803, The Trevicks, in 1821; The Griffith, 

 and even in 1821, The- James, etc. In some cases, as in The Killing- 

 worth, 1825, the location of the engineer is doubtful. It is inter- 

 esting and instructive to watch the struggle from 1790 onward be- 

 tween the conflicting unconscious tendencies and demands of the right- 

 handed and right-eyed engineers (an occasional left-eyed engineer may 

 have obscured and lengthened the progress) and the engine-makers who 

 were still more oblivious of right-eyedness. In The Read, of 1790, 

 both hands were used on the throttle and there is no intimation as to 

 right-eyedness or the side of the engine whence the outlook was made. 

 In 1801 in the First Trevicks engine, and in 1803 the Second Trevicks, 

 the throttle lever was held in the right hand, and the engineer looked 

 along the left side of the boiler. In the 1808 Trevicks this was also 

 the rule. In the 1805 Trevicks both hands seem to have been used, and 

 so if, as appears from the picture, the right eye looking past the right 

 side of the boiler was the custom. The dominant influence of the 

 right hand is steadily shown in The Blankincop, 1812 ; Stevens' America, 

 1829; Puffing Billy, 1813; Blucher, 1814; Locomotice, 1825; Seguin, 

 1827; Boyal George, 1827; Stephenson's Twin Sisters, 1827; Hack- 

 worch's Globe, 1830; Bury, 1830. In all these, probably or surely, 

 the driver stood upon the left side of the boiler and watched the track 

 in front from his side. He naturally wanted to use the right hand 

 as the throttle-hand, and had not yet discovered the ocular problem. 

 From 1829, with The Rocket, The Costello, 1831 ; The Lafayette, 1837 ; 

 The Hector, 1839; Hinkley's Lion; Gooch's Great Western, and all sub- 

 sequent machines, the necessity of looking with the right eye along 

 the right hand side of the boiler at the track and signals, became 

 dominant, and dictated the placing and direction of the throttle-valre 



