130 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



record of iiiveiitiou bus been easily kept before the poi>alar eye. In this 

 old country, advanced in civilization and blessed ■witb wealth, scien- 

 tific societies and technical journals have kept the results of the labors 

 of master minds constantly before the intelligent public, and the suc- 

 cess of the lucky inventor has speedily brought him fame and fortune. 

 Outside the circle of military and naval heroes no names are dearer to 

 the British heart than Watt and the Stepheusons (George and Robert), 

 and now that a memorial window to poor Trevithick is to be placed in 

 Westminster this illustrious trio will become a quartette, much to the 

 gratification of the impartial student of the history of the early loco- 

 motive who does not permit the glamour of success to blind his vision 

 to true merit. 



Original stationary engines built under the j)ersonal supervision of 

 James Watt are in this collection, together with many of the models 

 which he and his foreman (Murdoch) made to illustrate the patents 

 which he obtained from the English Government. 



Original drawings made by Trevithick from which his high-pressure 

 stationary and locomotive engines were constructed as early as 1802 

 are framed and hanging on the walls, while several of his earliest boil- 

 ers are to be found upon the museum floor. 



A large portion of the machinery of the eteam-boat Cornet^ the first 

 English steam-boat commercially successful (built in 1812), which is as 

 much reverenced in Great Britain as is Fulton's Clermont in America, 

 is also carefully preserved. 



Upon presenting my credentials to Sir Phillip Ounliffe Owen, the 

 director of the South Kensington Museum, 1 was most courteously re- 

 ceived, and as he was fully occupied (February, 188C) in organizing the 

 plans for the Colonial Exhibition, I was referred to R. Thompson, esq., 

 the assistant director, who showed me every attention, and led me at 

 once to the "Rocket," which he said every American railroad man 

 wanted to see. I must confess to a feeling of awe when I placed my 

 hand on the pony of 1829, which has been gradually bred up in size and 

 strength to the powerful iron horse in a half century ; nor could I help 

 a feeling of regret that the time was not ripe for the development of 

 the Trevithick breed, which made fair speed and did fair service a quar- 

 ter of a century before Stephenson's successful racer. Next to the 

 "Rocket" stood the "Sansi^areil," the victor and the vanquished in 

 the great Rain hill contest of 1829, which stimulated faith in the steam 

 locomotive that had been creeping slowly along for twenty-five years 

 before, giving it vigor and strength to begin a new life of the greatest 

 usefulness. The scope of this report will not permit of an extended 

 list of the interesting and instructive relics, drawings, and models which 

 make this the Mecca of all historians of the stationary and locomotive 

 steam-engine. 



Hunter ian Museum at the Universitij of Glasgow — Tl(c Neuicomen 

 model. — Nearly every one interested in the story of steam will remember 



