110 POLE STEAM-ENGIXF, 



county, and perhaps a certain degree of laxity on his own part 

 in the legal establishment and prosecution of his claims, deprived 

 him of much of the pecuniary advantage to which his labours 

 and inventions justly entitled him ; and I have often expressed 

 my opinion that he was at the same time the greatest and 

 the worst-used man in the county. 



"Amongst the minor improvements introduced by him, it 

 occurs to me to notice that he was the first to apply an outer 

 casing to the cylinder, and by this means prevent, still further 

 than Watt had succeeded in doing, the loss of heat by radiation. 



" As connected with one of the most interesting of my recol- 

 lections of Mr. Trevithick, I must mention that I was present 

 by invitation at the first trial of his locomotive engine, intended 

 to run upon common roads, and of course equally applicable to 

 train and railways. This was, I think, about the year 1803, 

 and the locomotive then exhibited was the very first worked by 

 steam-power ever constructed. 



" The great merit of establishing the practicability of so im- 

 portant an application of steam, and the superiority of the high- 

 pressure engine for this purpose, will perhaps more than any 

 other circumstance serve to do honour through all times to the 

 name of Trevithick. The experiment which was made on the 

 public road close by Camborne was perfectly successful; and 

 although many improvements in the details of such description 

 of engines have been since effected, the leading principles of 

 construction and arrangements are continued, I believe, with 

 little alteration, in the magnificent railroad-engines of the pre- 

 sent day. Of his stamping engine for breaking down the black 

 rock in the Thames, his river-clearing or dredging machine, and 

 his extensive draining operations in Holland, I can only speak 

 in general terms, that they were eminently successful, and dis- 

 played, it was considered, the highest constructive and engineer- 

 ing skill. As a man of enlarged views and great inventive 

 genius, abounding in practical ideas of the greatest utility, and 

 communicating them freely to others, he could not fail of im- 

 parting a valuable impulse to the age in which he lived ; and it 

 would be scarcely doing him justice to limit his claims as a 

 public benefactor to the inventions now clearly traceable to him, 



