POLE STEAM-ENGINE. Ill 



important and numerous as these are. From my own impres- 

 sions I may say that no one could be in his presence without 

 being struck with the originality and richness of his mind, and 

 without deriving benefit from his suggestive conversation. His 

 exploits and adventures in South America, in connection with 

 the Earl of Dundonald, then Lord Cochrane, will form an in- 

 teresting episode in his career ; and altogether, I am of opinion 

 that the Biography which you have undertaken will prove 

 highly interesting and valuable, and I wish you every success 

 in carrying it out. 



" Believe me, my dear Sir, 



" Yours very faithfully, 



" MICHAEL WILLIAMS. 



" E. WATKIN, Esq., 



" London and North- Western Railway, 



" Euston Station, London." 



Arthur Woolf shortly after that time (1811) erected 

 his double-cylinder engines in Cornwall. The late 

 Captain Samuel Grose, when giving the writer his 

 recollections of Trevithick, said : 



" When he returned from London to Cornwall, about 1810 or 

 1811, he employed me to look after the erection of the Wheal 

 Prosper high-pressure engine. Oats, Captain Trevithick's head 

 boiler-maker, was constructing the boilers; Woolf came into 

 the yard, and examined them. 'What do'st thee want here?' 

 asked Oats. * D n thee, I'll soon make boilers that shall 

 turn thee out of a job ! ' was Woolf s reply. He was a 

 roughish man. When his brother Henry mutinied at the Nore, 

 Woolf, who was then working an engine in Meux's brewery, 

 and had married the lady's maid, made interest with his em- 

 ployer to save Henry from, being hanged at the yard-arm, and 

 afterwards found employ for him in Cornwall. He was but a 

 clumsy mechanic. Woolf used to blow him up by saying, 

 ' D n thee, I wish I'd left thee to be hanged/ " 



The writer, who knew Oats, has heard him tell similar 

 stories of the rival engineers. 



