THE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE 



Rocket. The Perseverance was clearly outclassed by 

 all the other competing engines, as its maximum speed 

 was only five or six miles an hour. 



The most consistent performer, and the final prize- 

 winner, as everyone knows, was Stephenson's Rocket^ 

 the direct ancestor of all modem locomotives. The 

 boiler of this locomotive was horizontal, as in modem 

 locomotives, cylindrical, and had flat ends. It was 

 six feet in length and a little over three feet in diame- 

 ter. The upper half of the boiler was used as a reser- 

 voir for steam, the lower half being filled with water 

 and having copper pipes mnning through it. The 

 fire-box, two feet wide and three feet high, was placed 

 inmiediately behind the boiler. Just above this, and 

 on each side, were the cylinders, two in number, act- 

 ing obliquely downward on the two front wheels of 

 the engine, the piston-rod connecting with the driver 

 by a bar pinned to the outside of the wheel, as in mod- 

 em American locomotives. 



The engine with its load of water weighed a trifle 

 over four tons — seemingly little more than a toy-loco- 

 motive, as compared with the modem monsters more 

 than thirty times that weight. But for its size the little 

 Rocket was a marvelous performer, even as judged by 

 recent standards. On the first day of the contests over 

 the two miles of trial tracks, it covered twelve miles in 

 considerably less than an hour, shuttling back and 

 forth over the road. The next day, as none of the 

 other engines was in condition to exhibit, Stephenson 

 offered to satisfy the curiosity of the great crowd that 

 had gathered — a crowd that contained representatives 



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