XXII INTRODUCTION 



eties combined their efforts to utilize the invention of 

 Hero, made eighteen hundred years before. As Hero 

 could turn a wheel rapidly by steam-power, these 

 men believed that by study and experiment steam 

 could be made to move a system of wheels and 

 machinery and accomplish work. Their success 

 was sufficient to encourage others to take up 

 the work in the eighteenth century, among them 

 James Watt, whose great genius and persistent work 

 for many years gave to the world the modern steam- 

 engine which is to-day doing the work of millions of 

 men. 



In the early part of the last century another great 

 genius, George Stephenson of England, added to the 

 work of Watt, and in thirty years of wonderful suc- 

 cess, the engine became a powerful locomotive, moving 

 trains of cars from city to city. People who wished 

 to travel could sit comfortably as in any house 

 and travel further in one hour than they had ever 

 been able to go in a long, tedious day. But there 

 was only one in ten thousand who wanted any help 

 from Stephenson. He was hindered in every way and 

 derided by the best people of England for years 

 after he had proved to himself that the power for 

 a locomotive was in his engine. 



