332 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Novembeh, 



the Assembly-i'ooms, Newcastle, when a silver tankard was put 

 into liis hands, togetlier with one thousand friiineas. 



" I shall ever reflect with pride and fjratitude," said he, " that 

 mv lahdurs have been lionoured with tlie approbation of su<'h a 

 distinpuislied meeting; and you may rest assured tliat my time, 

 and any talent I may possess, shall hereafter be em]doyed in sueh 

 « manner as not to give you, gentlemen, any cause to regret the 

 countenance ami support yini liave so generously afforded me. " 



This ]dedge, as is well known, Stephenson fulfilleil. 



Of the feelings of the committee, the best earnest is the follow- 

 ing words, given in their Rei)ort : — " \Vhen the friends of Mr. 

 Steplienson remember tlie humble and laborious station in which 

 he has been born and lived ; when they consider the scanty means 

 and opportunity which he lias had for pursuing the researches of 

 science ; and look to the improvements and discoveries wliieh, not- 

 withstanding so many disadvantages, he has been enabled to make, 

 by the judicious and unremitting exercise of the energy and acute- 

 ness of his natural understanding, they cannot persuade themselves 

 that they have said anything more than every liberal and feeling 

 mind will most willingly admit." 



Thirty years afterwards, a third piece of plate was given to the 

 " Inventor of the Safety Lamp," which this time was Dr. Clanny,^^ 

 who has been already named. 



Although so much noise was made at the time, and each said 

 that the other had stolen the thought from him, it is not hard, now 

 that angry feelings have softened down, to see the truth. It was 

 held by them that one must be the first finder : but there is no 

 need to believe anything of the kind, lor two or three might as 

 readily busy themselves with a safety lamp as one. VVhy, indeed, 

 was Sir Humphrey Davy called in ? Why did Stephenson give his 

 mind to it but from the want of such a thing, the fearful loss of 

 life which had followed from taking candles into fire-damp, and 

 the little good of the steel mill ? Many, therefore, set their wits 

 to work to find out a safety lamp. M'e have named five, and it was 

 in no way odd that two should hit upon the same thing. 



Throughout the field of learning we have found this happen. 

 Was there not the very same thing with Newton and Leibnitz 

 about flu.xions.? Did not Watt, Cavendish, and Lavoisier each take 

 a share in finding out the composition of water.'' At the same 

 time, Fulton and Bell were at work on the steamboat, — Trevithick 

 and Oliver E\ans on the steam-wagon, — and in our days, there 

 has been a struggle between Le Verrier and Adams, by which the 

 learned world has been torn, as to who found out Neptune. There 

 are several put forward as the first lighters of gas. Young and 

 Ch.impollion fight over the Rosetta stone ; we have not yet awarded 

 tlie meed to the man who first set railways going : James and Gray 

 (though dead) are still in the field, with many more who strive to 

 wrench from them the name of " Father of Railways." This will ever 

 be, for where tliere is a want, the ready wit of many men will be ever 

 ready to find out the right way. Is there anything new brought 

 forward, straight every one rushes into that path. There is not 

 much mistake in saying, that there were a thousand clever in- 

 ventors who found out atmospheric railways. The heads of railways 

 unhappily know how many makers there are of new buffers, breaks, 

 links, wheels, rails, and chairs — each good, and each the best. The 

 Gutta Percha Company have before them a list of two hundred 

 hints for making everything of gutta percha, from ear-trumpets 

 to horse-shoes. It is good that it should be so, rather than that 

 we should lag behind, waiting for tlie slow work of a few minds, 

 when we may bring to bear the fruitfulness of many. 



Stephenson seems to have been the first to try a lamp with holes 

 so small that explosion of fire-damp did not pass downwards ; but 

 Davy had nothing to do with him, and was not far behind, and he 

 made a much better lamp by taking wire gauze instead of pipes or 

 hides. 



The following, from the 9th page of the Report of the Com- 

 mittee, shows what each did : — 



1815. MR. STEl'UliNSON. SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. 



Aug. to Oct. Busy with those experi- Tlie suljject occupied his 

 nients upon blowers in Kil- attention, as an ol)ject of 

 lingworth Colliery, nhich led speculatiuu. 

 to the cunstru^tioD of his 

 lamps. 

 Beginning of Ordered his first lamp, Commenced his eiperi- 

 Oct. which was tried in the col- ments on firedamp, and be- 



lieiy on the 21st of that fore the IBtli of that month 

 luuutb. had discovered ceitain facts 



[the facts in question] re- 

 specting that inflammable 



22 Gotesbead Oliservcr, August lit, ISiS. 



Beginning of mr. Stephenson. sie homphrey davy. 



Oct. substance, and states, in a 



letter dated Oct. 19, that if a 

 lamp or lantliorn be made air- 

 tight on the sides, and fur- 

 nished with apertures to ad- 

 mit the air, it will not com- 

 tiiunicate flame to the out- 

 ward atmosphere. 

 End of Oct. Ordered his second lamp. In a letter, dated Oct. 30, 



describes to Mr. Hodgson a 



lamp, in which he adopted 



tubes and canals above and 



below. 



Nov. 4. Tried his second lamp in Mr. Butler noticed Sir 



Killingworth Colliery. Humphrey Davy's discoveries 



in an oration. 



Not. 9. Read to the Royal Society 



a paper giving a detailed ac- 

 count of bis experiments, and 

 the various applications he 

 had made of his discoveries, 

 but nithout mentioning dates. 

 NoT.19or20. Ordered his third lamp. 

 Nov. 30. Tried his third lamp in the 



mine. 

 Dec. 5, Exhibited his third lamp 



to the Literary and Philoso- 

 phical Society in Newcastle. 

 Dec. 31. Before this period " had 



presented to the miner the 

 wire gauze lamp. "^3 



What made the struggle was, that the meeting of coalowners 

 had called in Sir Humphrev Davy, and while he was busy, George 

 Stephenson, a common workman, of his own free will, stepped in 

 between the meeting and Davy. The coalowners did not deal 

 fairly with Stephenson, for after calling a lueeting to thank Sir 

 Humphrey Davy for "the Invention of his Safety Lamp," and 

 throwing off Stephenson, on the ground that the meeting was to 

 thank Davy only for what/ie had done, free from what any one else 

 had done, they made it to thank Davy " for his invention of the 

 Safety Lamp" — which was another thing altogether. Having done 

 this, they gave, as a sop, the hundred guineas to Stejihenson ; but 

 he and his friends would not stand still under this slight. They 

 could have nothing to say as to what might be given to Davy, but 

 they had when Stephenson vias set aside. 



VI. ENGINEEBING. 



In 1813, when he was thirty-three, Stephenson had been set, as 

 we have seen, to overlook the engines at Killingworth, in which 

 higher berth he brought out his locomotive engine and his safety 

 lamp ; so that Killingworth had its own works, as well as U'ylam 

 or any other colliery. His son was being brought up at Newcastle, 

 and afterwards he sent him to Edinburgh, that he might be at its 

 University — then at its height, and one of the greatest schools of 

 its day. 



In 1814 he brought out his first locomotive, and in 1815 he was 

 busy with the safety lamp, and the second locomotive. He Lad 

 likewise some work in laying down slopes and railways. 



He had not been able, as we have seen, to take out a patent 

 when he made his first engine, but he soon after became known to 

 Mr. R. Dodd, and with him took out a patent on the 'istli February, 

 1815, for a method of communicating power to the engine without 

 the cog-wheels used in the first engine. '•"• 



The plan proposed was the application of a pin upon one of the 

 spokes of the engine-wheels ; the connecting-rod fixed to the 

 cross-beam of the engine, and moving with the piston, being 

 attached at the lower end to the spoke of the v\heels, and working 

 in a ball-and-socket joint. Tlius the reciprocating motion of the 

 piston was converted, by the pin acting as a crank, into a rotatory 

 motion. To keep the cranks at riglit angles v\ith each other, 

 Stephenson used an endless chain of one broad and two narrow 

 links, which lay upon a toothed wheel fixed to each axle. The 

 teeth stood out about an inch from the wheel, and went in between 

 the two narrow links, leaving a broad link between every two cogs, 

 and resting on the rim of the wheel. Thus the chain moved round 

 with the wheel, and one wlieel could not be moved round without 

 the other. This chain he afterwards gave up. 



S3 Morning Chronicle, Dec. 18, 1815.— Newcastle ChroLiclf, Dec. 23, 1815. 

 8 « I.ardiier on the Steum-Engine ; Ritchie on Builways, p. 222 ; Stuari't Aneciloles of 

 the Steaui £u(iine. 



