Watt, Trevithick, Murdock, Bramah 105 



and William Murdock (1754-1839) is reported to have con- 

 structed a carriage drawn by steam about 1786. Never- 

 theless, Trevithick was the first to build a locomotive in 

 the modern sense, and to use it on the lines of a horse- 

 tramway in Wales. Finally, the introduction of two 

 cylinders, the steam escaping from one being utilized to 

 increase the work by acting on a piston in the second, may 

 be mentioned as being the prototype of the present com- 

 pound engines. This innovation is due to Jonathan Carter 

 Hornblower (1753-1815), who, among other things, invented 

 a machine for sweeping chimneys by a blast of air. Patent 

 difficulties stood in the way of putting the idea of the double 

 cylinder into practice, but it was re-invented and used in 

 machinery set up in Cornish mines in 1804 by Arthur Woolf . 



The name of Murdock recalls that he was the first to 

 make a practical use of coal gas as an illuminating agent. 

 His father was a Scotch millwright; he entered the employ- 

 ment of Boulton and Watt at the Soho Factory, Birming- 

 ham, in 1777, and a few years later was sent to Cornwall to 

 superintend the fitting of water engines in mines. He esta- 

 blished himself at Redruth, and is credited with several 

 inventions; there is a tradition that he created a sensa- 

 tion among the inhabitants by carrying, to and from the mine, 

 a lantern lit by gas supplied from a bag concealed under his 

 coat. After his return to Birmingham in 1799, he improved 

 his methods for making and storing the gas so much that 

 the exterior of the Soho Factory, and soon after the whole 

 of the interior, was lighted with the new illuminant. 



During the last few years of the eighteenth century, 

 another great step forward in the transmission of power 

 was made when James Bramah (1749-1814) laid the founda- 

 tion of a new branch of engineering by the invention of his 

 hydraulic press. Bramah was the son of a Yorkshire 

 farmer. Being incapacitated for agricultural labour on 

 account of an accident, he started business as a cabinet- 

 maker in London, and made a number of inventions, such 

 as the lock which is known by his name. He suggested 

 improvements in the steam engine, foresaw the possibility of 

 propelling ships by screws, and advocated the hydraulic 

 transmission of power. 



