278 HISTORY OF STEAM. 



at an elevated temperature, while by having the condensing vessel 

 (called a condenser) totally immersed in water, the condensation would 

 be much more perfectly performed ; this he succeeded in, and hence the 

 mighty power of steam has been to the present age what the invention 

 of printing was to a former one. It needs not a monument in West- 

 minster Abbey, however costly, nor an epitaph, however elegant, to tell 

 us that neither are wanting 



-" To perpetuate a name 



" Which must endure while the peaceful arts flourish.' 1 



Or that he 



" Enlarged the resources of the country, 



" Increased the power of man, 



" And rose to an eminent place 



" Among the most illustrious followers of science." 



STEAM AS A LOCOMOTIVE POWER. 



Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian, two Cornish engineers, the 

 inventors of the high pressure steam engine, were the first who applied 

 steam as a locomotive power ; and certainly long before even Watt, who 

 in 1784 first conceived the idea that two persons might probably be 

 carried by an engine having a cylinder seven inches in diameter, and a 

 foot stroke, the piston moving at the rate of one hundred and twenty 

 feet, or sixty strokes per minute. Watt never put into practice his 

 scheme, which perhaps would have failed, as low pressure engines were 

 to be employed, and even his great mind had its prejudices against high 

 pressure engines, from an idea of their danger. Trevithick and his 

 clever partner took out a patent in 1802 for their invention, and began 

 running their carriages upon common turnpike roads in 1804; but they 

 did not receive the encouragement they deserved, and their carriages 

 were solely confined to run on rail, or rather tram roads at that time, 

 exclusively used in the iron and coal districts. The form and arrange- 

 ment of their rail road carriage was somewhat different from those 

 employed on common roads, and although many improvements have 

 been made since the invention of Messrs. Trevithick and Vivian, yet the 

 principle is closely followed in those used now so extensively. 



