CHAP. T. 



EARLY TRAMROADS. 



sive underground workings. In every direction are to be 

 seen swollen heaps of ashes and refuse, coals and slag, the 

 rubbish of old abandoned pits, and the pumping-engines 

 and machinery of new. As you pass through the country 

 at night, the earth looks as if it were bursting with fire 

 at many points ; the blaze of coke-ovens, iron-furnaces, 

 and coal-heaps reddening the sky to such a distance that 

 the horizon seems to be a glowing belt of fire. 



From the necessity which early existed for facilitating 

 the transport of coals from the pits to the shipping 

 places, it is easy to understand how the railway and 

 the locomotive should have first found their home in j 

 the north. At an early period the coal was carried to ( 

 the boats in panniers, or in sacks upon horses' backs. I 

 Then carts were used, to facilitate the progress of which/ 

 tramways of flag-stone were laid down. This led to the,' 

 enlargement of the vehicle, which became known as 4 

 waggon, and was mounted on four wheels instead of 

 two. A local writer about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century says, " Many thousand people are engaged in 

 this trade of coals ; many live by working of them in 

 the pits ; and many live by conveying them in waggons 

 and wains to the river Tyne." 1 



Still further to facilitate the haulage of the waggons, 

 pieces of planking were laid parallel upon wooden 

 sleepers, or imbedded in the ordinary track, by which 

 friction was still further diminished. It is said that 

 these wooden rails were first employed by one Mr. 

 Beaumont, 2 about the year 1630 ; and on a road thus 



1 * Chorograpkia ; or, a Survey 

 of Xewcastle-upon-Tyne.' Newcastle, 

 1649. 



2 " Some South gentlemen have, 

 upon great hopes of benefit, come into 

 this country to hazard their monies in 

 coal-pits. Mr. Beaumont, a gentle- 

 man of great Ingenuity and rare Parts, 

 adventured into our mines, with his 

 thirty thousand Pounds, who brought 

 with him many rare Engines, not 



known then in these Parts; as, the 

 Art to bore with iron Rods, to try the 

 Deepness and Thickness of the Coal ; 

 rare Engines to draw the water out of 

 the Pits; waggons, with one horse, 

 to carry the coals from the Pits to the 

 Stathes on the River, &c. Within a 

 few Years, he consumed all his Money, 

 and rode Home upon his liylit Horse" 

 Harleian MS. vol. iii. 269. 



