B THE LOCOMOTIVE. CHAP. T. 



In 1789, Mr. William Jessop constructed a railway at 

 Loughborough, in Leicestershire, and there introduced 

 the cast-iron edge-rail, with flanches cast upon the tire 

 of the waggon-wheels to keep them on the track, instead 

 of having the margin or flanch cast upon the rail itself ; 

 and this plan was shortly after adopted in other places. 

 In 1800, Mr. Benjamin Outram, of Little Eaton, in 

 Derbyshire (father of the distinguished General Outram), 

 used stone props instead of timber for supporting the 

 ends or joinings of the rails. Thus the use of railroads, 

 in various forms, gradually extended, until they became 

 generally adopted in the mining districts. 



Such was the growth of the railway, which, it will 

 be observed, originated in necessity, and was modi- 

 fied according to experience ; progress in this, as in 

 all departments of mechanics, having been effected by 

 the exertions of many men, one generation entering 

 upon the labours of that which preceded it, and carry- 

 ing them onward to farther stages of improvement. 

 We shall afterwards find that the invention of the 

 locomotive was made by like successive steps. It was 

 lot the invention of one man, but of a succession of 

 nen, each working at the proper hour, and according to 

 he needs of that hour ; one inventor interpreting only 

 he first word of the problem which his successors were 

 to solve after long and laborious efforts and experiments. 

 " The locomotive is not the invention of one man," said 

 Eobert Stephenson at Newcastle, " but of a nation of 

 mechanical engineers." The same circumstances which 

 led to the rapid extension of railways in the coal districts 

 of the north, tended to direct the attention of the mining 

 engineers to the early development of the powers of the 

 steam-engine as a useful instrument of motive power. 

 The necessity which existed for a more effective method 

 of hauling the coals from the pits to the shipping places, 

 was constantly present to many minds ; and the daily 

 pursuits of a large class of mechanics occupied in the 

 management of steam power, by which the coal was 



