204 EXAMINED AS TO SPEED. CHAP. XI. 



from that time downwards. He had laid down or 

 superintended the railways at Burradon, Mount Moor, 

 Springwell, Bedlington, Hetton, and Darlington, besides 

 improving those at Killingworth, South Moor, and 

 Derwent Crook. He had constructed fifty-five steam- 

 engines, of which sixteen were locomotives. Some of 

 these had been sent to France. The engines constructed 

 by him for the working of the Killingworth Railroad, 

 eleven years before, had continued steadily at work ever 

 since, and fulfilled his most sanguine expectations. He 

 was prepared to prove the safety of working high- 

 pressure locomotives on a railroad, and the superiority 

 of this mode of transporting goods over all others. As 

 to speed, he said he had recommended eight miles an 

 hour with twenty tons, and four miles an hour with 

 forty tons ; but he was quite confident that much more 

 might be done. Indeed, he had 110 doubt they might 

 go at the rate of twelve miles. As to the charge that 

 locomotives on a railroad would so terrify the horses in 

 the neighbourhood, that to travel on horseback or to 

 plough the adjoining fields would be rendered highly 

 dangerous, the witness said that horses learnt to take no 

 notice of them, though there w ere horses that would shy 

 at a wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to be more 

 shied at by horses than a locomotive. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Killingworth, the cattle in the fields went 

 on grazing while the engines passed them, and the 

 farmers made no complaints. 



Mr. Alderson, who had carefully studied the subject, 

 and was well skilled in practical science, subjected the 

 witness to a protracted and severe cross-examination as 

 to the speed and power of the locomotive, the stroke of 

 the piston, the slipping of the wheels upon the rails, 

 and various other points of detail. Mr. Stephenson 

 insisted that no slipping took place, as attempted to be 

 extorted from him by the counsel. He said ; "It is 

 impossible for slipping to take place so long as the 



