CHAP. XIV. CiEORGE BUYS SNIBSTON. 297 



of the land. He accordingly requested his father to 

 come over to Siiibston and look at the property, which 

 he did ; and after a careful inspection of the ground, he 

 arrived at the same conclusion as his son. 



The large manufacturing town of Leicester, about 

 fourteen miles distant, had up to that time been exclu- 

 sively supplied with coal brought by canal from Derby- 

 shire ; and Mr. Stephenson saw that the railway under 

 construction, from Swannington to Leicester, would 

 furnish him with a ready market for any coals which 

 he might find at Snibston. Having induced two of his 

 Liverpool friends to join him in the venture, the Snib- 

 ston estate was purchased in 1831 : and shortly after, 

 Stephenson removed his home from Liverpool to Alton 

 Grange, for the purpose of superintending the sinking 

 of the pit. He travelled thither by gig with his wife, 

 his favourite horse " Bobby " performing the journey by 

 easy stages. 



Sinking operations were immediately commenced, and 

 proceeded satisfactorily until the old enemy, water, burst 

 in upon the workmen, and threatened to drown them 

 out. But by means of efficient pumping-engines, and 

 the skilful casing of the shaft with segments of cast-iron 

 a process called "tubbing," 1 which Mr. Stephenson 

 was the first to adopt in the Midland Counties it was 

 eventually made water-tight, and the sinking proceeded. 

 When a depth of 166 feet had been reached, a still more 

 formidable difficulty presented itself one which had 

 baffled former sinkers in the neighbourhood, and deterred 

 them from further operations. This was a remarkable 

 bed of whinstone or greenstone, which had originally 

 been poured out as a sheet of burning lava over the 



1 Tubbing is now adopted in many | three-eighths of an inch thick. These 

 cases as a substitute for brick-walling, j pieces are fitted closely together, 

 The tubbing consists of short portions ! length under length, and form an im- 



of cast-iron cylinder fixed in segments, i permeable wall along the sides of the 

 Each weighs about 4 cwt., is about ! pit. 

 three or four feet long, and about | 



