498 INVENTION OF THE STEAM- BLAST. APPENDIX. 



Trevi thick the merit of inventing the steam-blast up the 

 chimney, which may be termed the life-blood of the locomotive- 

 engine. Trevithick has laurels enough, and has no need to 

 borrow a single leaf from the crown of another. The steam- 

 blast was invented by George Stephenson, and used by him 

 certainly prior to 1815 ; while in June, 1815, Trevithick so 

 far from using the waste steam to increase the draught took 

 out a patent in which, among other improvements, he included 

 a method of urging his fire by fanners, similar to a winnowing 

 machine." The writer of the article on the same subject of 

 ' Railways ' in the eighth edition of the ' Encyclopedia Britannica ' 

 is Mr. D. K. Clark a gentleman who has made the history of 

 the locomotive the subject of his special study, and probably 

 knows more of it than any man living, and he is equally 

 explicit on the point. He says : " The blast-pipe thus designed 

 and applied was undoubtedly the invention of George Stephen- 

 son ; in conjunction with the multitubular flue it altered and 

 vastly improved the range and capacity of the locomotive ; and, 

 in further conjunction with the direct connection of the steam- 

 cylinder to one axle and pair of wheels, it was tantamount to 

 a new and original machine." 



Robert Stephenson, writing to the author on the controversy 

 which arose on this subject in 1857, said : " Nothing can be 

 so clear as that George Stephenson was the real inventor of 

 the steam-blast, and nothing confounds me more than to see 

 that a question is raised upon it." As claims have, however, 

 been seriously set up on behalf of William Hedley, Jonathan 

 Hack worth, and Golds worthy Gurney, as the authors of this 

 invention, a brief examination of the grounds on which their 

 respective claims are founded is here rendered necessary. 



We will take the. Wylam claim first. From what has been 

 said in the text, it will readily be understood that the claim 

 attempted to be set up in behalf of William Hedley as the in- 

 ventor of the locomotive engine is mere moonshine. Trevithick 

 and Blenkinsop's engines preceded those at Wylam colliery by 

 many years ; and even the Wylam engines were not made 

 after the designs of Hedley, but after those of Trevithick, and 

 afterwards of Jonathan Foster, the engineer of the colliery. 

 But it is further alleged that William Hedley invented the 

 blast-pipe. This is effectually contradicted by the fact that 

 the Wylam engine had no blast-pipe. " I remember the Wylam 

 engine," Robert Stephenson wrote to us in 1857, " and I am 



