Cuar. IV., § 5.) 
dispensed with verifying his results under circum- 
stances so peculiar as those of arailway and a train of 
carriages. The necessity of doing so was manifested 
by the opposition, and even ridicule, with which the 
idea of friction being in this case independent of ve- 
locity was received, showing, as has been correctly 
observed, “ how small was the amount of science at 
that time. blended with engineering practice.’ The 
friction of even the indifferent railways of those days 
amounted to only 10 lb. per ton of load ; consequently 
an incline of only 1 foot in 100 would increase by 
one-half the resistance to the motion of a carriage on 
a railway. Hence Stephenson determined to con- 
MECHANICS.—GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
885 
in essentials very little has been added by 25 years’ 
experience on lines of the same gauge. But now came 
the struggle as to how this beautiful road was to be 
worked ;—with horses,—by means of fixed engines, 
—or by locomotives, It was not without a struggle 
that Stephenson gained his point. Even in 1829 
the prejudices of the engineering profession were still 
strong against the locomotive. And it is curious to 
read in the contemporary documents with what dis- 
trust they were regarded, The clumsy expedient of 
a series of stationary engines 14 miles apart, dragging 
the trains by ropes, would probably have been adopted 
to the disgrace of the age, but for the energy of Ste- 
struct railways having only the smallest inclinations, 
and to use fixed engines for higher slopes. With re- 
spect to common roads, he showed by powdering 
even a level railway with sand, that the most power- 
ful locomotives then in use speedily came to rest; 
phenson and his commercial friends. A competition The loco- 
of locomotives was at last agreed to, which took ™tive 
place on October 6, 1829, on a level piece of rail- compet 
way at Rainhill near Liverpool. Though the makers 129 at 
of engines had their energies hampered by various Rainhill. 
Seeing With low gradients and small resistances, together city could only be combined with lightness), several 
bility of with the proved invariability of friction with speed, excellent engines appeared ; but the “‘ Rocket” made 
high velo- there necessarily came into Stephenson’s mind the at Stephenson’s factory at Newcastle, not only gained 
citieson practicability of using high velocities. Ataveryearly the prize, but far exceeded in its performances the 
railways. heriod (1816) he spoke in one of his patents of con- limits assigned in the programme. It weighed 4} 
veying goods “ at nearly double the rate at which tons, and dragged a gross load of 17 tons, at the 
they were then usually carried along railways,” in rate of 15 miles an hour, but moved itself with a 
other words, at 10 or 12 miles an hour, and this he velocity of 35 miles an hour. The “ Novelty” of 
states “ with no hesitation, speaking from experi- Messrs Braithwaite and Ericson was also very suc- 
ments already made,” referring, no doubt, to those cessful. The prize was awarded to Stephenson, and 
on friction made along with Wood about this time. this success was mainly due to the admirable inven- 
Yet after nine years of farther experience, his old tion of the multi-tubular boiler, imagined by Mr 
coadjutor Wood deserted him on this grand point, Booth, and carried out by Stephenson. To distribute 
and in the first edition of his book on Railways (1825, the water of the boiler in tubes, and allow the heat of 
p- 290) he disclaims the “ ridiculous expectation” the furnace to act around them, was an idea as old 
that locomotives will be seen to travel at ‘12,16, as the time of Watt, but it did not succeed. To carry The multi- 
18, or 20 miles an hour,” and scorns “the promulga- the hot air of the furnace through tubes surrounded tubular 
tion of such nonsense.” Even in 1829 he reportedto by water, was the more successful arrangement of re 
Messrs Walker and Rastrick, who were referees on Booth and Stephenson, to the right working of which 
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, “that no lo- the draught occasioned by the steam-blast in the 
comotive engine should travel more than 8 miles an chimney was essential. The idea, it is said, had oc- 
hour.” If at this comparatively late period perhaps curred both in France and America, but it certainly 
the most practised railway engineer in England held remained practically inefficient, perhaps on account 
these opinions, and that with the full knowledge of his of the want of draught. 
friend Stephenson’s matured convictions (which it is This invention, by increasing almost without limit _ (495.) 
difficult to believe were not pointed at in this para- the evaporating power of the boiler, which is the pel 
graph), we may imagine the opposition which the key to the efficiency of a locomotive, completed for cess, 
plans of the latter were likely to meet with from in- the time the skilful improvements on locomotives 
terested or even indifferent persons. and railways, which, as has been seen, we owe mainly 
(404.) At last a company was formed, and funds pro- to Stephenson. The comparatively trifling ameliora- 
ote. vided to construct the Liverpool and Manchester tions which have occurred in either, and the stereo- 
Liverpool Railway. Itis unnecessary to state how successfully typed character of even the minor arrangements, such 
Railway. Stephenson conquered the engineering difficulties of as those of stations and of passenger carriages, show 
this, with the previous objection, overruled in his 
mind the possibility of advantage in that case. 
the line, and refuted the predicted impossibility of 
needless conditions (particularly as regards the weight 
of the engines, under the mistaken notion, that velo- 
how much the sagacity of the engineer had antici- 
crossing the Chat Moss. In every respect this rail- pated the accommodation of the public. cid 
way became a model for those which succeeded, and I here close my account of Mr Stephenson and of pon he ag 
1 Ido not overlook of course the modifications introduced in the broad-gauge system of the Great Western Railway. 
Mr 
Brunel indeed tried to show how far he could deviate without positive injury from Stephenson’s plans; in some points, perhans, 
he did so with advantage, yet, on the whole, the results do not shake Stephenson’s position as the commanding engineer of his time. 
