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NATURE 



\OcL 24, 1872 



should have died penniless was pretty much, we think, 

 . nis own blame, attributable to his own reckless impru- 

 dence, and his decided and blameworthy weakness of 

 character in being unable to manage the affairs of his 

 own household. It was no merit in him, and no sign of 

 unselfishness, but simply a defect in his character, as it is 

 in that of all men who act as he did. 



That Trevithick is entitled to be called the " father of 

 the locomotive " there seems to us to be no doubt, from 

 the tediously full statements in the biography by his son ; 

 not only so, but he conceived and sketched, and even 

 modelled, many of the improvements, perhaps in a crude 

 form, that have been most recently introduced. In 1796 

 he made a model of a locomotive ; in 1801 he ran one on 

 a rough common road in Cornwall ; and in 1803 he 

 astonished the Londoners early one morning by driving 

 the then uncouth creature through ten miles of the streets 

 of the metropolis. Trevcthick, however, reaped little 

 benefit or credit from this wonder-working invention, for 

 which the world at the time was not ripe. Of the numerous 

 other applications of steam which Trevethick either thought 

 of or embodied, we may mention the principle of the screw- 

 propeller, the steam dredging-machine, the application of 

 the steam-engine to an infinite variety of purposes in 

 mining and tunnelling, the invention of something very 

 like the borers used in the Mont Cenis tunnel, and the 

 application of steam to nearly every important agricultural 

 and manufacturing process ; indeed he actually constructed 

 several thrashing-machines, which many, no doubt, con- 

 sider quite a recent invention. 



It is by reading a biography like this, which takes 

 us back to the middle of last century, and brings us 

 down to nearly the middle of the present, that we 

 are able in some small degree to estimate the benefit 

 which science has conferred upon man in discover- 

 ing the great but simple principle whicii underlies every 

 application of steam as a moving power. Not only 

 has it in almost every direction brought manufacturing 

 processes to the highest degree of perfection, increased 

 almost infinitely thi power of production, but it has been 

 the means of lessening, directly or indirectly, the severity 

 and the amount of manual toil, thus making the mechanic's 

 life sweeter and easier, and leaving him leisure for self- 

 culture ; and in general advancing to a distinctly appreciable 

 amount the civilisation of the race. Especially, as we 

 have already said, has the whole face of the earth been 

 changed by the application of steim to locomotion ; and 

 even in this one direction it would be difficult to estimate 

 the benefits conferred upon the race by science. The trains 

 and the steamer have done much to lessen and stamp ou 

 old national and district prejudices and animosities, by 

 making the men of various nations more thoroughly and 

 generally known to each other, have enabled populations 

 to circulate more freely, and men to bring their talent or 

 their craft to the market where it was most in demand, have 

 made emigration possible to almost all who care for it, and 

 thus peopled and civilised the waste and barbarous lands 

 of the earth, brought the products of the most remote 

 quarters within easy reach, brightened the existence of 

 many thousands by putting it in their power to see some 

 of the many beauties of this lovely earth — made the world, 

 in short, more manageable, drawn its inhabitants closer 

 together, increased decidedly the sum of human happi- 



ness, and helped to bring on the time " when man to man 

 the warld o'er shall brithers be, and a' that." 



As to the manner in which Mr. F. Trevithick has 

 written his father's life, we are sorry we cannot speak 

 favourably ; either he does not know how to write bio- 

 graphy, or he has been either so lazy or so short of time 

 as to give to the public the crude and tedious material out 

 of which a biography might have been constructed, instead 

 of a well-digested and clearly-arranged narrative. The 

 two volumes number upwards of 750 pages, and we believe 

 not 50 of them are Mr. Trevithick's own. It is one 

 of the most confused, most ill-put-together books we 

 were ever compelled to read, and were it not for the 

 intrinsic interest of the subject, it would certainly be the 

 most tedious. The illustrations, type, and paper are ex- 

 cellent, and the book will no doubt be found useful by 

 engineers 



The next book on the list, Sir Arthur Helps's " Life of 

 Mr. Brassey," is, it is needless to say, as a work of lite- 

 rary art, infinitely superior to the former, though the 

 subject is one of not nearly so great intrinsic interest and 

 importance. Had the work of writing the life of Mr. 

 Brassey fallen into any other hands, it might have 

 been a very dull and uninstriictive affair indeed; but 

 it is impossible for the author of " Friends in Coun- 

 cil " and " Thoughts upon Government " to write un- 

 interestingly or inartistically about anything. This life 

 of the great railway contractor has all the quiet and 

 soothing charms of Sir Arthur Helps's well-known style; 

 and dry as the subject looks at first sight, it is full of interest 

 and novelty, of details that few are acquainted with, and 

 which are yet well worth knowing. The book is worth 

 publishing, were it for noAing else than to make the 

 world acquainted with a man of the late Mr. Brassey's 

 exceptionally superior character and great power of 

 organisation ; indeed the author tells us that it is as an ex- 

 ample of skilful organisation that the life of Mr. Brassey has 

 especial interest for him. We do not intend to give any 

 sketch of the life of the great and universally loved and 

 respected railway contractor; his life, in one sense, takes 

 up the story of the steam-engine where Trevithick's 

 leaves it o.^f. Trevithick and such as he show how steam 

 may be applied to the purposes of locomotion, which 

 brings into play a new set of men, a new profession, as it 

 were, that of contractor, whose business it is to see that 

 suita'ole roads are made for this horse of man's creation 

 to run upon. That this may be done it is necessary for 

 the contractor to procure an army of navvies and others, 

 officered by all grades of superintendents, from the ganger 

 up to the sub-contractor or agent. Of how much im- 

 portance careful organisation is in a case like this must 

 be seen by every oa2, and of as much importance is it 

 that every one, from the engineer and contractor down to 

 the ganger should have a thorough and intelligent — in 

 other words, a scientific knowledge of the department of 

 which he has immediate charge. This was what distin- 

 guished Mr. Brassey above many others in his position ; 

 he did not work merely by rule of thumb, but raised the 

 business of contractor almost to the dignity of a science; 

 and the thoroughness which was the result of this, com- 

 bined with the man's noble character, obtained for him 

 the great reputation and extensive employment which he 

 all along possessed. One lesson which this work teaches. 



