ADDRESS 
BY 
SIR WILLIAM G. ARMSTRONG, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. 
GENTLEMEN OF THE Britisn Assocration,—lI esteem it the greatest honour of 
my life that I am called upon to assume the office of your President. In that 
capacity, and as representing your body, I may be allowed to advert to the 
gratifying reception which the British Association met with on their former 
visit to this region of mining and manufacturing industry, and, as a member 
of the community which you have again honoured with a visit, I undertake to 
convey to you the assurance of a renewed and hearty welcome. A quarter of 
a century has elapsed since the Association assembled in this town, and in no 
former period of equal duration has so great a progress been made in physical 
Imowledge. In mechanical science, and especially in those branches of it 
which are concerned in the application of steam power to effect interchange 
between distant communities, the progress made since 1838 has no parallel 
in history. The railway system was then in its infancy, and the great 
problem of transatlantic steam navigation had only received its complete 
solution in the preceding year. Since that time railways have extended to 
every continent, and steamships have covered the ocean. These reflections 
claim our attention on this occasion, because the locality in which we hold 
our present meeting is the birthplace of railways, and because the coal-mines 
of this district have contributed more largely than any others to supply the 
motive power by which steam communication by land and water has been 
established on so gigantic a scale. 
The history of railways shows what grand results may have their origin in 
small beginnings. When coal was first conveyed in this neighbourhood from 
the pit to the shipping-place on the Tyne, the pack-horse, carrying a burden 
of 3 ewt., was the only mode of transport employed. As soon as roads 
suitable for wheeled carriages were formed, carts were introduced, and this 
first step in mechanical appliance to facilitate transport had the effect of 
increasing the load which the horse was enabled to convey from 3 cwt. to 
17 ewt. The next improvement consisted in laying wooden bars or rails for 
the wheels of the carts to run upon, and this was followed by the substitution 
of the four-wheeled wagon for the two-wheeled cart. By this further appli- 
cation of mechanical principles the original horseload of 3 cwt. was aug- 
mented to 42 cwt. These were important results, and they were not obtained 
without the shipwreck of the fortunes of at least one adventurous man whose 
ideas were in advance of the times in which he lived. We read, in a record 
published in the year 1649, that “‘one Master Beaumont, a gentleman of 
great ingenuity and rare parts, adventured into the mines of Northumberland 
with his £30,000, and brought with him many rare engines not then known 
in that shire, and wagons with one horse to carry down coal from the pits to 
the river, but within a few years he consumed all his money and rode home 
upon his light horse.” The next step in the progress of railways was the 
attachment of slips of iron to the wooden rails. Then came the iron tram- 
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