CHAP. I.]

ORIGIN OF THE RAILWAY.

51

fled into a neighboring wood for concealment, and lay there perdu for three days and nights, to escape the fury of the populace. The plates of these early tram-ways had a ledge cast on their outer edge to guide the wheel along the road, after the manner shown in the preceding cut.

In 1789, Mr. William Jessop constructed a railway at Loughborough, in Leicestershire, and there introduced the cast-iron edge-rail, with flanches cast upon the tire of the wagon-wheels to keep them on the track, instead of having the margin or flanch cast upon the rail itself; and this plan was shortly after adopted in other places. In 1800, Mr. Benjamin Outram, of Little Eaton, Derbyshire (father of the distinguished General Outram), used stone props instead of timber for supporting the ends or joinings of the rails. Thus the use of railroads, in various forms, gradually extended, until they became generally adopted in the mining districts.

Such was the growth of the railroad, which, it will be observed, originated in necessity, and was modified according to experience; progress in this, as in all departments of mechanics, having been effected by the exertions of many men; one generation entering upon the labors of that which preceded it, and carrying them onward to farther stages of improvement. The invention of the locomotive was in like manner made by successive steps. It was not the invention of one man, but of a succession of men, each working at the proper hour, and according to the needs of that hour; one inventor interpreting only the first word of the problem which his successors were to solve after long and laborious efforts and experiments. "The locomotive is not the invention of one man," said Robert Stephenson at Newcastle, "but of a nation of mechanical engineers."

Down to the end of last century, and indeed down almost to our own time, the only power used in haulage was that of the horse. Along the common roads of the country the poor horses were "tearing their hearts out" in dragging cumbersome vehicles behind them, and the transport of merchandise continued to be slow, dear, and in all respects unsatisfactory. Many expedients were suggested with the view of getting rid of the horse. The *"Railway Locomotion and Steam Navigation, their Principles and Practice." By John Curr. London, 1847.

power of wind was one of the first expedients proposed. It was cheap, though by no means regular. It impelled ships by sea; why should it not be used to impel carriages by land?

The first sailing-coach was invented by one Simon Stevinius, or Stevins, a Fleming, toward the end of the sixteenth century. Pierre Gassendi gives an account of its performances as follows:

"Purposing to visit Grotius, Peireskius went to Scheveling that he might satisfy himself of the carriage and swiftness of a coach a few years before invented, and made with that artifice that with expanded sails it would fly upon the shore as a ship upon the sea. He had formerly heard that Count Maurice, a little after his victory at Nieuport [1600], had put himself thereinto, together with Francis Mendoza, his prisoner, on purpose to make trial thereof, and that, within two hours, they arrived at Putten, which is distant from Scheveling fourteen leagues, or two-and-forty miles. He had, therefore, a mind to make the experiment himself, and he would often tell us with what admiration he was seized when he was carried with a quick wind and yet perceived it not, the coach's motion being equally quick.”*

The sailing-coach, however, was only a curiosity. As a practicable machine, it proved worthless, for the wind could not be depended upon for land locomotion. The coach could not tack as the ship did. Sometimes the wind did not blow at all, while at other times it blew a hurricane. After being used for some time as a toy, the sailing-coach was given up as impracticable, and the project speedily dropped out of sight."

But, strange to say, the expedient of driving coal-wagons by the wind was revived in Wales about a century later. On this occasion, Sir Humphry Mackworth, an ingenious coal-miner at Neath, was the projector. Waller, in his "Essay on Mines," published in 1698, takes the opportunity of eulogizing Sir Humphry's "new sailing-wagons, for the cheap carriage of his coal to the water-side, whereby one horse does the work of ten at all times; but when any wind is stirring (which is seldom wanting near the sea), one man and a small sail do the work of twenty."+ It does

* A curious account of this early project is to be found in the library of the British Museum, under the name "Stevin, 1652."

†The writer adds-"I believe he (Sir Humphry Mackworth) is the first gentleman

CHAP. I.]

FRANKLIN, BOULTON, AND DARWIN.

53

not, however, appear that any other coal-owner had the courage to follow Sir Humphry's example, and the sailing-wagon was forgotten until, after the lapse of another century, it was revived by Mr. Edgeworth.

The employment of steam-power as a means of land locomotion was the subject of much curious speculation long before any practical attempt was made to carry it into effect. The merit of promulgating the first idea with reference to it probably belongs to no other than the great Sir Isaac Newton. In his "Explanation of the Newtonian Philosophy," written in 1680, he figured a spherical generator, supported on wheels, and provided with a seat for a passenger in front, and a long jet-pipe behind, and stated that "the whole is to be mounted on little wheels, so as to move easily on a horizontal plane, and if the hole, or jet-pipe, be opened, the vapor will rush out violently one way, and the wheels and the ball at the same time will be carried the contrary way." This, it will be observed, was but a modification of the earliest known steam-engine, or Œolopile, of Hero of Alexandria. It is not believed that Sir Isaac Newton ever made any experiment of his proposed method of locomotion, or did more than merely throw out the idea for other minds to work upon.

The idea of employing steam in locomotion was revived from time to time, and formed the subject of much curious speculation. About the middle of last century we find Benjamin Franklin, then agent in London for the United Provinces of America, Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham, and Erasmus Darwin, of Lichfield, engaged in a correspondence relative to steam as a motive power. Boulton had made a model of a fire-engine, which he sent to London for Franklin's inspection; and though the original purpose for which the engine had been contrived was the pumping of water, it was believed to be practicable to employ it also as a means of locomotion. Franklin was too much occupied at the time by grave political questions to pursue the subject; but the sanguine and speculative mind of Erasmus Darwin was inflamed by the idea of a "fiery chariot," and he pressed his

in this part of the world that hath set up sailing engines on land, driven by the wind; not for any curiosity or vain applause, but for real profit; whereby he could not fail of Bishop Malkin's blessing on his undertakings, in case he were in a capacity to bestow it."

friend Boulton to prosecute the contrivance of the necessary steam machine.*

Erasmus Darwin was in many respects a remarkable man. In his own neighborhood he was highly esteemed as a physician, and by many intelligent readers of his day he was greatly prized as a poet. Horace Walpole said of his "Botanic Garden" that it was "the most delicious poem upon earth," and he declared that he "could read it over and over again forever." The doctor was accustomed to write his poems with a pencil on little scraps of paper while riding about among his patients in his "sulky." The vehicle, which was worn and bespattered outside, had room within it for the doctor and his appurtenances only. On one side of him was a pile of books reaching from the floor to nearly the front window of the carriage, while on the other was a hamper containing fruit and sweetmeats, with a store of cream and sugar, with which the occupant regaled himself during his journey. Lashed on to the place usually appropriated to the "boot" was a large pail for watering the horses, together with a bag of oats and a bundle of hay. Such was the equipage of a fashionable country physician of the last century.

Dr. Darwin was a man of large and massive person, bearing a rather striking resemblance to his distinguished townsman, Dr. Johnson, in manner, deportment, and force of character. He was full of anecdote, and his conversation was most original and entertaining. He was a very outspoken man, vehemently enunciating theories which some thought original and others danger

ous.

As he drove through the country in his "sulky," his mind teemed with speculation on all subjects, from zoonomy, botany, and physiology, to physics, æsthetics, and mental philosophy. Though his speculations were not always sound, they were clever and ingenious, and, at all events, they had the effect of setting other minds a-thinking and speculating on science and the methods for its advancement. From his "Loves of the Plants"-afterward so cleverly parodied by George Canning in his "Loves of the Triangles"-it would appear that the doctor even enter tained a theory of managing the winds by a little philosophic artifice. His scheme of a steam locomotive was of a more prac

*See farther, "Lives of the Engineers," vol. iv., Boulton and Watt, p. 182-4.

CHAP. I.]

DR. DARWIN'S "FIERY CHARIOT."

55

tical character. This idea, like so many others, first occurred to him in his "sulky."

"As I was riding home yesterday," he wrote to his friend Boulton in the year 1765, “I considered the scheme of the fiery chariot, and the longer I contemplated this favorite idea, the more practicable it appeared to me. I shall lay my thoughts before you, crude and undigested though they may appear to be, telling you as well what I thought would not do as what would do, as by those hints you may be led into various trains of thinking upon this subject, and by that means (if any hints can assist your genius, which, without hints, is above all others I am acquainted with) be more likely to improve or disapprove. And as I am quite mad of this scheme, I beg you will not mention it, or show this paper to Wyat or any body.

"These things are required: 1st, a rotary motion; 2d, easily altering its direction to any other direction; 3d, to be accelerated, retarded, destroyed, revived instantly and easily; 4th, the bulk, the weight, and expense of the machine to be as small as possible in proportion to its use."*

He then goes on to throw out various suggestions as to the form and arrangement of the machine, the number of wheels on which it was to run, and the mode of applying the power. The text of this letter is illustrated by rough diagrams, showing a vehicle mounted on three wheels, the foremost or guiding wheel being under the control of the driver; but in a subsequent passage he says, "I think four wheels will be better."

"Let there be two cylinders," he proceeds. "Suppose one piston up, and the vacuum made under it by the jet d'eau froid. That piston can not yet descend because the cock is not yet opened which admits the steam into its antagonist cylinder. Hence the two pistons are in equilibrio, being either of them pressed by the atmosphere. Then I say, if the cock which admits the steam into the antagonist cylinder be opened gradually and not with a jerk, that the first-mentioned [piston in the] cylinder will descend gradually and not less forcibly. Hence, by the management of the steam cocks, the motion may be accelerated, retarded, destroyed, revived instantly and easily. And if this answers in practice as it does in theory, the machine can not fail of success! Eureka!

* Soho MSS.