with the Directors of the Colombian Mining Association, who received him with gratifying expressions of respect. Though he had ceased to preside over their interests in South America, they pressed him to continue to give them counsel as to their future operations. In London he was quickly immersed in business, inspecting machinery, and entering into contracts for the house of 'Robert Stephenson and Co.' In connection with a contract and negotiations entered into with a foreign house he found it necessary to visit Brussels in December 1827. The journey was purely one of business; an excursion to Waterloo being almost the only diversion he permitted himself during the trip. Christmas Day he spent in London; but with the new year he was in Newcastle, which for the next five years was his head-quarters, superintending the factory, and originating, or developing, those improvements in the structure of the locomotive which raised it to its present efficiency from the unsatisfactory position it held at the opening of the Stockton and Darlington line.

The following letter, written to Mr. Longridge from Liverpool on New Year's Day 1828, will show how occupied the writer's mind was with the possibility of improving the locomotive.

Liverpool: January 1, 1828.

MY DEAR SIR,-On my arrival here last Thursday I received your letter containing the notice of the Darlington meeting on the 5th instant, which I will attend at your request. I had hoped that my father would accompany me to the north this time, but he finds that all his attention must be devoted to this road alone.

*

I have just returned from a ride along the line for seven

i. e. the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

1827.]

RETURN TO NEWCASTLE.

115

miles, in which distance I have not been a little surprised to find excavations of such magnitude. Since I came down from London, I have been talking a great deal to my father about endeavouring to reduce the size and ugliness of our travellingengines, by applying the engine either on the side of the boiler or beneath it entirely, somewhat similarly to Gurney's steamcoach. He has agreed to an alteration which I think will considerably reduce the quantity of machinery as well as the liability to mismanagement. Mr. Jos. Pease writes my father that in their present complicated state they cannot be managed by fools,' therefore they must undergo some alteration or amendment. It is very true that the locomotive engine, or any other kind of engine, may be shaken to pieces; but such accidents are in a great measure under the control of enginemen, which are, by the by, not the most manageable class of beings. They perhaps want improvement as much as the engines.

There was nothing new when I left London, except a talk that the Thames Tunnel was about to be abandoned for want of funds, which the subscribers had declined advancing, from the apparent improbability of the future revenue ever being adequate to paying a moderate interest. There are three new steam-coaches going on with, all much on the same principle as Gurney's.

Very shortly after my arrival at Newcastle I shall have to set off to Alston Moor to engage some miners, both for the Colombian and the Anglo-Mexican Association.

The New Year therefore opened with an abundance of business for the young engineer.

CHAPTER VIII.

RESIDENCE IN NEWCASTLE.

(ETAT. 24-25.)

State of the Locomotive in 1828-Efforts to improve the Locomotive - The Reports of Messrs. Walker and Rastrick A Premium of £500 offered by the Directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway for the best Locomotive Mr. Henry Booth's Invention of the Multitubular Boiler-Commencement of the 'Rocket' Steam Engine-A Tunnel across the Mersey-Survey for a Junction Line between the Bolton and Leigh and Liverpool and Manchester Railways - Survey for Branch Line from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to Warrington-Robert Stephenson's Love AffairsHis Access to Society in Liverpool and London Miss Fanny Sanderson Proposal that Robert Stephenson should live at Bedlington-Mr. Richardson's Expostulations-No. 5 Greenfield PlaceThe Sofa à la mode - Marriage.

THE great and immediate work before Robert Stephen

son, when at the opening of 1828 he once more took up his residence in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was to raise the efficiency of the locomotive so that, on the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester line, it should be adopted by the directors as the motive power of their railway. At that time the prospects of the locomotive were most discouraging. The speed of five or six miles per hour attained on the Killingworth and Darlington lines by no means justified an enthusiastic support of the travelling engines. It was true that they had not been built with a view to speed, but for the

1828.]

QUESTION OF THE USE OF LOCOMOTIVES.

117

purpose of obtaining cheap carriage for coals. Indeed, not many years before, the problem had been to make them move at all. But progression having been accomplished, the next thing was to increase their powers.

No engineer questioned the possibility of improving the locomotive; but improvement comes slowly, when each experiment leading to it costs several hundreds of pounds. No railway company could be asked to pay for costly trials. That they would use the new machine when inventors and manufacturers had made it a serviceable power was all that could be expected of the directors of railways. As for the public at large, there was amongst all ranks a general opposition to the new method of conveyance. Dislike to novelty, and suspicion of a system not perfectly understood, combined to make enemies for the locomotive. So far was this the case that, notwithstanding the commercial success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Bill for the Newcastle and Carlisle line was obtained in 1829, only on condition that horses, and not locomotives, should be used in working it.

The proprietary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway shared largely in feelings which were almost universal with the less enlightened multitude. In October 1828, a deputation of the directors visited Darlington and the neighbourhood of Newcastle to inspect the locomotives, and come to a conclusion as to the advisability of employing them between Liverpool and Manchester. By this journey,' says Mr. Booth, the treasurer and historian of the Company, one step was gained. The deputation was convinced, that for the immense traffic to be anticipated on the Liverpool and

Manchester line, horses were out of question. The debatable ground being thus narrowed, how was the remaining point to be decided? Was a capital of £100,000 to be invested in stationary engines, or were locomotives to be adopted?

,

Whilst this question was under discussion, and for several months preceding the October trip just mentioned, Robert Stephenson had been racking his brains to settle another and much more important matter - How to improve the locomotive? how to increase at the same time. its power and speed? It was as clear to him, as it had been to his father, that above all things it was requisite to increase in the locomotive the capability of rapidly generating steam. Sufficient heat, with adequate means for rapidly applying that heat to the water, was the desideratum. Eventually the multitubular boiler and the steam-blast of the 'Rocket' gave the required conditions ; but previous to their attainment, Robert and his father made numerous failures in attempting to build a really satisfactory travelling engine.

To increase the heating surface, they introduced into the boilers of two engines made for the St. Etienne Railway small tubes that contained water; but the scheme was futile-the tubes soon becoming furred with deposit and burning out. In other engines they with the same object inserted two flues, each with a separate fire. On this principle was constructed The Twin Sisters' -the name being suggested by the tubes. A third method adopted was to return the tube through the boiler. A fourth plan -in which may be perceived a nearer approach to the multitubular system was adopted in a boiler made, at the beginning of 1828,

6