47 EARLY INVENTORS IN LOCOMOTION. CHAPTER I. SCHEMERS AND PROJECTORS. It is easy to understand how rapid transit from place to place should, from the earliest times, have been an object of desire. The marvelous gift of speed conferred by Fortunatus's Wishing Cap was what all must have envied: it conferred power. It also conferred pleasure. "Life has not many things better than this," said Samuel Johnson as he rolled along in the post-chaise. But it also conferred comfort and well-being; and hence the easy and rapid transit of persons and commodities became in all countries an object of desire in proportion to their growth in civilization. We have elsewhere* endeavored to describe the obstructions to the progress of society occasioned by the defective internal communications of Britain in early times, which were to a considerable extent removed by the adoption of the canal system, and the improvement of our roads and highways, toward the end of last century. But the progress of industry was so rapid-the invention of new tools, machines, and engines so greatly increased the productive wealth of the nation-that some forty years since it was found that these roads and canals, numerous and excellent though they might be, were altogether inadequate for the accommodation of the traffic of the country, which was increasing in almost a direct ratio with the increased application of steampower to the purposes of productive industry. The inventive minds of the nation, always on the alert—the "schemers" and the "projectors," to whom society has in all times been so greatly indebted-proceeded to apply themselves to the solution of the problem of how the communications of the country were best to be improved; and the result was, that the power * "Lives of the Engineers," vols. i. and ii. of steam itself was applied to remedy the inconveniences which it had caused. Like most inventions, that of the Steam Locomotive was very gradually made. The idea of it, born in one age, was revived in the ages that followed. It was embodied first in one model, then in another-the labors of one inventor being taken up by his successors—until at length, after many disappointments and many failures, the practicable working locomotive was achieved. The locomotive engine was not, however, sufficient for the purposes of cheap and rapid transit. Another expedient was absolutely essential to its success-that of the Railway: the smooth rail to bear the load, as well as the steam-engine to draw it. Expedients were early adopted for the purpose of diminishing friction between the wheels of vehicles and the roads along which they were dragged by horse-power. The Romans employed stone blocks with that object; and the streets of the long-buried city of Pompeii still bear the marks of the ancient Roman chariotwheels, as the stone track for heavy vehicles on our modern London Bridge shows the wheel-marks of the wagons which cross it. These stone blocks were merely a simple expedient to diminish friction, and were the first steps toward a railroad. The railway proper doubtless originated in the coal districts of the North of England and Wales, where it was found useful in facilitating the transport of coals from the pits to the shippingplaces. At an early period the coal was carried to the boats in panniers, or in sacks upon horses' backs. Next carts were used, and tram-ways of flag-stone were laid down, along which they were easily hauled. The carts were then converted into wagons, and mounted on four wheels instead of two. Still farther to facilitate the haulage of the wagons, pieces of planking were laid parallel upon wooden sleepers, or imbedded in the ordinary track. It is said that these wooden rails were first employed by a Mr. Beaumont, a gentleman from the South, who, about the year 1630, adventured in the northern mines with about thirty thousand pounds, and after introducing many improvements in the working of the coal, as well as in the methods of transporting it to the staithes on the river, was ruined by his enterprise, and "within a few Years," to use the words of the CHAP. I.] COAL WAGON-WAYS. 49 ancient chronicler, "he consumed all his Money, and rode Home upon his light Horse."* The use of wooden rails gradually extended, and they were laid down between most of the collieries on the Tyne and the places at which the coal was shipped. Roger North, in 1676, found the practice had become extensively adopted, and he speaks of the large sums then paid for way-leave-that is, the permission granted by the owners of lands lying between the coal-pits and the river-side to lay down a tram-way for the purpose of connecting the one with the other. A century later, Arthur Young observed that not only had these roads become greatly multiplied, but formidable works had been constructed to carry them along upon the same level. "The coal wagon-roads from the pits to the water," he says, "are great works, carried over all sorts of inequalities of ground, so far as the distance of nine or ten miles. The tracks of the wheels are marked with pieces of wood let into the road for the wheels of the wagons to run on, by which one horse is enabled to draw, and that with ease, fifty or sixty bushels of coals."+ Saint Fond, the French traveler, who visited Newcastle in 1791, described the colliery wagon-ways in that neighborhood as superior to any thing of the kind he had seen. The wooden rails *Harleian MSS., vol. iii., 269. D |