The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

204 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap, xviii.
public subscription was entered into for the purpose of making
it effectual. The newspapers generally spoke of the project as
a mere speculation ; some wishing it success, although greatly
doubting ; others ridiculing it as a delusion, similar to the many
other absurd projects of that madly-speculative period. It was
a time when balloon companies proposed to work passenger
traffic through the air at forty miles an hour, and when road
companies projected carriages to run on turnpikes at twelve
miles an hour, with relays of bottled gas instead of horses.
There were companies for the working of American gold and
silver mines,—companies for cutting ship canals through Panama
and Nicaragua,—milk companies, burying companies, fish com-
panies, and steam companies of all sorts ; and many less specu-
latively disposed than their neighbours, were ready to set down
the projected railways of 1825 as mere bubbles of a similarly
delusive character.
Among the most remarkable newspaper articles of the day
calling attention to the application of the locomotive engine to
the purposes of rapid steam travelling on railroads, was a series
which appeared in ,1824, in the Scotsman newspaper,* then
edited by Mr. Charles Maclaren. In those publications the
wonderful powers of the locomotive were logically demonstrated,
and the writer, arguing from the experiments on friction made
more than half a century before by Vince and Colomb, which
scientific men seemed to have altogether lost sight of, clearly
showed that, by the use of steam-power on railroads, the more
rapid, as well as cheaper transit of persons and merchandise
might be confidently anticipated. The important experiments
referred to had demonstrated that friction upon roads is the same
at all velocities. Dr. Young had, indeed, in referring to these
experiments, as early as 1807,t made use of the following prophetic
words :— " It is possible that roads paved with iron may
be hereafter employed for the purpose of expeditious travelling,
* The able articles referred to were published in December, 1824, and were
republished, or extensively quoted, in njost of the English newspapers. They
•were also translated into French and German, and reprinted in the United
States.
t Dr, Yoving's Lectures on Natural Philosophy,