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

CHAP, v.] LIFE AT WILLINGTON.
working at the Dolly Pit, in like manner married another sister,
Betty; and she too, like her sisters, proved a valuable and
worthy helpmate.
George Stephenson's daily life at Willington was that of a
regular, steady workman. By the manner, however, in which
he continued to improve his spare hours in the evening, he was
silently and surely paving the way for being something more
than a mere workman. While other men of his class were
idling in public-houses, he set himself down to study the prin-
ciples of mechanics, and to master the laws by which his engine
worked. For a workman, he was even at that time more than
ordinarily speculative—often taking up strange theories, and
trying to sift out the truth that was in them. While sitting by
the side of his young wife in his cottage dwelling, in the winter
evenings, he was usually occupied in making mechanical experi-
ments, or in modelling experimental machines. Amongst his
various speculations while at Willington, he occupied himself
a good deal in endeavouring to discover Perpetual Motion.
Although he failed, as so many others had done before liim,
the very eflforts he made tended to whet his inventive facul-
ties, and to call forth his dormant powers. He actually went so
far as to construct the model of a machine by which he thought
he would secure Perpetual Motion. It consisted of a wooden
wheel, the periphery of which was furnished with glass tubes
filled with quicksilver; as the wheel rotated, the quicksilver
poured itself down into the lower tubes, and thus a sort of self-
acting motion was kept up in the apparatus, which, however, did
not prove to be perpetual. Where he had first obtained the idea
of this machine—whether from conversation, or reading, or his
own thoughts, is not now remembered; but possibly he may
have heard of an apparatus of a similar kind which is described
in the " History of Inventions." As he had then no access to
books, and indeed could barely read with ease, it is possible that
he may have been told of the invention, and then set about
testing its value according to his own methods.
Much of his spare time continued to be occupied by labour
more immediately profitable, regarded in a pecuniary point of
view. From mending shoes he proceeded to making them, and
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