The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

92 EISTOKT OP THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES IS AMERICA.
power and ability to perform all the duties that might
have been required ; but from this cause alone, that the
road had not been built to . sustain such a weight as it
was called upon to bear when this new instrument of
power was placed upon it. The road had been con-
structed for horse-pow;er alone, as all other roads were
in this country at that early period, and for a long time
after, even in England. No idea of a locomotive had
then been conceived in this country. Nevertheless,
these machines were the forerunners of a mighty race
of iron monsters, which only twoscore years after were
to be seen traversing every section of the cotmtry, even
stretching their course from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
We will now leave the " Stourbridge Lion " where
we last heard of it, by the road-side, snugly stowed
away in a shed, constructed of hemlock-boa,rds, pur-
chased from Jason Torry, Esq., as it appears from the
copy of the original entry in his books, in November,
1829, and pursue our history a few years later, by
recording events which soon after followed the advent
of the Lion.
CHAPTEE XVII.
riEST MEETINa OF THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO EAILEOAD
COMPANY.
The first meeting for the purpose of forming a rail-
road company in the United States, to connect the wa-
ters of the East with the waters of the West, was held
in the city of Baltimore, on the 12th day of February,
1827. The practicability of the project was left to a
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