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

FIRST TEUCK-ENGINE. 217
rapid rivers, ascending the steepest grades, or driving
headlong througli lengthened tunnels— ^then ask the beholder
if we have yet reached the summit, tlie consumma-
tion, the ultimatum of this great instrumentality in the
advancement of the trade and commerce of our prosper-
ous republic. He will answer, " No ! No one can tell
no one can predict— ^no mind can conceive—no figures
can compute the sum of what will be the progress in
the next forty years of this great achievement of the
present century, in the railroad and its iron steed."
Forty years ago an imported locomotive (weighing
scarcely a half-dozen tons) made the first experimental
trip, of a few miles only, upon a coal-road belonging to
the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. This ma-
chiae proved to be too heavy for the structure, and its
— :
innumerable trestles and bridges, and it was abandoned,
and the road soon after remodelled into a graded one
with stationary engines, as was recommended about the
same time (1829) by the most prominent English engi-
neers to the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railroad, in preference to the locomotive system, which
they looked upon as impracticable.
Not the least daunted or discouraged by the failure
of this first experiment at home, and the opinions and
examples before them in England, the directors of the
South Carolina Railroad, at their first regular meeting,
only five days after their organization, passed unanimously
that memorable resolution in these very words
"that their railroad should be built for locomotivepower
alone; that in selecting that power in its applica-
tion to railroads, the maturity of which will be reached
within the time of constructing their road, and render
the application of animal power a great abuse of the
gifts of genius and science." Their example was fol-
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