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

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HISTOKT OF THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES IN AMERICA.
wants ; it oils its own joints, and, when any tting goes
wrong wMcli it cannot itself rectify, it gives timely
warning to its attendant. Yet, with all these talents
and qualities, and even when fully capahle of exerting
the power of six hundred or a thousand horses, it is
obedient to the hand of a chUd. Its ,
food is coal or
wood, or any thing combustible; it consumes nothing
when idle ; it never tires or wants to rest or sleep ; it
is not subject to malady when originally made well,
and only refuses to work when worn out with age ; it
is equally active in all climates, and will do work of
any kind ; it is a water-pumper, a miner, a sawyer, a
tanner, a stone-cutter, a turner, a carpenter, a black-
smith, a cotton-spinner, a weaver, a sailor; in short, it is
a mechanic in every branch of art. It has revolution-
ized the whole domain of human industry, and almost
every year is adding to its power and its conquests. In
our manufactures, arts, commerce, and our social ac-
commodations, it is constantly achieving what, less than
fifty years ago, would have been accounted marvellous
or an impossibility; it can engrave a seal, and crush
masses of the hardest metal like wax before it ; draw
out, without breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and
lift a ship like a feather in the air ! It can embroider
muslin, and forge huge anchors ; cut steel into ribbons,
and impel loaded vessels against the fury of the vdnd
and waves ; and in the shape of a locomotive, or iron
horse, it can now be seen daily and hourly dragging
after it, on a railroad, hundreds of tons of merchandise
and crowds of living freight, in the shape of men or
animals, or an army of soldiers with all their munitions
of war, at the rate of thirty miles or more an hour.
The locomotive, the most potent and at the same
time the most perfectly controllable of all our mechani-
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