We next come to Messrs. Chapman of Newcastle, who in 1812 tried to overcome the supposed want of adhesion by a chain fixed at the ends of the line and wound round a grooved drum driven by the engine.  It was tried on the Heaton Rail near Newcastle, but was found to be so clumsy that it was soon abandoned.  The next was a remarkable contrivance—­a mechanical traveller to go on legs.  It never got beyond its experimental state, and unfortunately blew up, killing several people.  All these plans show how lively an interest was then being taken in endeavouring to bring out a good working locomotive.  Mr. Blackett, however, persevered hard to perfect a railway system, and to work it by locomotives.  The Wylam waggon-way, one of the oldest in the North, was made of wooden rails down to 1807, and went to the shipping-place for coals on the Tyne.  Each chaldron-waggon was originally drawn by a horse with a man in charge, only making two journeys in the one day and three on the following, the man being allowed sevenpence for each journey.  This primitive railway passed before the cottage where George Stephenson was born, and was consequently one of the first sights his infant eyes beheld; and little did his parents think what their child was destined to work out in his day for the advancement of railways.  Mr. Blackett took up the wood and laid an iron plate-way in 1808, and in 1812 he ordered an engine on Trevetbick’s principle.  It was a very awkward one, had only one cylinder of six inches diameter, with a fly-wheel; the boiler was cast-iron, and was described by the man who had charge of it as having lots of pumps, cog-wheels, and plugs.  It was placed on a wooden frame with four wheels, and had a barrel of water on another carriage to serve as a tender.  It was at last got on the road, but would not move an inch, and her driver says:—­“She flew all to pieces, and it was the biggest wonder we were not all blown up.”  Mr. Blackett persevered, and had another engine, which did its work much better, though it often broke down, till at length the workmen declared it a perfect plague.  A good story is told of this engine by a traveller, who, not knowing of its existence, said, after an encounter with the Newcastle monster working its great piston, like a huge arm, up and down, and throwing out smoke and fire, that he had just “encountered a terrible deevil on the Hight Street road.”

We now come to George Stephenson, who did for the locomotive what Watt did for our other steam-engines.  His first engine had two vertical cylinders of eight inches diameter and two-feet stroke, working by cross-heads; the power was given off by spur-wheels; it had no springs, consequently it jolted very much on the then bad railways; the wheels were all smooth, as Stephenson was sure the adhesion would be sufficient.  It began work on the 25th July 1814, went up a gradient of one in 450, and took eight waggons with 30 tons at four miles an hour.  It was by far the most successful engine