In that trial the company’s engines developed about 15 miles in an hour, and spurts of still higher speed.  The Magazine points to the results of the trial, and then, under the heading of “The First Projector of Steam Traveling,” it declares that all that had been accomplished had been anticipated and its feasibility practically exemplified over a quarter of a century before by Oliver Evans, an American citizen.  The Magazine showed that many years before the trial Mr. Evans had offered to furnish steam carriages that, on level railways, should run at the rate of 300 miles in a day, or he would not ask pay therefor.  The writer will state that this offer by Mr. Evans was made in November, 1812, at which date not a British steam carriage had yet accomplished seven miles in an hour.

In 1809 Mr. Evans endeavored to establish a steam railway both for freight and passenger traffic between New York and Philadelphia, offering to invest $500 per mile in the enterprise.  At the date of his effort there was not a railway in the world over ten miles long, nor does there appear to have been another human being who up to that date had entertained even the thought of a steam railway for passenger and freight traffic.  In view of all this, is it at all surprising that the British Mechanics’ Magazine declared Oliver Evans, an American, to be the first projector of steam railway traveling?  In 1804 Mr. Evans made a most noteworthy demonstration, his object being to practically exemplify that locomotion could be imparted by his high pressure steam engine to both carriages and boats, and the reader will see that the date of the demonstration was three years before Fulton moved a boat by means of Watt’s low pressure steam engine.  The machine used involved the original double acting high pressure steam engine, the original steam locomotive, and the original high pressure steamboat.  The whole mass weighed over twenty tons.

Notwithstanding there was no railway, except a temporary one laid over a slough in the path, Mr. Evans’ engine moved this great weight with ease from the southeast corner of Ninth and Market streets, in the city of Philadelphia, one and a half miles, to the River Schuylkill.  There the machine was launched into the river, and the land wheels being taken off and a paddle wheel attached to the stern and connected with the engine, the now steamboat sped away down the river until it emptied into the Delaware, whence it turned upward until it reached Philadelphia.  Although this strange craft was square both at bow and stern, it nevertheless passed all the up-bound ships and other sailing vessels in the river, the wind being to them ahead.  The writer repeats that this thorough demonstration by Oliver Evans of the possibility of navigation by steam was made three years before Fulton.  But for more than a quarter of a century prior to this demonstration Mr. Evans had time and again asserted that vessels could be