Part 18 (2/2)

On it caht in a minute

”Hoonderful are the works o' man!” exclaimed the shepherd

”But what's a' the hurry for?”, rejoined his wife

Still more marvellous, however, was the first adventure by train of an old woman from Newtyle to Dundee In those days the train was let down part of the railway by a rope The wos by her side Suddenly the rope broke, and the train dashed into the Dundee Station, scattering the carriages, and throwing out the old wos

A porter ran to her help, when, gathering herself together, she exclaimed, ”Odd sake, sirs, d'ye aye whummil

[footnote

Whummil, to turn upside down--Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary

us oot this way?” She thought it was only the ordinary way of delivering railway passengers

Ropes, however, wererailway trains Eventually locomotives were invariably adopted When railere extended in so many directions, more and e Stephenson was engaged in building his first locoreatly hampered, not only by the want of handy mechanics, but by the want of efficient tools But he did the best that he could His genius overcame difficulties It was immensely to his credit that he should have so successfully coton, and afterwards for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

Only a few years had passed, and self-acting tools were now enabled to complete, with precision and uniformity, machines that before had been deemed almost impracticable

In proportion to the rapid extension of railways the dereat As our e amount of first-class work, we directed our attention to this class of business In the course of about ten years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Raile executed considerable orders for locomotives for the London and Southampton, the Manchester and Leeds, and the Gloucester railway companies

The Great Western Railway Company invited us to tender for twenty of their very ponderous engines They proposed a very te condition of the contract It was, that if, after aproved satisfactory, a preine and tender The locomotives were made and delivered; they ran the stipulated number of test miles between London and Bristol in a perfectly satisfactory manner; and we not only received the pre, we received a special letter fro their entire satisfaction with the perfor us to refer other contractors to them with respect to the excellence of our workether spontaneous, and proved extremely valuable in other quarters

I may mention that, in order to effect the prompt and perfect execution of this order, I contrived several special machine tools, which assisted us most materially These tools for the th and dexterity, while at the same time they increased the accuracy and perfection of the work

They afterwards assisted us in thethe production of other classes of work At the sa the cost of production, as was made sufficiently apparent by the balance-sheet prepared at the end of each year

My connection with the Great Western Company shortly led to a most important event in connection with my own personal history It appears that their famous steam-shi+p the Great Western had been very successful in her voyages between Bristol and New York; so much so, indeed, that the directors of the Coreater nitude--the Great Britain

Mr Francis Huineer, came to Patricroft to consult with me as to the machine tools, of unusual size and pohich were required for the construction of the iines of the proposed shi+p, which were to be made on the vertical trunk principle

Very complete works were erected at Bristol for the accommodation of the requisiteto Mr Humphries'

order; they were delivered and fitted to his entire approval, and the construction of the gigantic engines was soon in full progress

An unexpected difficulty, however, was encountered with respect to the enorht-iron intermediate paddleshaft It was required to be of a size and diaed

Mr Huhout the country for tenders of the price at which they would execute this important part of the work, but to his surprise and dise a forging In this dilemma he wrote a letter tome of the unlooked-for difficulty ”I find,” he said, ”that there is not a forge hae the interines for the Great Britain!

What aht dare to use cast-iron?

This letter i haht-iron shaft of thirty inches diae and fall, as well as of their want of power of blow

A few idly adhering to the old traditional fore and tilt hah driven by water or steaed modifications--that the difficulty had arisen; as, whenever the largest forge hae was so small that when a piece of work of considerable size was placed on the anvil, the ha required the most powerful blow, it received next to no blow at all, as the clear space for the fall of the hammer was almost entirely occupied by the work on the anvil

The obvious remedy was to contrive some method by which a ponderous block of iron should be lifted to a sufficient height above the object on which it was desired to strike a blow, and then to let the block full down upon the forging, guiding it in its descent by such siive the required precision in the percussive action of the falling ot out enerally thought out, with the aid of pen and pencil, such mechanical adaptations as I had conceived in my mind, and was thereby enabled to render the it all clearly before me in my mind's eye

In littleMr Hu his unlooked-for difficulty, I had the whole contrivance in all its executant details, before raphed copy of which I append to this description

The date of this first draas the 24th Nove of steam hammer, 24th Nov 1839

My Steam Hammer as thus first sketched, consisted of, first, a massive anvil on which to rest the work; second, a block of iron constituting the ha portion; and, third, an inverted steam cylinder to whose piston-rod the hammer-block was attached