Part 18 (2/2)
I was present at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, on Sept. 15, 1830. Every one knows the success of the undertaking. Railways became the rage. They were projected in every possible direction; and when made, locomotives were required to work them. When George Stephenson was engaged in building his first locomotive, at Killingworth, he was greatly 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 completed his engines for the Stockton and Darlington, and afterward for the Liverpool and Manchester, Railway.
Only a few years had pa.s.sed, 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 demand for locomotives became very great. As our machine tools were peculiarly adapted for turning out a large amount of first-cla.s.s work, we directed our attention to this cla.s.s of business.
In the course of about ten years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, we 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 tempting condition of the contract. It was that if, after a month's trial of the locomotives, their working proved satisfactory, a premium of 100 was to be added to the price of each engine 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 premium, but, what was much more encouraging, we received a special letter from the board of directors, stating their entire satisfaction with the performance of our engines, and desiring us to refer other contractors to them with respect to the excellence of our workmans.h.i.+p.
This testimonial was altogether spontaneous, and proved extremely valuable in other quarters.
The date of the first sketch of my steam-hammer was Nov. 24, 1839. It consisted of, first, a ma.s.sive anvil, on which to rest the work; second, a block of iron const.i.tuting the hammer, or blow-giving portion; and, third, an inverted steam cylinder, to whose piston-rod the hammer-block was attached. All that was then required to produce a most effective hammer, was simply to admit steam of sufficient pressure into the cylinder, so as to act on the under side of the piston, and thus to raise the hammer-block attached to the end of the piston-rod. By a very simple arrangement of a slide-valve under the control of an attendant, the steam was allowed to escape, and thus permit the ma.s.sive block of iron rapidly to descend by its own gravity upon the work then upon the anvil.
Thus, by the more or less rapid manner in which the attendant allowed the steam to enter or escape from the cylinder, any required number or any intensity of blows could be delivered. Their succession might be modified in an instant; the hammer might be arrested and suspended according to the requirements of the work. The workman might thus, as it were, _think in blows_. He might deal them out on to the ponderous glowing ma.s.s, and mould or knead it into the desired form as if it were a lump of clay, or pat it with gentle taps, according to his will or at the desire of the forgeman.
Rude and rapidly sketched out as it was, this my first delineation of the steam-hammer will be found to comprise all the essential elements of the invention. There was no want of orders when the valuable qualities of the steam-hammer came to be seen and experienced; soon after I had the opportunity of securing a patent for it in the United States, where it soon found its way into the princ.i.p.al iron-works of the country. As time pa.s.sed by, I had furnished steam-hammers to the princ.i.p.al foundries in England, and had sent them abroad even to Russia.
But the English Government is proverbially slow in recognizing such improvements. It was not till years had pa.s.sed by, that Mr. Nasmyth was asked to furnish hammers to government works. Then he was invited to apply them to pile-driving. He says:--
My first order for my pile-driver was a source of great pleasure to me.
It was for the construction of some great royal docks at Devonport. An immense portion of the sh.o.r.e of the Hamoaze had to be walled in so as to exclude the tide.
When I arrived on the spot with my steam pile-driver, there was a great deal of curiosity in the dockyard as to the action of the new machine.
The pile-driving machine-men gave me a good-natured challenge to vie with them in driving down a pile. They adopted the old method, while I adopted the new one. The resident managers sought out two great pile logs of equal size and length,-seventy feet long and eighteen inches square. At a given signal we started together. I let in the steam, and the hammer at once began to work. The four-ton block showered down blows at the rate of eighty a minute, and in the course of _four and a half minutes_ my pile was driven down to its required depth. The men working at the ordinary machine had only begun to drive. It took them upward of _twelve hours_ to complete the driving of their pile!
Such a saving of time in the performance of similar work--by steam _versus_ manual labor--had never before been witnessed. The energetic action of the steam-hammer, sitting on the shoulders of the pile high up aloft, and following it suddenly down, the rapidly hammered blows keeping time with the flas.h.i.+ng out of the waste steam at the end of each stroke, was indeed a remarkable sight. When my pile was driven the hammer-block and guide-case were speedily re-hoisted by the small engine that did all the laboring and locomotive work of the machine, the steam-hammer portion of which was then lowered on to the shoulders of the next pile in succession. Again it set to work. At this the spectators, crowding about in boats, p.r.o.nounced their approval in the usual British style of ”Three cheers!” My new pile-driver was thus acknowledged as another triumphant proof of the power of steam.
In the course of the year 1843 it was necessary for me to make a journey to St. Petersburg. My object was to endeavor to obtain an order for a portion of the locomotives required for working the line between that city and Moscow. The railway had been constructed under the engineers.h.i.+p of Major Whistler, and it was shortly about to be opened.
The Major gave me a frank and cordial reception, and informed me of the position of affairs. The Emperor, he said, was desirous of training a cla.s.s of Russian mechanics to supply not only the locomotives, but to keep them constantly in repair. The locomotives must be made in Russia.
I received, however, a very large order for boilers and other detail parts of the Moscow machines.
I enjoyed greatly my visit to St. Petersburg, and my return home through Stockholm and Copenhagen.
Travelling one day in Sweden, the post-house where I was set down was an inn, although without a sign-board. The landlady was a bright, cheery, jolly woman. She could not speak a word of English, nor I a word of Dannemora Swedish. I was very thirsty and hungry, and wanted something to eat. How was I to communicate my wishes to the landlady? I resorted, as I often did, to the universal language of the pencil. I took out my sketch-book, and in a few minutes I made a drawing of a table with a dish of smoking meat upon it, a bottle and a gla.s.s, a knife and fork, a loaf, a salt-cellar, and a corkscrew. She looked at the drawing and gave a hearty laugh. She nodded pleasantly, showing that she clearly understood what I wanted. She asked me for the sketch, and went into the back garden to show it to her husband, who inspected it with great delight. I went out and looked about the place, which was very picturesque. After a short time the landlady came to the door and beckoned me in, and I found spread out on the table everything that I desired,--a broiled chicken, smoking hot from the gridiron, a bottle of capital home-brewed ale, and all the _et ceteras_ of an excellent repast. I made use of my pencil in many other ways. I always found that a sketch was as useful as a sentence. Besides, it generally created a sympathy between me and my entertainers.
As the Bridgewater Foundry had been so fortunate as to earn for itself a considerable reputation for mechanical contrivances, the workshops were always busy. They were crowded with machine tools in full action, and exhibited to all comers their effectiveness in the most satisfactory manner. Every facility was afforded to those who desired to see them at work; and every machine and machine tool that was turned out became in the hands of its employers the progenitor of a numerous family.
Indeed, on many occasions I had the gratification of seeing my mechanical notions adopted by rival or compet.i.tive machine constructors, often without acknowledgment; though, notwithstanding this point of honor, there was room enough for all. Though the parent features were easily recognizable, I esteemed such plagiarisms as a sort of left-handed compliment to their author. I also regarded them as a proof that I had hit the mark in so arranging my mechanical combinations as to cause their general adoption; and many of them remain unaltered to this day.
My favorite pursuit, after my daily excursions at the foundry, was astronomy. I constructed for myself a telescope of considerable power, and, mounting my ten-inch instrument, I began my survey of the heavens.
I began as a learner, and my learning grew with experience. There were the prominent stars, the planets, the Milky Way,--with thousands of far-off suns,--to be seen. My observations were at first merely general; by degrees they became particular. I was not satisfied with enjoying these sights myself. I made my friends and neighbors sharers in my pleasure, and some of them enjoyed the wonders of the heavens as much as I did.
In my early use of the telescope I had fitted the speculum into a light square tube of deal, to which the eyepiece was attached, so as to have all the essential parts of the telescope combined together in the most simple and portable form. I had often to move it from place to place in my small garden at the side of the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l, in order to get it clear of the trees and branches which intercepted some object in the heavens which I wished to see. How eager and enthusiastic I was in those days! Sometimes I got out of bed in the clear small hours of the morning, and went down to the garden in my night-s.h.i.+rt. I would take the telescope in my arms and plant it in some suitable spot, where I might take a peep at some special planet or star then above the horizon.
It became bruited about that a ghost was seen at Patricroft! A barge was silently gliding along the ca.n.a.l near midnight, when the boatman suddenly saw a figure in white. ”It moved among the trees, with a coffin in its arms!” The apparition was so sudden and strange that he immediately concluded that it was a ghost. The weird sight was reported all along the ca.n.a.l, and also at Wolverhampton, which was the boatman's headquarters. He told the people at Patricroft, on his return journey, what he had seen; and great was the excitement produced. The place was haunted; there was no doubt about it! After all, the rumor was founded on fact; for the ghost was merely myself in my night-s.h.i.+rt, and the coffin was my telescope, which I was quietly s.h.i.+fting from one place to another, in order to get a clearer sight of the heavens at midnight.
I had been for some time contemplating the possibility of retiring altogether from business. I had got enough of the world's goods, and was willing to make way for younger men.
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