CENTENARY OF THE STEAM ENGINE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7330, 17 February 1902, Page 2

CENTENARY OF THE STEAM ENGINE.

+ TRIUMPH AND SAD FATE OF RICHARD TREVITHICK. (By H. G. ARCHER, in the "DadlyMadl.") Last Christmas Eve was the centenary of an epoch-making event), for tike (Christinas Eve of 1801 witnessed Richard Trevithick's successful experiment, by which : he conveyed the first load of passengers ever moved by the force of steam in Britain.; and the celebrated Cornish engineer ims only deprived of the honic-ur of being absolutely first in the field of pa.ssenger locomotion by the fact that, in the year 1769, Ouznot, the famous French engineer, had constructed a small steam carnage, which ran at the rate of. four miles per how, and carried four per•sans. Cuznot's maahaine, however, only made one trip, for a diisaster in the Paris streets led to the arrest of the inventor, and put a stop to further trials. Richard Trevithick was boro on. April 13, 1771, and Ms youth was spent at Oamborne, where,. in 1797, he succeeded his father as leading engineer in Cocndsh mining. ■-- In 1793 he invented a 'high-pressure, non-con-ducting steam engine, which, immediately demonstrated its superiority to the lowpressure steam, vacuum engine of Watt; while he spent the two following years dm numerous working experiments, made tinder very trying ciroumstacices from tito want of sufficient money, with- tine dbj&ct of devising a steam engine that would work on common roads. FIRST BRITISH STEAM CARRIAGE. The chief difficulty he had to contend with was (his erstwhile acceptation of the mechanical axiom, then. regarded as irrefutable, that if the power of any. engine was applied *o the wheels of ai carriage .9^ which, it was mounted, with.' a view, of propelling it along a common, roa'di, the Whi3eli3 would turni found) cm the ground wHlhout moving the carriage forward. The explanation was referred to the periphery of the wheel not having' sufficient hold of tfltua ground to make an available fulcrum. Eventually Trevithick satisfied! himself of the falsity of this axiom by an experiment with a one-horse chaise. Ona day ifo the year 1800 he hired 1 a vehicle, and) drdve it halfway up a steep bill, Where 'he unharnessed the horse. ' He then turned 1 with, his hand the spokes of a wheel, and 1 found that the carriage moved 1 forward all right. An old account-book of Trevitbiok's, dated 1800, gives the detail items in the manufacture of the first Brkieifo steam carriage ; but, unfortunately, aU. contemporary d*aw* ings of the vehiilcle itself have been. Tost. It appears, however, to have been a locomotive pure and simple, consisting of a cylindrical boiler, which also served ais a framing for keeping the four wheels, the cylinder and working parts in- their proper places. The steamcock and rod for steering the two front wheel® were placed! close to the engineman attending at the furnace door, and at this, end also was the U-shaped chimney. On. the top of the boiler were double-action bellows, worked off the crarak axle, for ensuring a good fire in case the steam blast dnd 1 not answer. The steam* pressure was 601 b per square inch. The engine was put together in a smith's shop in Camborne, and, owing to numerous alterations during construction: was Hot finally completed till the afternoon, of Dec. 24, 1801. Trevithick decided to have a trial run at once. It was a disagreeable winter evening when the strange machine emerged from its stable be-fore the wondering eyes of a knot of rustics. Rain drenched the ambitious innovators, rendered the roads deep in mud, and. cooled the steam boiler j while coming darkness added to the gloom. Four roads were open to Trevithick's choice . for testing his locomotive, arid it was- characteristic of the man that he should have chosen the worst — a rude country lane, in horrible order, with a sharp curve at the commencement, and steeper gradients than either of the other roads. How the trial went off is best described by quoting a bucolic eye-witness's account: TRIALS, GOOD AN© BAD. "When we seed that Captain Dick was agoing to turn on steam, we jumped up as many as could, mebbe seven or eight oi us. 'Twas a stiffish hill going from the Weith up to Camborne Beacon, but she went off like a little bird. When she had gone about a quarter of a mile there waa a roughish piece of 'road covered with loose stones ; she didn't go quite as fast as it was a flood of rain, and we were very squeezed together. I jumped off. She was going faster than I could walk, and went on up the hill about half a mile farther, where they turned her and came back again to the shop. Captain Dick tried her again the next day. I was not there, but I heard say that some of the castings broke. Recollect seeing pieces of the engine in the c ditch years afterwards, and suppose she ran against the hedge." . ii; The last portion of the account is. incorrect. The second trial took place on Dec. 28, when Trevithiok was invited to driv& the engine over ft^Tehidy, the great house of Lord Dedunstarville, three miles distant. The engine, however, broke a casting halfway, and was forced under shelter, and the parties adjourned to an inn, there to comfort their hearts with roast goose and to toast the inventor in Cornish punch. Alas ! conviviality rendered them forgetful of the engine ; its water boiled away ; the iron became red-hot ; and — Bang ! — nothing that was combustible remained either of the engine or the house which sheltered it. . Meanwhile, Trevithick • and his cousin, Captain Andrew Vivian, had become partners over their Christmas dinner, and determined to start for London to secure a patent, which. they obtained on March 24, 1902. Ontheic return they built a new engine, with one horizontal cylinder, which, together with the boiler and furnace-box, was placed in rear of the hind orle. HIS CIRCULAR RAILWAY. The patentees determined upon exhibiting this machine in the metropolis. They accordingly drove it to Plymouth, crowds of people coming out from the towns to see the "puffing devil" pass, whence it was conveyed by sea to London. In London it was put together by the carriage-builder Felton, who also fitted on the platform in front — a kind of omnibus, capable of seating eight persons. In the spring of 1803 public trials were made through Oxford Street, during which no carriages and horses were allowed in the thoroughfare. The steam carriage moved along at from five to eight miles per hour, and " there was great cheering." Further trials were made in other streets at an early hour, but there were several slight accidents. " What the devil is that machine, and what, the devil axe you doing with it?" shouted an indignant old gentleman, resident in the Tottenham Court Road, who awoke to find it knocking down his garden wall. , Shortly afterwards the inv&ntor and his ally found their pockets empty, so the carriage was sold for what it would bring, and the engine portion becaane a hoop-iron rol-ling-mill engine. Steam.' road locomotion having proved a failure, Trevithick's thoughts were next directed to the construction of a steam locomotive for tramways, with such success that in February, 1804, he- worked a tramroad locomotive in Wales, running with facility up and down inclines of 1 in 50. y B Six years later he constructed a circular railway in an enclosed piece of ground near Euston Square', on which the public was earned at a rate of fifteen miles an hour. His ideas in regard to railways were successfully developed by Stephenson, so as to revolutionise the system of modern travelling, but Trevithick had made considerable progress towards thiß ' before Stephenson had begun hia experiments. Within the limits of this paper it would be impossible

to sketch the course of events that went to make up the remainder of Trevithick's adventurous career. Suffice to say that- his end was a pitiable one, for, owing to the failure of ail his multifarious engineering schemes, he died in 1833 penniless and forsaken, and was buried in a pauper's grave. I