o the pursuit of such a study; and it was the practice of
Professor Jameson frequently to head a band of his pupils, armed with
hammers, chisels, and clinometers, and take them with him on a long
ramble into the country, for the purpose of teaching them habits of
observation and reading to them from the open book of Nature itself. At
the close of this session, the professor took with him a select body of
his pupils on an excursion along the Great Glen of the Highlands, in the
line of the Caledonian Canal, and Robert formed one of the party. They
passed under the shadow of Ben Nevis, examined the famous old sea-margins
known as the "parallel roads of Glen Roy," and extended their journey as
far as Inverness; the professor teaching the young men as they travelled
how to observe in a mountain country. Not long before his death, Robert
Stephenson spoke in glowing terms of the great pleasure and benefit which
he had derived from that interesting excursion. "I have travelled far,
and enjoyed much," he said; "but that delightful botanical and geological
journey I shall never forget; and I am just about to start in the
_Titania_ for a trip round the east coast of Scotland, returning south
through the Caledonian Canal, to refresh myself with the recollection of
that first and brightest tour of my life."

Towards the end of the summer of 1822 the young student returned to
Killingworth to re-enter upon the active business of life. The six
months' study had cost his father 80 pounds; but he was amply repaid by
the better scientific culture which his son had acquired, and the
evidence of ability and industry which he was enabled to exhibit in a
prize for mathematics which he had won at the University.

CHAPTER VIII.
GEORGE STEPHENSON ENGINEER OF THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY.

The district west of Darlington, in Durham, is one of the richest mineral
fields of the North. Vast stores of coal underlie the Bishop Auckland
Valley; and from an early period new and good roads to market were felt
to be exceedingly desirable. As yet it remained almost a closed field,
the cost of transport of the coal in carts, or on horses' or donkeys'
backs, greatly limiting the sale. Long ago, in the days of canal
formations, Brindley was consulted about a canal; afterwards, in 1812, a
tramroad was surveyed by Rennie; and eventually, in 1817, a railway was
projected from Darlington to Stockton-on-Tees.

[Picture: Map of