e labouring under a delusion!"

And yet his large experience of railways and locomotives, as described by
himself to the Committee, entitled this "untaught, inarticulate genius,"
as he has so well been styled, to speak with confidence on such a
subject. Beginning with his experience as a brakesman at Killingworth in
1803, he went on to state that he was appointed to take the entire charge
of the steam-engines in 1813, and had superintended the railroads
connected with the numerous collieries of the Grand Allies from that time
downwards. He had laid down or superintended the railways at Burradon,
Mount Moor, Springwell, Bedlington, Hetton, and Darlington, besides
improving those at Killingworth, South Moor, and Derwent Crook. He had
constructed fifty-five steam-engines, of which sixteen were locomotives.
Some of these had been sent to France. The engines constructed by him
for the working of the Killingworth Railroad, eleven years before, had
continued steadily at work ever since, and fulfilled his most sanguine
expectations. He was prepared to prove the safety of working
high-pressure locomotives on a railroad, and the superiority of this mode
of transporting goods over all others. As to speed, he said he had
recommended 8 miles an hour with 20 tons, and 4 miles an hour with 40
tons; but he was quite confident that much more might be done. Indeed,
he had no doubt they might go at the rate of 12 miles. As to the charge
that locomotives on a railroad would so terrify the horses in the
neighbourhood, that to travel on horseback or to plough the adjoining
fields would be rendered highly dangerous, the witness said that horses
learnt to take no notice of them, though there _were_ horses that would
shy at a wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to be more shied at by
horses than a locomotive. In the neighbourhood of Killingworth, the
cattle in the fields went on grazing while the engines passed them, and
the farmers made no complaints.

Mr. Alderson, who had carefully studied the subject, and was well skilled
in practical science, subjected the witness to a protracted and severe
cross-examination as to the speed and power of the locomotive, the stroke
of the piston, the slipping of the wheels upon the rails, and various
other points of detail. Mr. Stephenson insisted that no slipping took
place, as attempted to be extorted from him by the counsel. He said, "It
is impossible for slipping to take place so long as the