gineer to push on the works with
increased vigour. Mr. Cropper, one of the directors, who took an active
interest in their progress, said to Stephenson one day, "Now, George,
thou must get on with the railway, and have it finished without further
delay; thou must really have it ready for opening by the first day of
January next." "Consider the heavy character of the works, sir, and how
much we have been delayed by the want of money, not to speak of the
wetness of the weather: it is impossible." "Impossible!" rejoined
Cropper; "I wish I could get Napoleon to thee--he would tell thee there
is no such word as 'impossible' in the vocabulary." "Tush!" exclaimed
Stephenson, with warmth; "don't speak to me about Napoleon! Give me men,
money, and materials, and I will do what Napoleon couldn't do--drive a
railway from Liverpool to Manchester over Chat Moss!"

The works made rapid progress in the course of the year 1829. Double
sets of labourers were employed on Chat Moss and at other points, by
night and day, the night shifts working by torch and fire light; and at
length, the work advancing at all points, the directors saw their way to
the satisfactory completion of the undertaking.

It may well be supposed that Mr. Stephenson's time was fully occupied in
superintending the extensive, and for the most part novel works,
connected with the railway, and that even his extraordinary powers of
labour and endurance were taxed to the utmost during the four years that
they were in progress. Almost every detail in the plans was directed and
arranged by himself. Every bridge, from the simplest to the most
complicated, including the then novel structure of the "skew bridge,"
iron girders, siphons, fixed engines, and the machinery for working the
tunnel at the Liverpool end, had to be thought out by his own head, and
reduced to definite plans under his own eyes. Besides all this, he had
to design the working plant in anticipation of the opening of the
railway. He must be prepared with waggons, trucks, and carriages,
himself superintending their manufacture. The permanent road,
turntables, switches, and crossings,--in short, the entire structure and
machinery of the line, from the turning of the first sod to the running
of the first train of carriages upon the railway,--were executed under
his immediate supervision. And it was in the midst of this vast
accumulation of work and responsibility that the battle of the locomotive
en