his views to his father on the subject. The
estate lay in the immediate neighbourhood of the railway; and if the
conjecture proved correct, the finding of coal would necessarily greatly
enhance its value. He accordingly requested his father to come over to
Snibston and look at the property, which he did; and after a careful
inspection of the ground, he arrived at the same conclusion as his son.

The large manufacturing town of Leicester, about fourteen miles distant,
had up to that time been exclusively supplied with coal brought by canal
from Derbyshire; and Mr. Stephenson saw that the railway under
construction from Swannington to Leicester, would furnish him with a
ready market for any coals which he might find at Snibston. Having
induced two of his Liverpool friends to join him in the venture, the
Snibston estate was purchased in 1831: and shortly after, Stephenson
removed his home from Liverpool to Alton Grange, for the purpose of
superintending the sinking of the pit. He travelled thither by gig with
his wife,--his favourite horse "Bobby" performing the journey by easy
stages.

Sinking operations were immediately begun, and proceeded satisfactorily
until the old enemy, water, burst in upon the workmen, and threatened to
drown them out. But by means of efficient pumping-engines, and the
skilful casing of the shaft with segments of cast-iron--a process called
"tubbing," {234} which Mr. Stephenson was the first to adopt in the
Midland Counties--it was eventually made water-tight, and the sinking
proceeded. When a depth of 166 feet had been reached, a still more
formidable difficulty presented itself--one which had baffled former
sinkers in the neighbourhood, and deterred them from further operations.
This was a remarkable bed of whinstone or green-stone, which had
originally been poured out as a sheet of burning lava over the denuded
surface of the coal measures; indeed it was afterwards found that it had
turned to cinders one part of the seam of coal with which it had come in
contact. The appearance of this bed of solid rock was so unusual a
circumstance in coal mining, that some experienced sinkers urged
Stephenson to proceed no further, believing the occurrence of the dyke at
that point to be altogether fatal to his enterprise. But, with his faith
still firm in the existence of coal underneath, he fell back on his old
motto of "Persevere." He determined to go on boring; and down through
the solid rock he