e between Poulton, near Lancaster,
and Humphrey Head on the opposite coast, forming the line in a segment of
a circle of five miles' radius. His plan was to drive in piles across
the entire length, forming a solid fence of stone blocks on the land side
for the purpose of retaining the sand and silt brought down by the rivers
from the interior. The embankment would then be raised from time to time
as the deposit accumulated, until the land was filled up to high-water
mark; provision being made by means of sufficient arches, for the flow of
the river waters into the bay. The execution of the railway after this
plan would, however, have occupied more years than the promoters of the
West Coast line were disposed to wait; and eventually Mr. Locke's more
direct but uneven line by Shap Fell was adopted. A railway has since
been carried across the head of the bay; and it is not improbable that
Stephenson's larger scheme of reclaiming the vast tract of land now left
bare at each receding tide, may yet be carried out.

While occupied in carrying out the great railway undertakings which we
have above so briefly described, Mr. Stephenson's home continued, for the
greater part of the time, to be at Alton Grange, near Leicester. But he
was so much occupied in travelling about from one committee of directors
to another--one week in England, another in Scotland, and probably the
next in Ireland,--that he often did not see his home for weeks together.
He had also to make frequent inspections of the various important and
difficult works in progress, especially on the Midland and Manchester and
Leeds lines; besides occasionally going to Newcastle to see how the
locomotive works were going on there. During the three years ending in
1837--perhaps the busiest years of his life {263}--he travelled by
postchaise alone upwards of 20,000 miles, and yet not less than six
months out of the three years were spent in London. Hence there is
comparatively little to record of Mr. Stephenson's private life at this
period; during which he had scarcely a moment that he could call his own.

His correspondence increased so much, that he found it necessary to
engage a private secretary, who accompanied him on his journeys. He was
himself exceedingly averse to writing letters. The comparatively
advanced age at which ho learnt the art of writing, and the nature of his
duties while engaged at the Killingworth colliery, precluded that
facility in corres