ety-valve loaded to a pressure of fifty pounds to
the square inch. This proceeding occupied fifty-seven minutes. The
engine then started on its journey, dragging after it about thirteen
tons' weight in waggons, and made the first ten trips backward and
forward along two miles of road, running the thirty-five miles,
including stoppages, in an hour and forty-eight minutes. The second ten
trips were in like manner performed in two hours and three minutes. The
maximum velocity attained during the trial trip was twenty-nine miles an
hour, or about three times the speed that one of the judges of the
competition had declared to be the limit of possibility. The average
speed at which the whole of the journeys was performed was fifteen miles
an hour, or five miles beyond the rate specified in the conditions
published by the company. The entire performance excited the greatest
astonishment among the assembled spectators; the directors felt
confident that their enterprise was now on the eve of success; and
George Stephenson rejoiced to think that, in spite of all false prophets
and fickle counsellors, the locomotive system was now safe. When the
"Rocket," having performed all the conditions of the contest, arrived at
the "grand stand" at the close of its day's successful run, Mr.
Cropper--one of the directors favourable to the fixed engine
system--lifted up his hands, and exclaimed, "Now has George Stephenson
at last delivered himself...."

The "Rocket" had eclipsed the performance of all locomotive engines that
had yet been constructed, and outstripped even the sanguine expectations
of its constructors. It satisfactorily answered the report of Messrs.
Walker and Rastrick, and established the efficiency of the locomotive
for working the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and, indeed, all
future railways. The "Rocket" showed that a new power had been born into
the world, full of activity and strength, with boundless capability of
work. It was the simple but admirable contrivance of the steam-blast,
and its combination with the multitubular boiler, that at once gave
locomotion a vigorous life, and secured the triumph of the railway
system.[8]

[Illustration: The "Rocket"]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] The conditions were these:

1. The engine must effectually consume its own smoke.

2. The engine, if of six tons' weight, must be able to draw after it,
day by day, twenty tons' weight (including the tender and water-tank) at
_ten miles_ a