making the impossible possible. He simply floated his line on a
broad bottom, like a ship, on the top of the quaking quagmire; and
proceeded to lay down his rails on this seemingly fragile support
without further scruple. It answered admirably, and still answers
to the present day. The other works on the railway, especially the
cuttings, were such as might well have appalled the boldest heart
in those experimental ages of railway enterprise. It is easy
enough for us now to undertake tunnelling great hills or filling up
wide valleys with long ranges of viaduct, because the thing has
been done so often, and the prospect of earning a fair return on
the money sunk can be calculated with so high a degree of
reasonable probability. But it required no little faith for George
Stephenson and his backers to drive a level road, for the first
time, through solid rocks and over trembling morasses, the whole
way from Liverpool to Manchester. He persevered, however, and in
1830, after four years' toilsome and ceaseless labour, during which
he had worked far-harder than the sturdiest navvy on the line, his
railway was finally opened for regular traffic.

Before the completion of the railway, George Stephenson had taken
part in a great contest for the best locomotive at Liverpool, a
prize of 500 pounds having been offered by the company to the
successful competitor. Stephenson sent in his improved model, the
Rocket, constructed after plans of his own and his son Robert's,
and it gained the prize against all its rivals, travelling at what
was then considered the incredible rate of 35 miles an hour. It
was thus satisfactorily settled that the locomotive was the best
power for drawing carriages on railways, and George Stephenson's
long battle was thus at last practically won.