particular collieries gets worked out from time to time; and he has to
remove, accordingly, to fresh quarters, wherever employment happens to
be found. This was very much the case with George Stephenson and his
family; all of them being obliged to remove several times over during
his childish days in search of new openings. Shortly after Geordie had
attained to the responsible position of assistant fireman, his father
was compelled, by the closing of Dewley Burn mine, to get a fresh
situation hard by at Newburn. George accompanied him, and found
employment as full fireman at a small working, whose little engine he
undertook to manage in partnership with a mate, each of them tending the
fire night and day by twelve-hour shifts. Two years later, his wages
were raised to twelve shillings a week, a sure mark of his diligent and
honest work; so that George was not far wrong in remarking to a fellow-
workman at the time that he now considered himself a made man for life.

During all this time, George Stephenson never for a moment ceased to
study and endeavour to understand the working of every part in the
engine that he tended. He was not satisfied, as too many workmen are,
with merely learning the routine work of his own trade; with merely
knowing that he must turn such and such a tap or valve in order to
produce such and such a desired result: he wanted to see for himself how
and why the engine did this or that, what was the use and object of
piston and cylinder and crank and joint and condenser--in short, fully
to understand the underlying principle of its construction. He took it
to pieces for cleaning whenever it was needful; he made working models
of it after his old childish pattern; he even ventured to tinker it up
when out of order on his own responsibility. Thus he learnt at last
something of the theory of the steam-engine, and learnt also by the way
a great deal about the general principles of mechanical science. Still,
even now, incredible as it seems, the future father of railways couldn't