construction of railways. It is true, the two subjects have not,
apparently, much in common; but they are connected in this way, that
both proceed upon the principle of reducing the friction to the smallest
possible quantity. It was this principle that Stephenson was gradually
learning to appreciate more and more at its proper value; and it was
this which finally led him to the very summit of a great and pre-
eminently useful profession. The great advantage, indeed, of a level
railway over an up-and-down ordinary road is simply that in the railway
the resistance and friction are almost entirely got rid of.

It was in 1810, when Stephenson was twenty-nine, that his first
experiment in serious engineering was made. A coal-pit had been sunk at
Killingworth, and a rude steam-engine of that time had been set to pump
the water out of its shaft; but, somehow, the engine made no headway
against the rising springs at the bottom of the mine. For nearly a year
the engine worked away in vain, till at last, one Saturday afternoon,
Geordie Stephenson went over to examine her. "Well, George," said a
pitman, standing by, "what do you think of her?" "Man," said George,
boldly, "I could alter her and make her draw. In a week I could let you
all go the bottom." The pitman reported this confident speech of the
young brakesman to the manager; and the manager, at his wits' end for a
remedy, determined to let this fellow Stephenson try his hand at her.
After all, if he did no good, he would be much like all the others; and
anyhow he seemed to have confidence in himself, which, if well grounded,
is always a good thing.

George's confidence _was_ well grounded. It was not the confidence
of ignorance, but that of knowledge. He _understood_ the engine
now, and he saw at once the root of the evil. He picked the engine to
pieces, altered it to suit the requirements of the case, and set it to