"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car; Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying chariot through the fields of air. Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, Shall wave their flutt'ring kerchiefs as they move; Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud."
The prophecy embodied in the first two lines of the passage has certainly been fulfilled, but the triumph of the steam balloon has yet to come.
[2] "Lives of the Engineers," vols. i. and ii.
[5] "Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides," vol. i., 142.
[6] "Railway Locomotion and Steam Navigation, their Principles and Practice." By John Curr. London, 1847.
[7] A curious account of this early project is to be found in the library of the British Museum, under the name "Stevin, 1652."
[8] The writer adds--"I believe he (Sir Humphry Mackworth) is the first gentleman in this part of the world that hath set up sailing engines on land, driven by the wind; not for any curiosity or vain applause, but for real profit; whereby he could not fail of Bishop Malkin's blessing on his undertakings, in case he were in a capacity to bestow it."
[9] See farther, "Lives of the Engineers," vol. iv., Boulton and Watt, p. 182-4.
The application of steam-power to the driving of wheel-carriages on common roads was in 1759 brought under the notice of James Watt by his young friend John Robison, then a student at the University of Glasgow. Robison prepared a rough sketch of his suggested steam-carriage, in which he proposed to place the cylinder with its open end downward, to avoid the necessity for using a working beam. Watt was then only twenty-three years old, and was very much occupied in conducting his business of a mathematical instrument maker, which he had only recently established. Nevertheless, he proceeded to construct a model locomotive provided with two cylinders of tin-plate, intending that the pistons and their connecting-rods should act alternately on two pinions attached to the axles of the carriage-wheels. But the model, when made, did not answer Watt's expectations; and when, shortly after, Robison left college to go to sea, he laid the project aside, and did not resume it for many years.