It is well known to them, that in the year 1810 we had neither a steam-vessel nor a gas-work in the kingdom: the propositions to adopt both those important inventions being _then_ termed and treated, just as this proposition of mine is now termed and treated, i.e. as “impossible, absurd, and madness to think of.” Yet have they seen that a sum of (roundly speaking) ten millions, has, since that period, been sunk in the construction of gas-works and steam-vessels.
With proofs such as these before them (and which have led to the consumption of so much of their production as gas-works and mains require), that, what they, a few years ago, deemed utterly impossible, may, nevertheless, be quite the reverse—it might have been supposed that the iron masters would not prove, either incredulous to, or bigoted against, the belief that a still more important extension of the use of their article was about to open to them.
But, to my great surprise, I have found, that of all unbelievers, the iron masters have proved the most unbelieving.
Other people doubted only because the want of knowledge on the subject, which they openly avowed, left them no alternative. But, in the iron masters, I have had “to contend with the pride of false knowledge.” The world at large said, “We cannot believe, because we cannot understand.” But the iron masters say, “We do not believe, because _we_ know better.”
On asking them how and why they “knew better,” I found that it was not, as some might suppose, from any doubt or difficulty as to the tunnel itself; which they admitted could be cast and laid down, of any size or dimensions that might be required. Neither was it from any doubt as to steam-engines or air-pumps being large and powerful enough to do what was necessary;—the tens of thousands of gallons of air ejected per minute, from the air-pumps which they use to blow the fires of their smelting-furnaces, and the hundreds of horses power they know steam-engines are made equal to, removing all question on these points. { 46} But their incredulity arose from a difficulty which one of them had met with, in forcing air through a pipe; and of which they supposed me ignorant; but to which I had adverted, in a publication years before, in the following words: