Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/336

320 opinion. "Ah," said the banker, "I don't approve of this new mode of travelling. It will enable our clerks to plunder us, and then be off to Liverpool on their way to America at the rate of twenty miles an hour." I suggested that science might perhaps remedy this evil, and that possibly we might send lightning to outstrip the culprit's arrival at Liverpool, and thus render the railroad a sure means of arresting the thief. I had at the time I uttered those words no idea how soon they would be realized.

In 1838 and 1839 a discussion of considerable public importance had arisen respecting the Great Western Railway. Having an interest in that undertaking, it was the wish of Mr. Brunel and the Directors that I should state my own opinion upon the question. I felt that I could not speak with confidence without making certain experiments. The Directors therefore lent me steam-power, and a second-class carriage to fit up with machinery of my own contrivance, and appointed one of their officers to accompany me, through whom I might give such directions as I deemed necessary during my experiments.

I removed the whole of the internal parts of the carriage. Through its bottom firm supports, fixed upon the framework below, passed up into the body of the carriage, and supported a long table entirely independent of its motions.

On this table slowly rolled sheets of paper, each a thousand feet long. Several inking pens traced curves on this paper, which expressed the following measures:—

1. Force of traction.

2. Vertical shake of carriage at its middle.

3. Lateral ditto.

4. End ditto.

5, 6, and 7. The same shakes at the end of the carriage.