ANTICIPATIONS.
[TO THE EDITOR OIF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Writing under this heading in the Spectator of February 22nd, Sir Herbert Maxwell states that Hedley's ‘Puffmg Billy' of 1813 was the first railway locomotive. This, however, is not correct, as Trevithick made one which worked at Pen-y-darren, in South Wales, on a tram-road in 1804, and another which ran on a circular railway on the site of Euston Square in 1808. Trevithick has not had justice done to him by the public, for it is not generally recognised that the three great principles on which the power and speed of the locomotive depend were introduced by him,—viz. (1) the high-pressure steam-engine, (2) the smooth driving-wheel acting on the smooth rail, (3) the draught produced by the projection of the exhaust steam up the chimney. Although his blast-pipe had not the contracted orifice, it gave a good draught, as evidenced not only by his letters which are still extant, but by the testimony of Davies Gilbert (at one time President of the Royal Society) in 1805. The contracted orifice was first used in a railway locomotive by Hackworth at the Rainhill trials in 1829, and probably in a road locomotive by Goldsworthy Gurney shortly before that date. These three principles, of which (2) and (3) were discoveries of Trevithick, were embodied in his locomotives of 1804 and 1808, when no one else had constructed one.—I am, Sir, &c., 0. G. BOLITHO,
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