Smiles,[51] his biographer, describes his cottage as a perfect curiosity-shop, filled with models of engines, machines of various kinds, and novel apparatus. He connected the cradles of his neighbors' wives with the smoke-jacks in their chimneys, and thus relieved them from constant attendance upon their infants; he fished at night with a submarine lamp, which attracted the fish from all sides, and gave him wonderful luck; he also found time to give colloquial instruction to his fellow-workmen. [51] "Lives of George and Robert Stephenson," by Samuel Smiles. New York and London, 1868. He built a self-acting inclined plane for his pit, on which the wagons, descending loaded, drew up the empty trains; and made so many improvements at the Killingworth pit, that the number of horses employed underground was reduced from 100 to 16. Stephenson now had more liberty than when employed at the brakes, and, hearing of the experiments of Blackett and Hedley at Wylam, went over to their colliery to study their engine. He also went to Leeds to see the Blenkinsop engine draw, at a trial, 70 tons at the rate of 3 miles an hour, and expressed his opinion in the characteristic remark, "I think I could make a better engine than that to go upon legs." He very soon made the attempt. Having laid the subject before the proprietors of the lease under which the collieries were worked, and convinced Lord Ravensworth, the principal owner, of the advantages to be secured by the use of a "traveling engine," that nobleman advanced the money required. Stephenson at once commenced his first locomotive-engine, building it in the workshops at West Moor, assisted mainly by John Thirlwall, the colliery blacksmith, during the years 1813 and 1814, completing it in July of the latter year. This engine had a wrought-iron boiler 8 feet long and 2 feet 10 inches in diameter, with a single flue 20 inches in diameter. The cylinders were vertical, 8 inches in diameter and of 2 feet stroke of piston, set in the boiler, and driving a set of wheels which geared with each other and with other cogged wheels on the two driving-axles. A feed-water heater surrounded the base of the chimney. This engine drew 30 tons on a rising gradient of 10 or 12 feet to the mile at the rate of 4 miles an hour. This engine proved in many respects defective, and the cost of its operation was found to be about as great as that of employing horse-power. Stephenson determined to build another engine on a somewhat different plan, and patented its design in February, 1815. It proved a much more efficient machine than the "Blücher," the first engine. [Illustration: FIG. 51.--Stephenson's Locomotive of 1815. Section.]