Soon after Mr. Allen’s return he sent me a drawing of his four-opening equilibrium valve with adjustable pressure-plate. I realized the great value of this most original invention, now so well known, but its adoption required a rescheming of the valve-gear, and that had to be postponed for some years. In setting up the engine in the works of Easton, Amos & Sons, I had a curious example of English pertinacity. Old Mr. Amos said to me, “Porter, where is your pump?” “The engine has no pump.” “No pump!” “No, sir; we consider a feed-pump as an adjunct to the boiler, never put it on the engine, and generally employ independent feed-pumps which can be adjusted to the proper speed. Besides, a feed-pump could not be run satisfactorily at the speed of this engine.” He heard me through, and then, with a look of utter disgust, exclaimed: “If a man should sell me a musket and tell me it had no stock, lock, or barrel, these were all extra, I should think it just about as sensible.” Nothing would do but that this engine must have a pump. I had intended to cut off the projecting end of the shaft, but Mr. Amos ordered this to be left, and had an eccentric fitted on it, and set a vertical pump on the floor to be driven by this eccentric, at 225 double strokes per minute. Also the feed-pipe had to be over 50 feet long, with three elbows. Of course, as the boys say, we had a circus. A mechanic had a daily job, mornings, when the engine was not running, securing that pump on its foundation. The trembling and pounding in the feed-pipe were fearful. I suggested an air-chamber. They sent word to me that they had put on an air-chamber, but it did no good. I went to look at it, and found a very small air-chamber in the middle of the length of the pipe, where it seemed to me more likely to do harm. At my suggestion they got one of suitable size and attached it to the pump outlet, when the noise and trembling mostly disappeared, as well as the disposition of the pump to break loose. It did fairly well after that, and they made it answer, although I do not suppose it ever one quarter filled. Mr. Amos was the consulting engineer of the Royal Agricultural Society. At this exhibition American reapers made an invasion of England. Mr. Amos set his face against them, and in reply to my question, what objection he made to them, he said, “We prefer to get our grain into the barn, instead of strewing it over the field.” And yet this man, the engineering head of this firm, was the only man in England, so far as I knew, advanced enough to take up the Wolff system of compounding, and who had bought my engine to run at 225 revolutions per minute, which it continued to do with complete satisfaction until some years later, when these works were removed to a location on the Thames, east of London, when I lost sight of them.