Transcriber’s Notes Hyphenation has been standardised. The Transcriber has constructed a ‘List of Illustrations’, as none was supplied. Page 132 — changed possibilites to =possibilities= [Illustration: THE TOWER BRIDGE, LONDON, SHOWING THE BASCULES RAISED.] ENGINEERS AND THEIR TRIUMPHS: _THE STORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE—THE STEAMSHIP—BRIDGE BUILDING—TUNNEL MAKING._ BY F. M. HOLMES, AUTHOR OF “FOUR HEROES OF INDIA,” ETC. [Illustration] FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO _Publishers of Evangelical Literature._ [Illustration] PREFACE. Without attempting to be exhaustive, this little book aims at describing in a purely popular and non-technical manner some of the great achievements of engineers, more particularly during the nineteenth century. The four departments chosen have been selected not in pursuance of any comprehensive plan, but because they present some of the more striking features of constructional effort. The term Engineering, however, includes the design and supervision of numerous works, such as roads and canals, docks and break-waters, machinery and mining, as well as steam-engines and steamships, bridges and tunnels. Information, in certain cases, has been gained at first-hand, and I have to acknowledge the courtesy of the managers of the Cunard and White Star Steamship Companies, Messrs. Maudslay, Sons & Field, and others, in supplying various particulars. The narrative concerning Henry Bell and the steamship _Comet_, and of his connection with Fulton, is chiefly based on a letter from Bell himself in the _Caledonian Mercury_ in 1816. The statement that Mr. Macgregor Laird was so largely instrumental in founding the British and American Steam Navigation Company is made on the authority of his daughter, Miss Eleanor Bristow Laird. An article on “The Genesis of the Steamship,” which I wrote in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, brought a letter from that lady in which she declares that her father was the prime mover in founding the Company. He had had experience, in the Niger Expedition of 1832-33, of the behaviour of steamships both at sea and in the river, and from the date of his return to England she asserts he advocated the establishment of steam communication between England and America, against the active opposition of Dr. Lardner and others. “Macgregor Laird’s claim to the foremost place amongst all those (not excepting Brunel) who worked for the same object,” writes Miss Laird, “was clearly shown in a letter from the late Mr. Archibald Hamilton of 17 St. Helen’s Place, E.C., to the editor of the _Shipping and Mercantile Gazette_, in which paper it was published on 15th May, 1873.”