Perhaps the most remarkable locomotive ever conceived and constructed was one built by Brunton, of Derbyshire, in 1813. This machine was designed to go upon legs like a horse, and was a combination of steam wagon and mechanical horse. The wagon part of the combination ran upon a track like an ordinary car, while the mechanical legs were designed to trot behind and "kick the wagon along." "The legs or propellers, imitated the legs of a man or the fore-legs of a horse, with joints, and when worked by the machine alternately lifted and pressed against the ground or road, propelling the engine forward, as a man shoves a boat ahead by pressing with a pole against the bottom of a river." This machine was able to travel at a rate somewhat slower than that at which a man usually walks; and its tractive force was that of four horses. But after it had demonstrated its impotency by crawling along for a few miles, it terminated its career by "blowing up in disgust," killing and injuring several by-standers. The much disputed point as to whether a smooth-wheeled locomotive would be practical on smooth rails was not settled until 1813. An inventor named Blackett, of Wylam, who with his engineer, William Hedley, had built several steam locomotives which only managed to crawl along the tracks under the most favorable conditions, wishing to determine if it were the fault of locomotives or the system on which they worked that accounted for his failures, constructed a car which was propelled by six men working levers geared to the wheels, like the modern hand-car. In this way he determined that there was sufficient adhesion between smooth rails and smooth wheels for locomotives to haul heavy loads behind them, even on grades of considerable incline. The experiments of Blackett settled this question beyond the possibility of controversy, and removed a very important obstacle from the path of future inventors. Among these inventors was young George Stephenson, who was rapidly making a reputation for himself as a practical engineer. [Illustration: GEORGE STEPHENSON] STEPHENSON SOLVES THE PROBLEM Stephenson was born on June 9, 1781, in the small colliery village of Wylam, on the river Tyne. His parents were extremely poor, and as the boy was sent to work as soon as he was large enough to find employment of any kind, he was given no education, even to the extent of learning the alphabet. It was only after he had spent many years in the colliery, and had finally worked himself up from the position of "picker" at three pence a day to that of fireman, that he was able to spend the necessary time and pennies to acquire something of an education. Then he attended a night school, learned his alphabet, was able to scrawl his name at eighteen years of age, and a little later could read, write, and do sums in arithmetic.