Several other "traveling engines," as they were then styled, were invented by other mechanical engineers with only moderate success, it being reserved for Stephenson, in 1811, to build the first locomotive that should prove of practical use. About this time a man named Thomas Gray, of Nottingham, England, brought upon himself the contempt and ridicule of the whole English nation by pushing forward the idea of the locomotive in connection with coal mines. [Illustration: OLD NO. 1.] "It is all very well to spend money on these railway schemes," said a member of parliament about that time referring to Gray's projects, "it will do some good to the poor, but I will eat all the coals your railways will ever carry." 127,000,000 tons were carried recently in one year, on English railroads alone. What a tough time this parliamentary slow coach would have had to swallow all that! The first practical locomotive in the world--Stephenson's invention, was Old No. 1, which pulled the first regular train on the Stockton and Darlington R. R. on Tuesday, September 27, 1825. Old No. 1 cost $2,500 to build. It was a very clumsy affair; nothing better, in fact, than a big boiler on four wheels, which were moved by great levers worked by pistons from the top of the machine. [Illustration: THE ROCKET.] Old No. 1 has been preserved, and was, in the year 1859, placed upon a pedestal in that English town of Darlington as a public memorial of the beginning of the railway. No sooner had the Stockton and Darlington R. R. proved itself a success than all England was in arms against it. Here are some of the absurd objections urged against railroads, taken from the newspapers of the day. Steam horses were "contrary to nature;" they were "damaging to good morals and religion;" the smoke of the locomotive would "obscure the sun, and thereby ruin the crops." Farmyards and farmhouses would be burned by their sparks; the clanking, puffing locomotive would have such an effect on the mind as to drive people crazy (this was backed up by certificates from a dozen doctors); locomotives would cause springs to dry up and fields to become sterile; they would create great chasms by constantly running over the same ground. What twaddle! Yet all their objections were made in good faith, and we have by no means selected the most absurd. Old No. 1. proving too clumsy, a lighter locomotive was soon after built by Stephenson, called the "Rocket," which we illustrate. It won a prize of $1,500 in 1829, and is still preserved in the great locomotive works at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. The first railroad in America was built from the granite quarries of Quincy, Mass., to the Neponset river, a few miles distant. Peter Cooper built one of the first American locomotives. It ran on the Baltimore and Ohio R. R., and was called the Tom Thumb. The boiler of the Tom Thumb was built of gun barrels and shaped like a huge bottle standing upright upon a simple platform car.