But while Mr. Baldwin, in common with many other builders, was thus resolutely opposing the link-motion, it was nevertheless rapidly gaining favor with railroad managers. Engineers and master mechanics were everywhere learning to admire its simplicity, and were manifesting an enthusiastic preference for engines so constructed. At length, therefore, he was forced to succumb; and the link was applied to the "Pennsylvania," one of two engines completed for the Central Railroad of Georgia, in February, 1854. The other engine of the order, the "New Hampshire," had the variable cut-off, and Mr. Baldwin, while yielding to the demand in the former engine, was undoubtedly sanguine that the working of the latter would demonstrate the inferiority of the new device. In this, however, he was disappointed, for in the following year the same company ordered three more engines, on which they specified the link-motion. In 1856, seventeen engines for nine different companies had this form of valve gear, and its use was thus incorporated in his practice. It was not, however, until 1857 that he was induced to adopt it exclusively. This step was forced upon him, at that time, by the report of Mr. Parry, then Superintendent of the Works (now a member of the present firm), who, on returning from an extended tour in the South, brought back the intelligence that the link-motion was everywhere preferred, and that the Baldwin engines were losing ground rapidly, in consequence of their lack of this feature. Mr. Baldwin's characteristic reply was, "Then they shall have link-motion hereafter." And thenceforth the independent cut-off gradually disappeared, and the link reigned in its stead. February 14, 1854, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. David Clark, Master Mechanic of the Mine Hill Railroad, took out conjointly a patent for a feed-water heater, placed at the base of a locomotive chimney, and consisting of one large vertical flue, surrounded by a number of smaller ones. The exhaust steam was discharged from the nozzles through the large central flue, creating a draft of the products of combustion through the smaller surrounding flues. The pumps forced the feed-water into the chamber around these flues, whence it passed to the boiler by a pipe from the back of the stack. This heater was applied on several engines for the Mine Hill Railroad, and on a few for other roads; but its use was exceptional, and lasted only for a year or two. In December of the same year, Mr. Baldwin filed a caveat for a variable exhaust, operated automatically, by the pressure of steam, so as to close when the pressure was lowest in the boiler, and open with the increase of pressure. The device was never put in service.