"Sir William Fairbairn said he had come to the conclusion, after many years' experience, that it was in their power to economize the present expenditure of fuel by a system which might not be altogether in accordance with the views of the members of the association or the public at large, and that was to increase the pressure of steam. He would have great pleasure in stating a few facts which might some day tend to bring about a change, if not a new era, in the use of steam. From the result of a series of experimental researches in which he had been engaged for several years on the density, force, and temperature of steam, he had become convinced that in case we were ever to attain a large economy of fuel in the use of steam, it must be at greatly-increased pressure, and at a rate of expansion greatly enlarged from what it was at present. Already steam users had effected a saving of one-half the coal consumed by raising the pressure from 7 lbs. and 10 lbs.--the pressure at which engines were worked forty years ago--to 50 lbs., or in some cases as high as 70 lbs. on the square inch."[196] [Footnote 196: 'The Engineer,' March 15th, 1872: remarks by the Chairman at a meeting of the Manchester Steam Users' Association.] Dear me! would have been Trevithick's exclamation had he read this; did I devote my whole life to the making known the advantages of high-pressure steam, and did I, seventy years ago,[197] really work expansive steam of 145 lbs. on the inch in the presence of many of the leading engineers of the day! Of course this short extract of a speech made by a member of a practical society, may not be taken as conveying fully the speaker's views, but it illustrates the immense difficulty Trevithick encountered in making his numerous plans acceptable to the public. [Footnote 197: See Trevithick's letter, August 20th, 1802, vol. i., p. 154.] Another modern statement bearing on inventions originating with Trevithick, but wearing new garbs with new names, shows the same tendency to ignore old friends, or, to say the least of it, to pass them by:--