The "Rocket" had eclipsed the performance of all locomotive engines that had yet been constructed, and outstripped even the sanguine expectations of its constructors. It satisfactorily answered the report of Messrs. Walker and Rastrick, and established the efficiency of the locomotive for working the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and, indeed, all future railways. The "Rocket" showed that a new power had been born into the world, full of activity and strength, with boundless capability of work. It was the simple but admirable contrivance of the steam-blast, and its combination with the multitubular boiler, that at once gave locomotion a vigorous life, and secured the triumph of the railway system.[8] [Illustration: The "Rocket"] FOOTNOTES: [7] The conditions were these: 1. The engine must effectually consume its own smoke. 2. The engine, if of six tons' weight, must be able to draw after it, day by day, twenty tons' weight (including the tender and water-tank) at _ten miles_ an hour, with a pressure of steam on the boiler not exceeding fifty pounds to the square inch. 3. The boiler must have two safety-valves, neither of which must be fastened down, and one of them be completely out of the control of the engine-man. 4. The engine and boiler must be supported on springs, and rest on six wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding fifteen feet to the top of the chimney. 5. The engine, with water, must not weigh more than six tons; but an engine of less weight would be preferred on its drawing a proportionate load behind it; if of only four and a half tons, then it might be put on only four wheels. The company will be at liberty to test the boiler, etc., by a pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch. 6. A mercurial gauge must be affixed to the machine, showing the steam pressure above forty-five pounds per square inch. 7. The engine must be delivered, complete and ready for trial, at the Liverpool end of the railway, not later than the 1st of October, 1829. 8. The price of the engine must not exceed L550. Many persons of influence declared the conditions published by the directors of the railway chimerical in the extreme. One gentleman of some eminence in Liverpool, Mr. P. Ewart, who afterward filled the office of Government Inspector of Post-office Steam Packets, declared that only a parcel of charlatans would ever have issued such a set of conditions; that it had been _proved_ to be impossible to make a locomotive engine go at ten miles an hour; but if it ever was done, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel for his breakfast. [8] When heavier and more powerful engines were brought upon the road, the old "Rocket," becoming regarded as a thing of no value, was sold in 1837. It has since been transferred to the Museum of Patents at South Kensington, London, where it is still to be seen. Transcriber's Notes: Page 30--imployed changed to employed. Page 31--subsequenty changed to subsequently.