Mr. Blenkinsop’s engines began running on the railway from the Middleton Collieries to Leeds, about 3½ miles, on the 12th of August, 1812. They continued for many years to be one of the principal curiosities of the place, and were visited by strangers from all parts. In 1816, the Grand Duke Nicholas (afterwards Emperor) of Russia observed the working of Blenkinsop’s locomotive with curious interest and admiration. An engine dragged as many as thirty coal-waggons at a speed of about 3¼ miles per hour. These engines continued for many years to be thus employed in the haulage of coal, and furnished the first instance of the regular employment of locomotive power for commercial purposes. The Messrs. Chapman, of Newcastle, in 1812, endeavoured to overcome the same fictitious difficulty of the want of adhesion between the wheel and the rail, by patenting a locomotive to work along the road by means of a chain stretched from one end of it to the other. This chain was passed once round a grooved barrel-wheel under the centre of the engine: so that, when the wheel turned, the locomotive, as it were, dragged itself along the railway. An engine, constructed after this plan, was tried on the Heaton Railway, near Newcastle; but it was so clumsy in its action, there was so great a loss of power by friction, and it was found to be so expensive and difficult to keep in repair, that it was soon abandoned. Another remarkable expedient was adopted by Mr. Brunton, of the Butterley Works, Derbyshire, who, in 1813, patented his Mechanical Traveller, to go _upon legs_ working alternately like those of a horse. {73} But this engine never got beyond the experimental state, for, at its very first trial, the driver, to make sure of a good start, overloaded the safety-valve, when the boiler burst and killed a number of the bystanders, wounding many more. These, and other contrivances with the same object, projected about the same time, show that invention was actively at work, and that many minds were anxiously labouring to solve the important problem of locomotive traction upon railways. But the difficulties contended with by these early inventors, and the step-by-step progress which they made, will probably be best illustrated by the experiments conducted by Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, which are all the more worthy of notice, as the persevering efforts of this gentleman in a great measure paved the way for the labours of George Stephenson, who, shortly after, took up the question of steam locomotion, and brought it to a successful issue.