And in due time his quiet work bore fruit. He invented a safety-lamp which alone should have entitled him to the gratitude of posterity. He then set himself to improve the locomotive, and fit it for the future which his prescient mind discerned, and on a fair field he vanquished all competitors. He then sought to adapt the roadway to the engine and make it fit for its new work. And then, hardest task of all, he had to convince the public that railway travelling was a possible thing; that it could he made safe, cheap, and rapid. In doing this he was compelled to design, plan, and execute almost everything with his own mind and hand. All classes and interests were against him, the engineers, the land owners, the legislature, and the public. He had to encounter the phantoms of ignorance and fear, the solid resistance of vested interests, and the bottomless quagmires of Chat Moss. But he triumphed! And it was a well-earned reward as he looked down from his pleasant retreat at Tapton upon the iron bands which glistened below, to know that they were part of a network which was spreading over the whole land and becoming the one highway of transit and commerce. Nor was this all his satisfaction. He knew that Europe and America were welcoming the railway, and that it was promising to link together the whole civilized world. “Of the ‘profit’ of his labours to humanity I scarcely venture to speak, since it cannot possibly be told in a few words. The railway system has revolutionised society. It has powerfully affected every class, every interest and department of life. It has given an incredible impulse to commerce, quickened human thought, created a new language, new habits, tastes and pleasures. It has opened up fields of industry and enterprise inaccessible and unknown before. It has cheapened the necessaries and comforts of life, enhanced the value of property, promoted the fellowship of class with class, and brought unnumbered benefits and advantages within the reach of all. And it is yet, as to the world at large, but in the infancy of its development.