In order to obtain an ample supply of water for their engines, the Company at considerable expense sank at Camden an Artesian well 10 feet in diameter and 140 feet deep. The produce of this well, pumped by a high-pressure steam-engine of 27-horsepower into two immense cisterns 110 feet above the rails at Euston Square, supplies all the Camden Station, all the Company’s houses adjoining, the whole of the Euston Station, as well as the Victoria and Euston Hotels, with most beautiful clear water; and yet--though every man who drinks it or who shaves with it admires it, and though every lady who makes tea with it certifies that it is particularly well adapted for that purpose--strange to say, it disagrees so dreadfully with the stomachs of the locomotive engines--(who would ever suspect _them_ to be more delicate than our own?)--that the Company have been obliged, at great inconvenience and cost, to obtain water for them elsewhere. The boilers of the locomotives were not only chemically liable to be incrusted with a deposition of the unusual quantity of soda contained in the Artesian-well water at Camden Station; but, not even waiting for this inconvenience, the engine without metaphor spit it out--ejecting it from the boiler with the steam through the funnel-pipe, a well-known misfortune termed by engineers “_priming_.” As much time would be required for each travelling engine to get up its steam _ab initio_, a coke-furnace has been constructed at Camden Station to hasten the operation. Here nine men during the day, and the same number throughout the night, are continually employed to heat coke, which by means of iron shovels is to be delivered red-hot into the engines’ furnaces. These preparations having been made, the driver’s duties are as follows:-- On leaving the shed in the morning the engine, after having been heated at the coke-furnace, is conducted on to a great turn-table 40 feet in diameter, which twists it towards a set of rails leading to the water-crane, where it imbibes at one draught about a thousand gallons of cold water, which, under ordinary circumstances, will enable it to draw its train about 40 miles; although in slippery weather, when the wheels revolve _on_, instead of _along_, the rails, it of course would not carry it so far. It then proceeds to the coke-shed, an enclosure 210 feet by 45 feet, capable of holding 1500 tons, for its proper supply of coke, namely, 1 ton--a goods-engine usually devouring 2½ tons. The driver, leaving his engine in charge of his fireman, now proceeds to the office, where he signs his name in a book, the object being that it may be observed whether or not he is perfectly sober. From the chief clerk he receives his coke and time ticket, upon which, at every station, he has to record whatever time he may have lost up to that point; and when his chronometer is wound up, and set to the proper time, he is then considered to be ready for his journey.