But the English Government is proverbially slow in recognizing such improvements. It was not till years had passed by, that Mr. Nasmyth was asked to furnish hammers to government works. Then he was invited to apply them to pile-driving. He says:-- My first order for my pile-driver was a source of great pleasure to me. It was for the construction of some great royal docks at Devonport. An immense portion of the shore of the Hamoaze had to be walled in so as to exclude the tide. When I arrived on the spot with my steam pile-driver, there was a great deal of curiosity in the dockyard as to the action of the new machine. The pile-driving machine-men gave me a good-natured challenge to vie with them in driving down a pile. They adopted the old method, while I adopted the new one. The resident managers sought out two great pile logs of equal size and length,-seventy feet long and eighteen inches square. At a given signal we started together. I let in the steam, and the hammer at once began to work. The four-ton block showered down blows at the rate of eighty a minute, and in the course of _four and a half minutes_ my pile was driven down to its required depth. The men working at the ordinary machine had only begun to drive. It took them upward of _twelve hours_ to complete the driving of their pile! Such a saving of time in the performance of similar work--by steam _versus_ manual labor--had never before been witnessed. The energetic action of the steam-hammer, sitting on the shoulders of the pile high up aloft, and following it suddenly down, the rapidly hammered blows keeping time with the flashing out of the waste steam at the end of each stroke, was indeed a remarkable sight. When my pile was driven the hammer-block and guide-case were speedily re-hoisted by the small engine that did all the laboring and locomotive work of the machine, the steam-hammer portion of which was then lowered on to the shoulders of the next pile in succession. Again it set to work. At this the spectators, crowding about in boats, pronounced their approval in the usual British style of "Three cheers!" My new pile-driver was thus acknowledged as another triumphant proof of the power of steam. * * * * * In the course of the year 1843 it was necessary for me to make a journey to St. Petersburg. My object was to endeavor to obtain an order for a portion of the locomotives required for working the line between that city and Moscow. The railway had been constructed under the engineership of Major Whistler, and it was shortly about to be opened. The Major gave me a frank and cordial reception, and informed me of the position of affairs. The Emperor, he said, was desirous of training a class of Russian mechanics to supply not only the locomotives, but to keep them constantly in repair. The locomotives must be made in Russia. I received, however, a very large order for boilers and other detail parts of the Moscow machines.