[36] By the year 1825, the progress made on the Wylam Railroad was thus described by Mr. Mackenzie in his "History of Northumberland:" "A stranger," said he, "is struck with surprise and astonishment on seeing a locomotive engine moving majestically along the road at the rate of four or five miles an hour, drawing along from ten to fourteen loaded wagons, weighing about 21-1/2 tons; and his surprise is increased on witnessing the extraordinary facility with which the engine is managed. This invention is a noble triumph of science." [37] At the Stephenson Memorial meeting at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 26th of October, 1858, Mr. Hugh Taylor, chairman of the Northern Coal-owners, gave the following account of one of such visits made by Stephenson to Wylam, in the company of Mr. Nicholas Wood and himself: "It was, I think, in 1812, that Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Wood came to my house, then at Newburn, and after we had dined, we went and examined the locomotive then on Mr. Blackett's wagon-way. At that early date it went by a sort of cog-wheel; there was also something of a chain to it. There was no idea that the machine would be sufficiently adhesive to the rails by the action of its own weight; but I remember a man going before--that was after the chain was abrogated--and scattering ashes on the rails, in order to give it adhesiveness, and two or three miles an hour was about the rate of progress." [38] Speech at the opening of the Newcastle and Darlington Railway, June 18, 1844. [39] It must, however, be mentioned that Mr. Zerah Colburn, in his excellent work on "Locomotive Engineering and the Mechanism of Railways," points out that Mr. Davies Gilbert noted the effect of the discharge of the waste steam up the chimney of Trevithick's engine in increasing the draught, and wrote a letter to "Nicholson's Journal" (Sept., 1805) on the subject; and Mr. Nicholson himself proceeded to investigate the subject, and in 1806 he took out a patent for "steam-blasting apparatus," applicable to fixed engines, which, however, does not seem to have come into use. (See _ante_, p. 82.) [40] Nicholas Wood, "Practical Treatise on Railways," ed. 1825, p. 147. [41] Ibid., p. 292-3. [42] Nicholas Wood, "Practical Treatise on Railways," ed. 1825, p. 294. These passages will be found in the first edition of Mr. Wood's work, published in 1825. The subsequent editions do not contain them. A few years' experience wrought great changes of opinion on many points connected with the practical working of railways, and Mr. Wood altered his text accordingly. But it is most important for our present purpose to note that, in the year 1825, long before the Liverpool and Manchester line was opened, Mr. Wood should have so clearly described the steam-blast, which had been in regular use for more than ten years in all Stephenson's locomotives employed in the working of the Killingworth railway. CHAPTER VI. INVENTION OF THE "GEORDY" SAFETY-LAMP.