Stephenson himself afterward described the alarming position of affairs at a public dinner given at Birmingham on the 23d of December, 1837, on the occasion of a piece of plate being presented to his son after the completion of the London and Birmingham Railway. He related the anecdote, he said, for the purpose of impressing upon the minds of those who heard him the necessity of perseverance. "After working for weeks and weeks," said he, "in filling in materials to form the road, there did not yet appear to be the least sign of our being able to raise the solid embankment one single inch; in short, we went on filling in without the slightest apparent effect. Even my assistants began to feel uneasy, and to doubt of the success of the scheme. The directors, too, spoke of it as a hopeless task; and at length they became seriously alarmed, so much so, indeed, that a board meeting was held on Chat Moss to decide whether I should proceed any farther. They had previously taken the opinion of other engineers, who reported unfavorably. There was no help for it, however, but to go on. An immense outlay had been incurred, and great loss would have been occasioned had the scheme been then abandoned, and the line taken by another route. So the directors were _compelled_ to allow me to go on with my plans, of the ultimate success of which I myself never for one moment doubted." During the progress of this part of the works, the Worsley and Trafford men, who lived near the Moss, and plumed themselves upon their practical knowledge of bog-work, declared the completion of the road to be utterly impracticable. "If you knew as much about Chat Moss as we do," they said, "you would never have entered on so rash an undertaking; and depend upon it, all you have done and are doing will prove abortive. You must give up altogether the idea of a floating railway, and either fill the Moss up with hard material from the bottom, or else deviate the line so as to avoid it altogether." Such were the conclusions of science and experience.