Transcriber’s Notes
Hyphenation has been standardised.
The Transcriber has constructed a ‘List of Illustrations’, as none was supplied.
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ENGINEERS
AND
THEIR TRIUMPHS:
THE STORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE—THE STEAMSHIP—BRIDGE BUILDING—TUNNEL MAKING.
BY
F. M. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF “FOUR HEROES OF INDIA,” ETC.
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Publishers of Evangelical Literature.
PREFACE.
Without attempting to be exhaustive, this littlebook aims at describing in a purely popularand non-technical manner some of the greatachievements of engineers, more particularlyduring the nineteenth century.
The four departments chosen have been selected notin pursuance of any comprehensive plan, but becausethey present some of the more striking features ofconstructional effort. The term Engineering, however,includes the design and supervision of numerousworks, such as roads and canals, docks and break-waters,machinery and mining, as well as steam-enginesand steamships, bridges and tunnels.
Information, in certain cases, has been gained atfirst-hand, and I have to acknowledge the courtesyof the managers of the Cunard and White Star SteamshipCompanies, Messrs. Maudslay, Sons & Field, andothers, in supplying various particulars.
The narrative concerning Henry Bell and the steamshipComet, and of his connection with Fulton, is chiefly [vi]based on a letter from Bell himself in the CaledonianMercury in 1816.
The statement that Mr. Macgregor Laird was solargely instrumental in founding the British andAmerican Steam Navigation Company is made onthe authority of his daughter, Miss Eleanor BristowLaird. An article on “The Genesis of the Steamship,”which I wrote in the Gentleman’s Magazine,brought a letter from that lady in which she declaresthat her father was the prime mover in founding theCompany. He had had experience, in the NigerExpedition of 1832-33, of the behaviour of steamshipsboth at sea and in the