Various other improvements were incorporated into the new engine, which, as you do not probably understand much about machinery, would not particularly interest you.
At last the new engine was finished. It weighed only four tons and a quarter—little less than two tons under the weight required by the offer of the directors. The tender, shaped like a waggon, carried the fuel in one end and the water in the other.
It was forthwith put on the Killingworth track, fired up, and started off. Robert must have watched its operations with intense anxiety. Nothing could have met his expectations like the new boiler. It in fact outdid his highest hopes. The steam made rapidly, and in what seemed to him then marvellous quantities. Away went a letter to Liverpool that very evening.
TUBES OF A MODERN ENGINE.
"The 'Rocket' is all right and ready," wrote the young man joyfully. That was the engine's name, "Rocket,"—on account of its speed, perhaps. "Puffing Billy" was quite cast into the shade.
It was shortly afterwards shipped to Liverpool, in good time for the grand trial.
THE "ROCKET."
The trial, rapidly approaching, elicited a great and general interest. The public mind was astir. The day fixed was the first of October. Engineers, mechanics, and scientific men, from far and near, flocked to Liverpool. The ground where the exhibition was to take place was a level piece of railroad two miles long, a little out of the city. Each engine was to make twenty trips, at a rate of speed not under ten miles an hour, and three competent men were appointed as judges.