driving-block

Updated: May 27, 2025

In the case of the steam pile-driver, on the contrary, the whole weight of a heavy mass is delivered rapidly upon a driving-block of several tons weight placed directly over the head of the pile, the weight never ceasing, and the blows being repeated at the rate of a blow a second, until the pile is driven home.

Samuel Smiles - Lives of the Engineers: The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson