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On the contrary, it had to encounter as stout an opposition as the Stephensons had ever experienced. We have already stated that about this time the plan of substituting atmospheric pressure for locomotive steam-power in the working of railways, had become very popular.
But this is also at best a negative argument: the 'Livy of Portugal' never mentions the great mathematician, Martin Behaim, who accompanied Diego Cam to his discovery of the Congo. In those days fair play was not a jewel. The truth is that it would be as easy to name the discoverer of gunpowder or steam-power as to find the first circumnavigator of the African continent.
This new social conglomerate, with no tie but its steam-power and not much of that, threw away thirty or forty million dollars on a pageant as ephemeral as a stage flat.
A few months later I learned that my two neighbors were jointly interested in the mill, and that early in the ensuing spring steam-power would be introduced, and the capacity of the works increased to more than double their present range. It was December when Wallingford returned from England. He brought back with him all the evidence required to prove the identity of Mrs. Montgomery.
It is true that in later days a shoulder-gun hurled the harpoon, explosive bombs replaced the lances, the ships were in some cases fitted with auxiliary steam-power, and in a few infrequent instances steam launches were employed for whale-boats. But progress was not general.
But the really wonderful thing is that you should have guessed an unknown track in the dark; that you should actually be able to guide a helpless ship through waters so full of dangers that it would be folly to venture in their midst in broad daylight and with full steam-power." Then Courtenay took off his sou'wester, and bowed. "I had no idea I had such expert critics on board.
Another party, engaged upon the shafts, arrived at the adit level at the same time with the workmen upon the drain. A third party, engaged in making and repairing a carriage-road from the sea to the mine, had completed their labors; while a fourth party, in charge of machinery and steam-power apparatus enough to equip a Cornish mine of the largest class, had arrived at the mine.
With a diameter of from ten to fifteen inches, and a nozzle of three to four inches, a 'crinoline-hose' will throw a stream a hundred feet high when worked by the simplest steam-power process, and tear down a hill more rapidly than a thousand men with shovels.
This was in consequence of Captain Applegarth, our skipper, wishing, as I said before, to take advantage of the varying winds of the northern ocean as much as possible, so as to economise his steam-power and limit our consumption of fuel; for freights "across the herring-pond," as the Yankees call it, are at a very low ebb nowadays, and it is naturally a serious consideration with shipowners how to make a profit out of the carrying trade without landing themselves in the bankruptcy court.
The Atlantic was first crossed exclusively by steam-power in 1838, and the first successful propeller used in 1839. The last-named year also witnessed the beginning of a permanent express line between Boston and New York, by the Stonington route.
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