upwards of fifty miles an hour!

The breathless silence of the multitude was now broken by thunders of
hurras, that drowned the hiss of the escaping steam and the rolling of
the engine-wheels. To reduce the surprise and delight excited on this
occasion to the universal standard, and as an illustration of the
extent to which the value of property is sometimes enhanced by the
success of a mechanical invention, it may be stated, that, when the
Novelty had run her two miles and returned, the shares of the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway had risen _ten per cent_.

But how easily may the just expectations of an inventor be
disappointed! Although the principle of _artificial draught_--the
principle which gave to the Novelty such decided superiority in
speed--is yet retained in all locomotive engines, the mode of producing
this draught in our present engines is far different from that
introduced by Ericsson, and was discovered by the merest accident; and
so soon was this discovery made, after the successful display of the
Novelty engine, that Ericsson had no time to derive the least advantage
from its introduction. To him, however, belongs the credit of having
disproved the correctness of the once established theory, that it was
absolutely necessary that a certain _extensive_ amount of
_surface_ should be exposed to the fire, to generate a given
quantity of steam.

The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by
Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it
had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the
steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr.
Braithwaite, about the same time with the Novelty, and which excited so