top of one high wall to the top of another, there being a deep gap between. To his dismay he was taken at his word instantly. Stephenson cleared the eleven feet at a bound, exactly measuring his distance. As engine-wright Stephenson had opportunities of carrying still further his study of the engine, as well as of turning to account the knowledge he already possessed. His ingenuity soon caused a reduction of the number of horses employed in the colliery from a hundred to fifteen or sixteen; and he had access not only to the mine at Killingworth, but to all collieries belonging to Lord Ravensworth and his partners, a firm that had been named the Grand Allies. The locomotive engine was then known to the world as a new toy, curious and costly. Stepenson had a perception of what might be done with it, and was beginning to make it the subject of his thoughts. From the education of his son, Robert, he was now deriving knowledge for himself. The father entered him as a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Institution, and toiled with him over books of science borrowed from its library. Mechanical plans he read at sight, never requiring to refer to the description; "a good plan," he said, "should always explain itself." One of the secretaries of the Newcastle Institution watched with lively interest the studies of both father and son, and helped them freely to the use of books and instruments, while he assisted their endeavors with his counsels. George Stephenson was thirty-two years old, and, however little he may by that time have achieved, one sees that he had accumulated in himself a store of power that would inevitably carry him on, upon his own plan of inch by inch advance, to new successes. Various experiments had been made with the new locomotive engines. One had been tried upon the Wylam tram-road, which went by the cottage in which Stephenson was born. George Stephenson brooded upon the subject, watched their failures, worked at the theory of their construction, and made it his business to see one. He felt his way to the manufacture of a better engine, and proceeded to bring the subject under the notice of the lessees of the colliery. He had acquired reputation not only as an ingenious, but as a safe and prudent man. He had instituted already many improvements in the collieries. Lord Ravensworth, the principal partner, therefore authorized him to fulfill his wish; and with the greatest difficulty making workmen of some of the colliery hands, and having the colliery blacksmith for his head assistant, he built his first locomotive in the workshops at Westmoor, and called it "My Lord." It was the first engine constructed with smooth wheels; for Stephenson never admitted the prevailing notion that contrivances were necessary to secure adhesion. "My Lord" was called "Blucher" by the people round about. It was first placed on the Killingworth Railway on the twenty-fifth of July, 1814, and, though a cumbrous ma chine, was the most successful that had, up to that date, been constructed. At the end of a year it was found that the work done by Blucher cost about as much as the same work would have cost if done by horses. Then it occurred to: Stephenson to turn the steam-pipe into the chimney, and carry the smoke up with the draught of a steam-blast. That would add to the intensity of the fire and to the rapidity with which steam could be generated. The power of the engine was, by this expedient, doubled. At about the same time some frightful accidents, caused by explosion in the pits of his district, set Stephenson to exercise his ingenuity for the discovery of a miner's safety lamp. By a mechanical theory of his own, tested by experiments made boldly at the peril of his life, he arrived at the construction of a lamp less simple, though perhaps safer, than that of Sir Humphrey Davy, and with the same method of defense. The practical man and the philosopher worked independently in the same year on the same problem. Stephenson's solution was arrived at a few weeks earlier than Davy's, and upon this fact a great controversy afterward was founded. One material result of it was, that Stephenson eventually received as public testimonial a thousand pounds, which he used later in life as capital for the founding at Newcastle of his famous locomotive factory. At the Killingworth pits the "Geordy" safety lamp is still in use, being there, of course, considered to be better than the Davy. Locomotives had been used only on the tram-roads of the collieries, and by the time when Stephenson built his second ran. engine were generally abandoned as failures. Stephenson alone stayed in the field, and did not care who said that there would be at Killingworth "a terrible blow-up some day." He had already made up his mind that the perfection of a traveling engine would be half lost if it did not run on a perfected rail. Engine and rail he spoke of, even then, as "man and wife," and his contrivances for the improvement of the locomotive always went hand in hand with his contrivances for the improvement of the road on which it We need not follow the mechanical details. In his work at the rail and engine he made progress in his own way, inch by inch; every new locomotive built by him contained improvements on its predecessor; every time he laid down a fresh rail he added some new element of strength and firmness to it. The Killingworth Colliery Railway was the seed from which sprang the whole European, and now more than European, system of railway intercourse. While systems and theories rose and fell round about, George Stephenson kept his little line in working order, made it pay, and slowly advanced in the improvement of the rails and engines used upon it. When it had been five years at work the owners of the Hetton Colliery, in the county of Durham, invited Stephenson to act as engineer for them in laying down an equally efficient and much longer line. Its length was to be eight miles, and it would cross one of the highest hills in the district; Stephenson put his locomotive on the level ground, worked the inclines with stationary engines, showed how full wagons descending an incline might be used as a power for the drawing up of empty ones, and in three years completed successfully a most interesting and novel series of works. In those days there was talk of railroads to be worked by horse-power, or any better power, if better there were; but at any rate level roads laid down with rails for the facility of traffic were projected between Stockton and Darlington, between Liverpool and Manchester, and between other places. The Killingworth Railway was seven years old, the Hetton line then being in course of construction. 66 George Stephenson was forty years old, when one day," writes Mr. Smiles, "about the end of the year 1821, two strangers knocked VOL. XI.-33 at the door of Mr. Pease's house in Darlington, (Mr. Pease was the head promoter of the railway between Darlington and Stockton,) and the message was brought to him that some persons from Killingworth wanted to speak with him. They were invited in; on which one of the visitors introduced himself as Nicholas Wood, viewer at Killingworth, and then, turning to his companion, he introduced him as George Stephenson, of the same place." George had also a letter of introduction from the manager at Killingworth, and came as a person who had had experience in the laying out of railways, to offer his services. He had walked to Darlington, with here and there a lift upon a coach, to see whether he could not get for his locomotive a fair trial, and for himself a step of advancement in life upon Mr. Pease's line. He told his wish in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district; as for himself, he said, he was "only the engine-wright at Killingworth; that's what he was." Mr. Pease liked him, told him his plans, which were all founded on the use of horse-power, he being satisfied" that a horse upon an iron road would draw ten tons for one on a common road, and that before long the railway would become the King's Highway." Stephenson boldly declared that his locomotive was worth fifty horses, and that moving engines would in course of time supersede all horse - power upon railroads. "Come over," he said, “to Killingworth, and see what my Blucher can do; seeing is believing, sir." Mr. Pease went, saw, and believed. Stephenson was appointed engineer to the company, at a salary of three hundred a year. The Darlington line was constructed in accordance with his survey. His traveling engine ran upon it for the first time on the twenty-seventh of September, 1825, in sight of an immense concourse of people, and attained, in some parts of its course, a speed, then unexampled, of twelve miles an hour. Stephenson afterward became a famous man he forgot none of his old friends. He visited even poor cottagers who had done a kindness to him. Mr. Pease will transmit to his descendants a gold watch, inscribed, "Esteem and gratitude; from George Stephenson to Edward Pease." When It was while the Stockton and Darlington line was in progress that George Ste phenson proposed establishing a locomotive factory, and training a body of mechanics skilled to the new work at Newcastle. The thousand pounds given to him by the coal-owners for his invention of the safety-lamp he could advance. Mr. Pease and another friend advanced five hundred each, and so the Newcastle Engine Factory was founded. With what determined perseverance Mr. Stephenson upheld the cause of the locomotive in connection with the proposed Liverpool and Manchester line; how he did cheaply what all the regular engineers declared impossible or ruinous, in carrying that line over Chat-Moss, persevering, when all who were about him had confessed despair, and because he had made good his boldest promises in every one case; how he was at last trusted in the face of public ridicule, upon the merits of the locomotive also; how, after the line was built, at the public competition of light engines, constructed in accordance with certain strict conditions, his little Rocket won the prize; how the fulfillment of his utmost assertions raised Stephenson to the position of an oracle in the eyes of the public; how he, nevertheless, went on improving the construction of both rails and locomotives; how the great railway system, of which the foundations were laid patiently by him, was rapidly developed; how, when success begot a mania, he was as conspicuous for his determined moderation, as he had before been for his determined zeal; how he attained honor and fortune, and retired from public life, again to grow fruits or vegetables in his garden, pineapples instead of leeks, again to pet animals and watch the birds' nests in the hedges, we need not tell in detail; Mr. Smile's excellent biography tells it all. One of the chief pleasures of his latter days was to hold out a helping hand to poor inventors who deserved assistance. He was a true man to the last, whom failure never drove to despair; whom success never elated to folly. Inch by inch he made his ground good in the world, and for the world. A year before his death, in 1848, somebody, about to dedicate a book to him, asked him what were his "ornamental initials." His reply was, "I have to state that I have no flourishes to my name, either before or after; and I think it will be as well if you merely say, George Stephenson." FEW TREE-CLIMBING CRABS. NEW who look at the vast quantities of crabs, lobsters, sea crayfish, shrimps, and prawns, which are so temptingly and abundantly displayed in the shops of our fishmongers, consider them in any other light than as delicacies for the table. At present we desire only to touch upon certain strange species, the existence of which even is not generally known, and thus throw an interest around the whole tribe. First let us take a cursory glance at the Crustaceans, as the naturalist terms them that is, crabs, lobsters, and similar spe cies. Crabs and lobsters are strange creatures: strange in their configuration; strange in the transmutations which they exhibit from the egg to maturity; strange in the process they undergo of casting off, not only their shell, but the covering of their eyes, of their long horns, and even the lining of their tooth-furnished stomach; strange, also, are they in their habits and manners. We presume that our reader has often wandered along the sea-shore, and floundered amid banks of slimy sea-weed. If so, he cannot but have disturbed colonies of little crabs quietly nestling in fancied security; nor can he have scrutinized the nooks and recesses of the coast, the shallows, and the strips of sand left dry at ebb tide, without observing numbers of little, or perchance large crabs, some concealed in snug lurking-places, others, tripping with a quick, sidelong movement over the beach, alarmed by the advance of an unwelcome intruder. Some of these Crustaceans are exclusively tenants of the water, have feet formed like paddles, for swimming, and never venture on land; others seem to love the air and sunshine, and enjoy an excursion, not without hopes of finding an acceptable repast, over the oozy sands; some, equally fond of the shore and the shallow water, appropriate to themselves the shells of periwinkles, whelks, etc., and there live in a sort of castle, which they drag about with them on their excursions, changing it for a larger, not without serious scrutiny, as they increase in measure of growth. The Crustaceans afford interesting objects for the consideration of those who delight in the study of natural history ; especially those of the warmer latitudes of the globe. They vary in size, from microscopic animalcules to the gigantic King Crab to the former, the luminosity of the ocean, or of the foam before the prows of vessels, is to a great extent attributable, each minute creature glowing with phosphoric radiance. Certain crabs, especially in the West Indies, are almost exclusively terrestrial, visiting the sea only at given periods, for the deposition of their eggs. These crabs, carrying in their gill-chambers sufficient water for the purpose of respiration, live in burrows, and traverse considerable tracts of land in the performance of migratory journeys. Of these some, as the Violet Crab, are esteemed exquisite delicacies. Of one of the Burrowing Crabs Cuvier thus writes: "The animal closes the entrance of its burrow, which is situated near the margin of the sea, or in marshy grounds, with its largest claw. These burrows are cylindrical, oblique, very deep, and very close to each other; but generally each burrow is the exclusive habitation of a single individual. The habit which these crabs have of holding their large claw elevated in advance of the body, as if making a sign of beckoning to some one, has obtained for them the name of Calling Crabs. There is a species observed by Mr. Bosc in South Carolina, which passes the three months of the winter in its retreat without once quitting it, and which never goes to the sea except at the epoch of egg-laying." The same observations apply to the Chevalier crabs (so called from the celerity with which they traverse the ground.) These are found in Africa, and along the borders of the Mediterranean. certainly to be placed among the most extraordinary of its race. The Hermit Crabs are voracious, and feed on animal substances, and this is the character of the Crustaceans in general. On the contrary, this Crab, or rather Lobster Crab-for it takes an intermediate place between them is more delicate in its appetite, and feeds upon fruits, to obtain which it climbs up certain trees, at the feet of which it makes a burrow. The species in question is the Purse Crab or Robber Crab (Birgus latro) of Amboyna, and other islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It is probable that there are more than one species, but voyagers have not attended to nice discrimination. The first naturalist who placed upon record the habits of the Purse Crab was Herbst; and to his account Rumphius, Seba, Linnæus, and Cuvier refer. The latter observes that," according to a popular belief among the Indians, the animal feeds on the nuts of the cocoa-tree, and that it makes its excursions during the night." He gives fissures in the rocks, or holes in the ground, as its places of re treat. That the accounts of the early writers and travelers should have been received with incredulity is not surprising, nor that the statements of the natives should have been deemed almost unworthy of serious consideration. The truth of these details has been, however, within the last few years, abundantly confirmed in all their essentials. MM. Quoy and Gaimard assure us that several individuals of this species were fed by them for many months on cocoa-nuts alone: a circumstance commented upon by Professor Owen, when a specimen of this crab was laid before one of the scientific meetings of the Zoological Society, with additional information from Mr. Cuming, in whose fine collection of Crustacea, shells, etc., from the islands of the South Pacific, several specimens Of were preserved. According to this enterprising voyager and naturalist, these crabs are to be found in great abundance at Lord Hood's Island, in the Pacific. He there frequently met with them on the road; and states that, on being disturbed, they instantly assumed a defensive attitude, making a violent snapping with their powerful claws or pincers, and continued this snapping as they retreated backward. They climb a species of palm, (Pandanus odoratissimus,) and eat a small kind of Some crabs, truly aquatic, as the Vaulted Crab of the Moluccas, have the power of drawing back their limbs and concealing them in a furrow, which they closely fit; and thus, in imitation of a tortoise, which retracts its feet and head within its shell, they secure themselves, when alarmed, from the attack of enemies. Other aquatic species have the limbs adapted for clinging to weeds and other marine objects. these, some have the two or four hinder pair of limbs so placed as to appear to spring from the back; they terminate in a sharp hook, by means of which the animal attaches itself to the valves of shells, fragments of coral, etc., which it draws over its body, and thus lurks in concealment. Allied in some respects to the Hermit or Soldier Crabs, which tenant empty shells, and to which we have briefly alluded, is one which, from its habits and manners, is cocoa-nut that grows thereon. They live at the roots of the trees, and not in the holes of rocks; and they are a favorite food among the natives. Such is the substance of Mr. Cuming's account; to which we shall now add a most interesting passage from Mr. Darwin's "Researches in Geology and Natural History," relative to the habits of these crabs, as observed by him in the Keeling Islands, or Cocos Islands, situated in the Indian Ocean, six hundred miles distant from the coast of Sumatra. In these islands, of coral formation, the cocoa-nut tree so prevails as to appear, at a first glance, to compose the whole wood, but five or six other kinds are also to be seen, and one of large size. Here the Great Purse Crab is abundant. Mr. Darwin writes as follows: "I have before alluded to a crab which lives on the cocoa-nuts; it is very common on all parts of the dry land, and grows to a monstrous size. It is closely allied to, or is identical with, the Birgus latro. This crab has its front pair of legs terminated by very strong and heavy pincers, and the last pair by others which are narrow and weak. It would at first be thought quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa-nut, covered with the husk; but Mr. Liesk assures me that he has repeatedly seen the operation effected. The crab begins by tearing away the husk, fiber by fiber, and always from that end under which the three eye-holes are situated. When this is completed the crab commences hammering with its heavy claws on one of these eye-holes till an opening is made. Then, turning its body, by the aid of its posterior and narrow pair of pincers, it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is as curious a case as I ever heard of, and likewise of adaptation in structure between two objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme of nature as a crab and a cocoa-nut tree. The Birgus is diurnal in its habits; but it is said to pay every night a visit to the sea for the purpose of moistening its gills." These gills, we may here observe, are very peculiar, and scarcely fill up more than a tenth of the chamber in which they are situated, and which, doubtless, acts as a reservoir for water, to serve during the animals' excursions over the dry and heated land. The young are hatched and live for some time on the coast. At this period of existence we cannot suppose that cocoa-nuts form any part of their diet; most probably soft saccharine grasses, tender fruits, and animal matters constitute their food, until they attain to a certain degree of size and strength. Darwin continues : Mr. "The adult crabs inhabit deep burrows, which they excavate beneath the roots of trees; and here they accumulate surprising husk, on which they rest as on a bed. The quantities of the picked fibres of the cocoa-nut Malays sometimes take advantage of their labors by collecting the coarse fibrous substance and using it as junk. "These crabs are very good to eat; moreover, under the tail of the larger ones there is a great mass of fat, which when melted yields as much as a quart bottleful of limpid oil. "It has been stated by some authors that the Birgus latro crawls up the cocoa-nut trees, for the purpose of stealing the nuts. I very much doubt the possibility of this; but with Pandanus (to which Mr. Cuming refers as being ascended by this crab) the task would be very much easier. I understand from Mr. Liesk that on these islands the Birgus lives only on the nuts which fall to the ground." It may at first appear that Mr. Cuming's and Mr. Darwin's respective accounts of the non-climbing of this animal, on the one side, and of its actually climbing trees on the other, are contradictory. The height of the stem of the cocoa-nut tree, its circumference, and comparative external smoothness, would certainly prove insurmountable, or at least very serious, obstacles to the most ambitious and most greedy Birgus, however large and strong it might be. But these difficulties are by no means so formidable in the plants of the Pandanus tribe; a group composed of arborescent or bushy species, with long, thin, rigid, sword-shaped leaves resembling those of the pine-apple, usually arranged in a manner so obviously spiral, pines. In the genus Pandanus (a word that they are commonly called Screwderived from the Malay Pandang) the leaves decidedly present this spiral mode of arrangement. The Pandanus odoratissimus is celebrated for the fragrance of its essence, and is referred to by the Sanscrit poets under the name of Ketaka. It is the Keora and Ketgee of the Hindoos, and the Kazee of the Arabs. Oil impregnated with the essence of its flowers, and water distilled from them, are highly esteemed, both for their odor and medicinal qualities. In the peninsula of India this species is called the Caldera bush; and Dr. Roxburgh informs us that it is from the tender white leaves of the flowers, particularly of the male flowers, that the essence is obtained. The lower pulpy part of the drupes is sometimes eaten, as is also the terminal bud, together with the white base of the long acute leaves, |