The INFLUENCE which the locomotive has had upon the affairs of the present, as well as the last generation, gives an interest and importance to its history which is almost coextensive with that of the steam engine itself, as from the time when it was first proposed to apply steam to any purpose, its application to road carriages appears to have been also contemplated.

     After such an idea presented itself it could, too, be readily brought into practicable form, for there existed in the last and preceding centuries a much better knowledge of mechanism than is now generally supposed, as most of the elements of the modern steam engine were known before the Christian era.

     Hero, of Alexandria, whose book " Spiritalia seu Pneumatica," was written nearly or quite two hundred years before Christ, treated of the expansive force of steam and described the side valve, the spindle valve and common check, and illustrated the application of a metallic piston to a metallic cylinder.

     When the attempts to apply the power of steam took a useful direction about two hundred years ago, locomotives were not overlooked. Solomon de Caus, while confined as a madman in the Bicetre at Paris, did not forget to include land transport among the many possible applications of steam power, and although in his work written in 1615, no evidence is given of his suggestion of and confidence in steam locomotion, the Marquis of Worcester, who visited de Caus in 1641, was apprised of his schemes under this head and is known to have adopted the proposition of carriages by steam, although no mention of this is made in his book "Century of Inventions." Savery, too, at the end of the seventeenth century, had given some attention to the subject. Neither de Cans, the Marquis of Worcester, nor Savery, however, did anything in the way of reducing their ideas of locomotive engines to a practical form. In 1759, too, a suggestion was made to James Watt to the effect that the power of steam could be utilized to drive land carriages.

     The first locomotive was made, however, by a Frenchman, Nicholas Joseph Cugnot, in 1769, and he was the first to apply the high pressure engine with cylinders and pistons to the production of rotary motion, and was also the first to apply the energy of steam to what is still the principal sphere of animal power.

     A larger locomotive made upon his plans in 1771 is still preserved in the Conservatory of Arts and Sciences at Paris.

     Then followed the efforts of James Watt, William Murdock, William Symington, Oliver Evans, Richard Trevethick, Matthew Murray, William Hedley, George Stephenson and Timothy Hackworth. Watt took out a patent on a locomotive engine in 1784, but no engine was ever constructed or attempted.

     William Murdock made a toy locomotive in 1784, with a single vertical cylinder three-quarters of an inch in diameter, the piston rod with a 2-inch stroke being connected to one end vibrating upon a joint at the other, as in the class of engines known as "grasshoppers." This engine is still carefully preserved at Soho, England. William Symington also made a working model of a steam carriage in 1786.

     Oliver Evans carried on a millwright's business in Philadelphia and applied wheels to a steam dredging machine by which it was propelled by its own engine from the factory to the river about one and one-half miles distant, which was in the year 1804.

     Richard Trevethick made the first tramway locomotive in 1803, and it was first worked in Cornwall and afterward brought to London and placed on exhibition.

     Matthew Murray, of Leeds, made a locomotive in 1812 for Mr. John Blenkinsop, the proprietor of Middleton colliery, near Leeds, who had taken out a patent for increasing the adhesion of the locomotive by gearing it by means of a pinion into a rack rail along one side of a line of railroad.

     William Hedley, colliery viewer for Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, constructed a locomotive in 1813, and before doing so experimented to ascertain whether the ordinary adhesion of the wheels of an engine on smooth rails would be sufficient to insure the useful application of the whole of the steam tractive force, and it has been claimed that he was the father of the present system of working locomotives by means of the friction between wheels and smooth rails.

     George Stephenson constructed a locomotive, in the workshops of the Killingworth colliery, in 1814, for drawing coal from the pit, but after a year's trial was found to have no advantages over horse power, the radical defects being a single flue boiler and large stack. In his engine, built in 1815, he abandoned crank axles and the wheels were coupled by an endless chain and after some years, outside coupling rods superseded this method.

     Timothy Hackworth was originally an employee of the Wylam Railway and was made locomotive engineer of the Stockton and Darlington Ry. This line was opened for passengers and freight traffic, September 27, 1825, and in addition to stationary engine and horse power had five locomotives, four from Stephenson's factory and one made by Wilson, of Newcastle. These engines gave such unsatisfactory results that the directors seriously considered their abandonment for horses, but Hackworth determined to alter and improve one of them and named it the "Royal George" which commenced working in October, 1827.

     In the spring of 1829, the Liverpool and Manchester directors were upon the point of adopting fixed engines and ropes for working their line, but through the efforts of some of the members of the board it was decided to make a conclusive trial of locomotives at Rainhill, near Liverpool. On the first of October, 1829, the day fixed for the trial, four locomotives were nearly ready and the contest was postponed until the 6th. George Stephenson entered the "Rocket," Timothy Hackworth, the "Sanspareil," Messrs. Jno. Braithwaite and John Ericsson, the "Novelty," and Mr. Burstall, the "Perseverance," the last named, however, being withdrawn on account of being unfit for service.

     After six days' trial the "Rocket" being the only engine that covered the stipulated distance was awarded the prize amounting to 2,500 sterling, and the adoption of locomotives on passenger railways and the consequent great results to which railways have attained since that time are due to the success of this engine.

     The application of locomotives to railroads in this country was contemporaneous with their practical use for that purpose in England, for at the same time the Stephensons were building their "Rocket," they were supplying two engines of the same pattern to the Delaware & Hudson Co. for the Carbondale Railroad.

     The "Rocket" was put in operation in October, 1829, and the two locomotives just mentioned arrived in New York in the winter of 1828-1829, together with one built by Foster, Rastrick & Co. of Stourbridge, England, also for the same road.

     This latter engine was called the "Stourbridge Lion," and was tried and run on the Carbondale Road, August 9, 1829, by Horatio Allen, who was the first person to run a locomotive on a railroad in America.

     Locomotive building was begun in this country in 1830, and the first one completed was the "Best Friend" and was built at the West Point Foundry Association, of New York, for the South Carolina Railway and tried in August of that year.

     In 1831 and 1832, the West Point Foundry Association and Mathias W. Baldwin, of Philadelphia, were filling orders for various railroads, and by 1835, Messrs. Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor, of Patterson, N. J., William Norris and Garrett and Eastwick, of Philadelphia, as well as others, were extensively engaged in locomotive building.

     The first American locomotives were designed to a great extent from designs furnished by English engines. It however soon became evident that the condition of railroads in this country made requirements different from those in England, and in view of this, it was desirable to have a locomotive which would be more flexible and the weight of which would be more equally distributed on the rails than was the case with the English engines, and hence a departure from this prototype became necessary and the so-called "American type" of locomotive was originated.

     Between the era of the "Rocket" and the mammoth engines of to-day, lie the classes of engines familiar to every one because examples are still to be found, and while there may be inventions that may be considered more marvelous than the modern high speed locomotive, yet none more displays in concrete result the power of man to imprison so mighty a force in so small a compass.