exclusive of the engine and tender. Tickets were distributed to the number of near 300, for those whom it it was intended should occupy the coach and waggons; but both loaded and empty carriages were instantly filled with passengers. The engine started off, and the scene became most interesting—the horsemen galloping across the fields to accompany the engine, and the people on foot endeavouring in vain to keep up with the cavalcade. On this descending part of the railway it was wished to ascertain at what rate of speed the engine could travel with safety. The speed was frequently twelve, and, for a short distance near Darlington, fifteen miles per hour; and at that time the number of passengers was counted to 450, which, together with the coals, merchandise, and carriages, would amount to near ninety tons. The train arrived at Darlington, a distance of eight miles and three quarters, in sixty-five minutes, exclusive of stops, averaging about eight miles an hour. Six carriages of coals for Darlington were left; and after obtaining fresh water, and accommodating a band of music and passengers from Darlington, the engine set off again. The railway from Stockton to Darlington is quite level; and, as in the upper part it was intended to try the speed of the engine, in this part it was proposed to prove its powers of draught. The engine arrived at Stockton in three hours and seven minutes after leaving Darlington, including stops, the distance being nearly twelve miles; and upon the level part of the railway the number of passengers in the waggons were counted about 550, and several more clung to the carriages on each side, so that the whole number could not be less than 600, which, with the other load, would amount to about eighty tons. The fields, lanes, and bridges were covered with spectators. The procession was not joined by many horses and carriages until it approached within a few miles of Stockton. Here the situation of the railway, which runs parallel and close to the turnpike road, gave a fine opportunity of viewing the procession. Numerous horses and vehicles travelled with the train, in some places within a few yards, without the horses seeming frightened; and the passengers by the engine had the pleasure of cheering their brother passengers by the stage coach, which passed alongside, and of observing the contrast between the engine with her six hundred passengers and load, and the coach with four horses and only sixteen passengers. Part of the workmen were entertained at Stockton, and part at Yarm, and there was a dinner for the proprietors and their distinguished guests at the Town Hall in Stockton. Mr. Meynell was in the chair, and the Mayor of the town acted as vice-president. The railway cost about £125,000, and was the property of about sixty shareholders.
The starting of the above train from Shildon was witnessed by about one hundred persons from Bishop Auckland, whose curiosity had attracted them to the novel scene. Old Dan Adamson, who kept the only public-house in the neighbourhood, improved the occasion by employing an itinerant fiddler, and had a barrel of ale placed in the hedge side for the accommodation of those who wished to celebrate the event with a pot of beer. There can be no doubt that to the success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, inaugurated on that day, the rise and progress of all other railways throughout the whole world may be traced.
At Escomb, coal seems to have been worked as early as the 11th century. In the Bolden Buke it is stated, "a certain collier holds one Toft and one Croft, and four acres, and finds coals for making the ironworks of the ploughs of Coundon.[1] From Bailey's "Agriculture of the County of Durham," a book compiled and published in the beginning of the present century, we learn that the colliery, called "Bishop Auckland," belonging to the Bishop of Durham, was situate close to the south wall of the Park, adjoining the tower, in what is still called the "Engine Field," and was 36 fathoms deep; the thickness of the coal seam was 4 feet 6 inches; its annual vend 4,400 chaldrons; and it employed 14 men. The shaft of this pit has for many years been filled up, but there is still to be seen, under the cliff of the High Plains in the Park, a
- ↑ The first landsale colliery upon record in the County of Durham was that of Cockfield, which by an inquisition taken in the year 1375, was valued at 20 marks. "The important uses of coal and iron in administering to the supply of our daily wants," says Dr. Buckland, in his " Bridgewater Treatise," "gives to every individual amongst us, in almost every moment of our lives, a personal concern, of which but few are conscious, in the geological events of those very distant eras. We are all brought into immediate connection with the vegetation that clothed the ancient earth before one-half of its actual surface had yet been formed. The trees of the primeval forests have not, like modern trees, undergone decay, yielding back their elements to the soil and atmosphere by which they had been nourished; but, treasured up in subterranean storehouses, have been transformed into enduring beds of coal, which, in these later ages, have become to man the sources of heat, and light, and wealth. My fire now bums with fuel, and my lamp is shining with the light of gas, derived from coal that has been buried for countless ages in the deep and dark recesses of the earth. We prepare our food, and maintain our forges and furnaces and the power of our steam engines, with the remains of plants of ancient forms and extinct species which were swept from the earth are the formation of the transition strata was completed. Our instruments of cutlery, the tools of our mechanics, and the countless machines which we construct by the infinitely varied applications of iron, are derived from ore for the most part, coeval with, or more ancient than the fuel, by the aid of which we reduce it to its metallic state, and apply it to innumerable uses in the economy of human life. Thus, from the wreck of forests that waved upon the surface of primeval lands, and from ferruginous mud that was lodged at the bottom of the primeval waters, we derive our chief supplies of coal and iron; these two fundamental elements of art and industry which contribute more than any other mineral production of the earth to increase the riches, and multiply the comforts, and ameliorate the condition of mankind."
