in vain for any built at that time in work to-day, while Gooch's worked the broad gauge expresses to time to the last.

We propose giving a short history of the broad gauge, from its conception by that great master of gigantic engineering feats-Isambard Kingdom Brunel-through the "Battle of the Gauges "-which, fifty years ago, agitated the public mind as much as Home Rule and the Eight Hours Day do at present-a question on which Parliamentary candidates were elected or rejected by the several constituencies they wooed; when Brunel's word was as much applauded or reviled as Lord Salisbury's and Mr. Gladstone's are to-day by the various politicians. Alas! to-day but few have heard of such a battle, and perchance they conjecture some Homeric poem in which to find a description of it.

Following its history from the time it stood first, far ahead of all other lines for speed and comfort in travelling and personal safety to its patrons, till it was crushed by its competitor, which, from the fact that it was first in the field, and had taken a deep root in our soil, and not because it was in any way superior to the broad gauge, till in 1868 the first section (Princes Risborough to Aylesbury) was converted to the narrow gauge (which process has been going on little by little ever since), until now, the last section (till now exclusively broad gauge) has been converted, and another of Brunel's giants. is to slide into oblivion, besides his Great Eastern steamship, "Atmospheric Railway," and "Thames Tunnel." Acworth, in his "Railways of England," commences his chapter on the "Great Western" in a most happy vein as follows :—

It would be more than a fanciful conceit if we were to compare the great "Battle of the Gauges," which raged with such fury more than forty years ago, to the yet more ancient strife between the Britons and English. Like the Britons, the champions of the broad gauge, under the leadership of their king Arthur, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, performed prodigies of skill and valour; like them, they have been worsted in the struggle; like them, they have retired, defeated but not disgraced, to Cornwall, where they have hitherto been left in almost undisputed possession. But though nowadays the fact may be well-nigh forgotten, at one time the victory was trembling in the balance. Not only to Exeter and Plymouth, but to Hereford and Wolverhampton, to Milford and to Weymouth, the broad gauge metals ran. Even in the Metropolis itself, Moorgate Street and Victoria were broad gauge outposts. We might, indeed, carry our simile further, and draw a comparison between the infusion of British blood, deepening as we pass westward through Somerset into Devon, and on through Devon to Cornwall, and the proportion which the broad gauge traffic bears to the narrow at the present day over the different sections of the Great Western, as we journey farther and farther west from London. Or, again, we might point out that, just as the invading English were wont to seize and fortify positions on the coast of their enemy's country, so the narrow gauge at Bodmin and Wadebri lge, that for over

half a century has remained contentedly isolated from all its neighbours, was one of the very earliest railways in England; and even the West Cornwall, originally narrow gauge, and the solitary example of a line once narrow, which has since been adapted to the broad gauge, ran from sea to sea, from Hoyle, on the north coast, through Camborne and Redruth, to Newham, on the Fal River below Truro, years before ever Brunel had spanned the Tamar with the wondrous arches of Saltash Bridge. But whatever the broad gauge may have in common with the Britons of old, it at least does not share the alleged distinction of their modern representatives, who know not when they are beaten.

Perhaps it is not generally known that the Great Western Terminus was to be Euston Station, yet it is so.

The London and Birmingham and the London and Bristol Railways intended to have a joint terminus at Euston, but when Brunel got his Act passed, without the clause limiting the gauge, he boldly gave out that the London and Bristol would be constructed with a 7-foot gauge; and as the Birmingham line was already being built with Stephenson's 4-foot 8-inch gauge, it was impossible for the idea of a common terminus to be carried out. So the Great Western struck out a new line from near Willesden to Paddington. The London and Bristol Bill was first presented to Parliament in 1834, and in that year a clause was inserted in all Railway Bills, limiting the gauge to 4 feet 8 inches. Through the opposition of Eton and Oxford the Bill was thrown out, and had the national seats of learning not been so violent in their opposition the Bill would have passed, and probably the broad gauge would never have been heard of. Smiles says:

The London and Bristol (afterwards the Great Western) Railway was vehemently opposed by the people of the towns through which the line was projected to pass; and when the Bill was thrown out by the Lords—after £30,000 had been expended by the promoters--the inhabitants of Eton assembled, under the presidency of the Marquis of Chandos, to rejoice and congratulate themselves and the country upon its defeat.

Next year the Bill was again introduced into Parliament, and this time it contained no clause limiting the gauge, and the Bill duly passed the two Houses. Brunel had as yet said nothing about the gauge of his line, but he had been educated at the École Polytechnique, and would not follow the lead of the English engineers, and went boldly in for a 7-foot gauge. We reproduce from Smiles's "Life of Stephenson" the contrast between the rival engineers :

In mentioning the name of Brunel we are reminded of him as the principal rival and competitor of Robert Stephenson. Both were the sons of distinguished men, and both inherited the fame, and followed in the footsteps, of their fathers. The Stephensons were inventive, practical, and sagacious; the Brunels ingenious, imaginative, and daring. The former were as thoroughly English in their charac

teristics as the latter, perhaps, were as thoroughly French.

The fathers and the sons were alike successful in their works, though not in the same degree.

Measured by practical and profitable results, the Stephensons were unquestionably the safer men to follow. Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were destined often to come into collision in the course of their professional life. Their respective railway districts "marched" with each other, and it became their business to invade or defend those districts according as the policy of their respective boards might direct. The gauge of 7 feet fixed by Brunel for the Great Western Railway, so entirely different from that of 4 feet 81⁄2 inches adopted by the Stephensons on the Northern and Midland lines, was from the first a great cause of contention. But Brunel had always an aversion to follow any man's lead; and that another engineer had fixed the gauge of a railway, or built a bridge, or designed an engine in one way, was of itself often a sufficient reason with him for adopting an altogether different course. Mr. Brunel, however, determined that the Great Western should be a giant road, and that travelling should be conducted upon it at double speed. His ambition was to make the best road that imagination could devise; whereas the main object of the Stephensons, both father and son, was to make a road that would pay. Although, tried by the Stephensons' test, Brunel's magnificent road was a failure, so far as the shareholders in the Great Western Company were concerned, the stimulus which his ambitious designs gave to mechanical invention proved a general good.

The first portion of the line, Paddington to Maidenhead, twentythree miles, was opened in 1838, when Brunel's bold idea of a skew bridge over the Thames was carried out successfully, and stands to the present day. Indeed, so great is the Great Western directors' respect to the memory of its brilliant designer that, in carrying out the widening of the line from Maidenhead to Didcot, the company has decided to build a similar bridge to Brunel's famous one, parallel with it; and, to insure the quality of the work, instead of it being let to a contractor, as the rest of the widening is, the bridge is being built by the company, so as to make sure of good workmanship and unity of design. So far has the idea been carried out that, finding the original bridge has settled about an inch, the new one will not be built a true ellipse, but will be the same amount out of the correct form. Brunel's bridge consists of a central pier from which a main arch springs on either side, each of which is flanked by four smaller openings; the main arches are elliptical in form and of 130 feet span, with a rise of 24 feet; these two arches are longer and flatter than any others ever executed in brickwork. Both during the building and after the completion of the bridge doubts were freely expressed as to its stability, but "time proves all things," and has proved Brunel right here, at any rate. Another remarkable engineering feat in connection with this line was the Hanwell embankment, built on a clay foundation with a treacherous subsoil, which latter gave way, and the embankment gradually sunk but rose again on either side of

its original site. The "Battle of the Gauges," which is popularly supposed to have begun in 1842, really commenced in 1839, at the general meeting of the shareholders of the London and Bristol Railway in January of that year, when the Brunelites were successful by a narrow majority; and this victory was only obtained by Brunel stating that to take up and alter the gauge of the 23 miles (London to Maidenhead) would need an outlay of £135,000. Happy had it been for the shareholders had they sanctioned this expenditure.

Mr. Nicholas Wood and Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Hawkshaw reported unfavourably on the broad gauge, but Brunel's eloquence had more weight with the shareholders, and he was commissioned to proceed with the work.

The Box tunnel between Chippenham and Bath was another great undertaking successfully carried out. It is 3,203 yards long and required 30,000,000 bricks to roof it. The line was finished to Reading in 1840, and in 1841 it was completed to Bristol, from which place the work had been proceeding at the same time to meet the London end. At Bristol, Brunel proposed to connect the Great Western with South Wales by means of a huge steam ferry, large enough to carry loaded trucks bodily across the Severn, but he died before the idea could be carried out, and after his death it was abandoned.

It was on the Great Western, in 1840, that Cook and Wheatstone's electric-magnetic telegraph was first successfully employed, between London and Slough at first, and so on down the line as it was completed. The Prince Consort frequently used the railway between London and Slough (for Windsor), but the Queen did not venture to use the line till 1842; and when the Windsor branch was "narrowed," there was no further use for the broad gauge saloon used by Her Majesty, which has since remained in the Swindon shops.

The telegraph gave the Great Western Company a great advantage over the other railways in signalling their trains, and consequently they stood ahead of their competitors in the speed of their trains and the safety of their passengers. So remarkable was this latter, that for the three years preceding Christmas Eve 1841 the company carried over 3,000,000 passengers, and the only accidents reported were a broken leg and arm and several bruises. In those days the thirdclass passengers had a very bad time of it; the Parliamentary train took sixteen hours to cover the 163 miles to Taunton, leaving London at 9 P.M. or 4 A.M. When it was proposed to accelerate these trains, the directors replied that the passengers could not stand

a greater speed, because the weather would be too much for them. This will be understood when we recollect that the third-class coaches were quite open at the sides and top.

On the question of locomotives and speed, the Great Western Railway was for many years ahead, and still holds its own. It led the way with the "North Star," a six-wheel engine, built at Newcastle by R. Stephenson & Co., from drawings by Sir Daniel Gooch, in 1839. It is said that this engine was built for a Russian railway of 6-foot gauge, and had 6-foot drivers; but it was altered to the 7-foot gauge, with 7-foot driving wheels.

At this time the narrow gauge locomotives only had four wheels. The "North Star" is the prototype of the six-wheel engines of today, and could it be seen, an ordinary observer most likely would notice nothing uncommon about it. A peculiarity was, that the wooden lagging was exposed to view and not covered with sheetmetal as usual.

Then came Mr. Brunel's "Hurricane" (nicknamed "Grasshopper"), with 10-foot driving-wheels (the largest ever made); this was followed by the "Great Britain" in 1846, on eight wheels, with 8-foot single driving-wheels. The engines of this type, as already mentioned, are still running. Mr. Foxwell says, "The express was timed to leave Didcot (it stopped there) 57 minutes after departing from Paddington; and the distance, 53 miles, was repeatedly run in from 47 to 50 minutes."

In comparing these extraordinary runs with present day oneswhich, by the way, they beat-we must not forget that these trains consisted of four-wheel coaches, with a rigid wheel base, and fitted with no continuous brake !

One driver undertook to cover the 118 miles (London to Bristol) within the hour. He was not allowed to try the experiment. Smiles, writing of the speed competition, says :

The narrow gauge engineers exerted themselves to quicken the speed of their locomotives to the utmost; they improved and re-improved them. The machinery was simplified and perfected. Outside cylinders gave place to inside; the steadier and more rapid and effective action of the engine was secured; and in a few years the highest speed on railways went up from 30 to about 50 miles an hour. For this rapidity of progress we are in no small degree indebted to the stimulus imparted to the narrow gauge engineers by Mr. Brunel,

It was one of the characteristics of Brunel to believe in the success of the schemes for which he was professionally engaged as engineer; and he proved this by investing his savings largely in the Great Western Railway.

Upon several occasions, between 1847 and 1854, Brunel and Gooch ran engines at speeds of and just over 78 miles per hour,