no luxuries, few
real comforts. The people around him lived half the time underground
in mines that were dark, damp, and dangerous--in constant war with
water and a poisonous, explosive, natural gas, known as "fire-damp."
Above ground there was little that was attractive or educative. The
young men had their games, at which George was fairly successful,
for he was strong and active. The ale-house stood near by, and it
absorbed most of the spare time and scant earnings of the miners;
but it is said that young Stephenson avoided the saloon, and was
never known to leave his work for a drink of liquor. On off days he
took his engine to pieces, examined its parts and the functions of
each, and remedied small defects and devised improvements. Naturally
clear-headed and ingenious, every circumstance tended to develop his
executive powers. He soon was known in the Tyne valley as a good
engine-doctor.

An incident, when he was about twenty years of age, did much to
shape his career. He heard that a neighboring mine had been flooded
on account of the inability of the engine to pump fast enough. No
engineer could make the engine efficient. One Sunday he went down
and looked at it. After a thorough examination he said he could make
it work in a week's time if he could have authority to make changes
as he saw fit. Authority was given him. In four days the engine was
repaired and set to work. In spite of jeers from old engine-men, who
were jealous of a mere boy, the pump worked well and the mine was
soon dry. George's reputation was made, and he soon received
appointment as engineer at a large mine at Killingworth, an
important place near by.

Meanwhile Stephenson added exact instrumental drawing to his three
R's. He found, as every artisan finds, that exact drawing is
necessary not only to the study of existing mechanical devices, but
particularly to the successful design of new parts. The successful
inventor generally invents at his drawing-board.

When twenty-one years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a
respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the
bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen
miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one
of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In
1812, when Stephenson was thirty-one years old, he was made
engine-wright of a large colliery at Killingworth, at a salary of
$500. The position was one of prof