ne word, the Rocket of 1829
is different from the Rocket of 1830 in almost every conceivable respect;
and we are driven perforce to the conclusion that the Rocket of 1829
_never worked at all on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; the engine of
1830 was an entirely new engine_. We see no possible way of escaping from
this conclusion. The most that can be said against it is that the engine
underwent many alterations. The alterations must, however, have been so
numerous that they were tantamount to the construction of a new engine. It
is difficult, indeed, to see what part of the old engine could exist in the
new one; some plates of the boiler shell might, perhaps, have been
retained, but we doubt it. It may, perhaps, disturb some hitherto well
rooted beliefs to say so, but it seems to us indisputable that the Rocket
of 1829 and 1830 were totally different engines.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. THE ROCKET, 1829. THE ROCKET, 1830.]

Our engraving, Fig. 1, is copied from a drawing made by Mr. Phipps,
M.I.C.E., who was employed by Messrs. Stephenson to compile a drawing of
the Rocket from such drawings and documents as could be found. This
gentleman had made the original drawings of the Rocket of 1829, under
Messrs. G. & R. Stephenson's direction. Mr. Phipps is quite silent about
the history of the engine during the eleven months between the Rainhill
trials and the opening of the railway. In this respect he is like every one
else. This period is a perfect blank. It is assumed that from Rainhill the
engine went back to Messrs. Stephenson's works; but there is nothing on the
subject in print, so far as we are aware. Mr. G.R. Stephenson lent us in
1880 a working model of the Rocket. An engraving of this will be found in
_The Engineer_ for September 17, 1880. The difference between it and the
engraving below, prepared from Mr. Phipps' drawing, is, it will be seen,
very small--one of proportions more than anything else. Mr. Stephenson says
of his model: "I can say that it is a very fair representation of what the
engine was before she was altered." Hitherto it has always been taken for
granted that the alteration consisted mainly in reducing the angle at which
the cylinders were set. The Nasmyth drawing alters the whole aspect of the
question, and we are now left to speculate as to what became of the
original Rocket. We are told that after "it" left the railway it was
employed by Lord Dundonald to supply steam to a rotary engine; then