The perfection of the steam locomotive and the inception and
marvelous development of the system of steam railway
transportation marked the second quarter of the century. The name
of the Stephensons, father and son, is inseparably connected with
this work which has affected so deeply the economic and social
life of the nation, and has contributed in a thousand indirect
ways to the expansion and consolidation of the empire. It has
been said that in 1825 the traveler from London to Rome went no
faster than the courier of the Caesars, eighteen hundred years
before. Thanks to George Stephenson's inventive genius, the
traveler of today consumes scarcely more time between London and
Peking.