Burning Daylight
George Stephenson argued that his steam engines were solar-powered.
before 1848
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
George Stephenson argued that his steam engines were solar-powered.
before 1848
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Today’s enthusiasts for ‘renewable energy’ have brought Britain’s once-mighty coal industry to an end. Yet judging by George Stephenson’s exchange with William Buckland, the eccentric but brilliant Oxford geologist, there may have been a serious misunderstanding...
abridged
ONE Sunday, when the party had just returned from church, they were standing together on the terrace near the Hall, and observed in the distance a railway-train flashing along, tossing behind its long white plume of steam. “Now, Buckland,” said Stephenson, “Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?”
“Well,” said the other, “I suppose it is one of your big engines.”
“But what drives the engine?”
“Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver.”*
“What do you say to the light of the sun?”
“How can that be?” asked the doctor.
“It is nothing else,” said the engineer, “it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years, — light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, — and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in that locomotive, for great human purposes.”
abridged
This was a little joke at Stephenson’s expense, a proud son of Northumberland. (They were actually in Derbyshire, guests of Sir Robert Peel, the former Prime Minister.) In the North East, ‘canny’ doesn’t mean ‘shrewd’ as it does elsewhere; it means ‘likeable, good company’.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did the conversation turn to trains?
Because they could see one passing by.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
George Stephenson was talking with William Buckland. They saw a train pass by. They started talking about trains.