Note 3 — Chapter VI

Since the above was put in type I learn that in his forthcoming book upon "The Development of the Locomotive," which promises to become the standard, Mr. Angus Sinclair says: "The first suggestion of a railroad for goods transportation appears to have been made before The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle by a Mr Thomas, of Denton, in February, 1800. Two years later Richard Edgeworth, father of the famous novelist, suggested that it should be extended for the carrying of passengers." There is no record of Thomas's suggestion, as far as we know, but only tradition. Even if made, however, it seems to have lain dead. Edgeworth evidently knew nothing of it, and as it was his letter to Watt which seems first to have attracted public attention, the passage is allowed to stand as written.