Note 104 — Chapter XIX

This was a favorite notion of George Stephenson's, and he held that what produced light and heat had originally been light and heat. Mr. Fearon, solicitor, has informed the author that he accompanied Stephenson on one of his visits to Belgium, when it seemed to him that the engineer did not take much interest in the towns, churches, or public buildings of Belgium, probably because he knew little of history, and they recalled no associations with the past. One day the party went to see the beautiful Hôtel de Ville at Brussels, but Stephenson did not seem moved by it. On passing out of the square, however, by the little street which leads toward the Montague de la Cour, his interest was thoroughly roused by the sight of an immense fat pig hung up in a butcher's shop. He immediately took out his foot-rule, measured the pig, and expressed a desire to have some conversation with the butcher as to how it had been fed. The butcher accordingly waited upon them at the hotel, and told all he knew about the feeding of the pig; and then, says Mr. Fearon, "George went off into his favorite theory of the sun's light, which he said had fattened the pig; for the light had gone into the pease, and the pease had gone into the fat, and the fat pig was like a field of coal in this respect, that they were, for the most part, neither more nor less than bottled sunshine."