Many have thought that Stephenson was the inventor of the Link
motion reverse but that is not the case, his company developed it.
A nice article in the ‘Live Steam’ magazine which we take
the liberty to copy part of it.
‘The Stephenson Valve Motion was named for the British firm
of Robert Stephenson & Company since it was not designed by
envisioned the link motion has been lost in antiquity but it is
assumed that an apprentice draftsman first thought up the motion
and one of Stephenson’s pattern makers worked out the practical
details. This link motion was an enormous improvement over the
clumsy hook motions of that period and since then it has been used
on all types of steam engines.’
One of the late copies of our magazine took fifteen days to go
to Florida. We were receiving inquiries from Florida and several
other parts of the U.S. When we got word of the time element to
Florida we dropped the matter and heard nothing further. Hope all
went well. Seems funny Railroads don’t want passengers, some
magazines don’t want subscribers, Post office don’t want
mail, and I don’t want work.
I was reading an 1838 Farm Magazine and came to an article on
Threshing. It was discussing the merits of threshing with a
‘Ground Hog’ thresher and the method of tramping the grain
out with horses or cattle. It was surprising to note that the
author favored animal method. The thresher was wasteful with the
straw which made fertilizer. It also stirred up the dust (it still
does). It did state that if you wanted your work done up in a hurry
the thresher was your best bet.