The locomotive engine had for some years been employed in the haulage of coals; but it was not until the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, that the importance of the invention came to be acknowledged.

The locomotive railway has since been everywhere adopted throughout Europe.

In America, Canada, and the Colonies, it has opened up the boundless resources of the soil, bringing the country nearer to the towns, and the towns to the country.

It has enhanced the celerity of time, and imparted a new series of conditions to every rank of life.
The importance of steam navigation has been still more recently ascertained.

When it was first proposed, Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, said: "It is a pretty plan, but there is just one point overlooked: that the steam-engine requires a firm basis on which to work." Symington, the practical mechanic, put this theory to the test by his successful experiments, first on Dalswinton Lake, and then on the Forth and Clyde Canal.