Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - The Steam Navvy and the Dock Extension of 1883 . . .

	Figures 1 & 2 - Dunbar and Ruston's Steam Navvy -  Side and Plan Views plus an illustration.
	Figures 3, 4 & 5 - Dunbar and Ruston's Steam Navvy - Bucket Details plus a photograph of Mr. Joself Ruston.

Dunbar and Ruston's Steam Navvy

by Mr. Joseph Ruston, M.P., of Lincoln.

In the large excavations constantly being made for railways, docks, canals, and other engineering works, containing often many hundreds of thousands of cubic yards, a substitute for the pick and spade has long been sought, and various mechanical contrivances have from same time to time been adopted, with more or less success. The problem may however be considered to be now solved by the steam navvy forming the subject of the present paper, when which is believed by the writer to be, perhaps, the most successful machine yet introduced for this end, being not merely suitable for one form of digging or for one kind of the material, but also capable generally of dealing with every large excavation which contractors are called upon to make, and thus proving itself in fact an expeditious, reliable, and most advantageous help.