528 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE GKOWTH OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 1 



By Professor E. H. THURSTON, 



OF THE STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. 



V. 

 STEAM-NAVIGATION" (continued). 



93. The prize gained by Fulton was, however, most closely con- 

 tested by Colonel John Stevens, of Hoboken, who has been already 

 mentioned in connection with the early history of railroads, and who 

 had been, since 1791, engaged in similar experiments. 



In 1789 he had petitioned the Legislature of the State of New 

 York for an act similar to that granted Livingston, and stated that 

 his plans were complete, and on paper. 



In 1804, while Fulton was in Europe, Stevens had completed a 

 steamboat (Fig. 53) sixty-eight feet long and fourteen feet beam, 

 which combined novelties and merits of design in a manner that was 



o~^S^ 



Fig. .53. John Stevens's Screw-Steamer, 1804. 



the best possible evidence of remarkable inventive talent, as well as of 

 the most perfect appreciation of the nature of the problem which he 

 had proposed to himself to solve. 



The machinery of this interesting vessel is carefully preserved 

 among the collections of the Stevens Institute of Technology. Its 

 boiler, shown in section, in Fig. 54, is of what is now known as the 

 water tubular variety. The inventor says in his specifications: "The 

 principle of this invention consists of forming a boiler by means of 

 a system or combination of small vessels, instead of using, as is the 

 common mode, one laro-e one: the relative strength of the materials 



1 An abstract of " A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine," to be published 

 by D. Appleton & Co. 



