4 BULI.ETIN 127, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The collection, as a whole, contains, in addition to models of 

 vessels and full-size boats, many photographs, drawings, and paint- 

 ings. These latter objects, however, have been omitted in this 

 descriptive catalogue so as to avoid a too cumbersome volume. 



SCOPE OF THE COLLECTION. 



NORTH AMERICA. 



The portion of the collection relating to vessels of the United 

 States, as might naturally be expected is much larger, more compre- 

 hensive and varied, than that pertaining to vessels of any other 

 country. There are comparatively few government vessels exhibited. 

 The limited though varied collection, however, embraces some ob- 

 jects of special interest. No well-defined effort has been made to 

 collect material of this kind outside of the vessels of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries, which are fully represented. This may in a measure be 

 due to the fact that the Navy Department has for some years been 

 assembling a series of models or other illustrations pertaining to 

 that phase of naval architecture with which it is specially concerned. 



Considered from an historicah standpoint the United States occu- 

 pies a most prominent-. position in the department of steam naviga- 

 tion, in which it led all other countries. In the illustration of naval 

 architecture as applied to steam navigation the object has been, so 

 far, to give special attention to the representation of historical ob- 

 jects through which can be traced the beginnings of an enterprise 

 destined in later years to revolutionize the water-borne traffic of the 

 world. 



The early efforts of American inventors to attain success in build- 

 ing steamboats were conducted under the most discouraging influ- 

 ences, conditions which would have prevented a continuation of 

 labor on the part of men having less inspiration and determination. 

 When the fact is recalled that there was not a properly organized 

 machine shop in the United States at the time when many of the 

 early steamboats were built and engined, we can not but marvel at 

 the results secured. While it is true that Fulton's Clermont was 

 equipped with engines made in England, it is equally true that 

 smaller craft, devised before her time by Fitch, Eumsey, and 

 Stevens had their engines built in America, and that the Phoenix, 

 built by Stevens the next year after the Clermont was afloat, was 

 fitted with a boiler and engine of domestic manufacture — a triumph 

 of American skill and invention which it is difficult at this time to 

 properly appreciate. 



The great possibilities for steam traffic in navigating the mag- 

 nificent rivers, lakes, and sounds of the United States was an in- 

 centive which prompted the greatest exertions in developing steam 



