122 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



courteous assistance of tlie exauiiuers iu charge, quite a number of 

 drawings which accompany the patent specifications were found. These 

 are of great interest, showing the Huctuatious of thought at various 

 intervals. It is intended to arrange these for exhibition at some future 

 time. 



The loss of models, etc., by the fire of 1877, is to be deplored, as a 

 wide field for investigation was destroyed by this occurrence. 



Lack of time has prevented me from giving much attention to steam- 

 boats and marine engines. While the collection is meager, it is a nucleus 

 which, I trust, will attract the attention of marine engineers and steam- 

 ship builders. Their co-operation in this direction would be invaluable. 



A portion of the chain gearing of Eumsey's original steam-boat, which 

 was used on the Potomac River in 1787, is in the collection. 



Efforts are being made, with promise of success, to obtain drawings, 

 etc., of many of Ericsson's inventions. 



In the museum of the Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N. J., may be seen 

 the original machinery of the propeller steam-boat, invented and con- 

 structed by Col. John Stevens, and navigated by him in 1803 and 1804. 



A drawing of this machinery has been obtained, and a sketch of what 

 Is left of the original propeller, which is also at Stevens Institute, and 

 which is a most valuable relic, is j^romised for our collection. I am in 

 hopes of having a duplicate made at some future time. 



A sketch of Fulton's Clermont, 1807, and a drawing of the machinery 

 of this historic boat will shortly be placed on exhibition. 



Plan of Fulton's original ferry system, steam-boat with single paddle 

 wheel in center, and floating bridge, and slip at dock, 1812, has also 

 been obtained. This is a fac-simile, on a reduced scale, of the original, 

 drawing made by Eobert Fulton. 



Through the kindness of Mr. Francis B. Stevens, grandson of Col- 

 onel Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J., and nephew of Eobert L. Stevens, who 

 built and navigated the steam-boat Phcenix, launched in 1807 (two 

 weeks after Fulton's Clermont), a photograph from an oil-painting of 

 this historic boat, the first steam-boat to navigate the ocean (from Sandy 

 Hook to Cape May), has been obtained. 



Mr. Isaac Dripps has had constructed a model one eighth of full size, 

 in brass, of what he claims to be the first screw-propeller ever placed in 

 the stern of a steam-boat, before the rudder, on this side of the Atlantic, 

 and has presented it to the Museum. The original propeller- wheel was 

 constructed by Mr. Dripps in 1837, and was by him attached to the 

 steam-boat New Jersey, which, by the way, was the first iron steam- 

 boat to cross the Atlantic. It was the use of this propeller that caused 

 the differences between Captain Ericsson and the Stevens brothers, re- 

 sulting in the legal establishment of the fact that their father navigated 

 the propeller steam-boat alluded to above on the Hudson iu 1803-''04. 



One of the iron plates from the hull of the New Jersey, collected by 

 Colonel Bucklew, is also a part of the Museum collection. 



