84 Report of the Select Committee 
number of steam-boats have been established: The first was 
at New-York; there are now running between New-York and 
Albany, ten boats; two betweer New-York and the State of 
Connecticut; four or five to New-Jersey; besides the ferry-boats 
that pass and repass across the river, of which there are four; 
those boats work all by low pressure engines ; no accident has 
ever happened to any one of them; they have been running since 
the year 1807; and the boats at Albany perform about forty 
trips each per annum. 
What distance is that ?—An hundred and sixty miles. They 
go up in twenty-one hours, and come down in nineteen; some- 
times a little longer, but never shorter than nineteen ; that is 
the quickest passage. 
At what rate per hour do they go?—Some of them go about 
seven miles an hour in still water; some boats have gone nine, 
ten, or eleven knots ; but that is under particular circumstances. 
They have come from Newhaven to New-York, ninety miles, in 
six hours and a half, without any sail. 
Do they ever make use of a sail?—They have a sail and a 
mast, which they can lower down and raise up to take advantage 
of a favourable wind, to assist them in their passage. 
Those boats are upon rivers ?—Those which go to Albany pass 
up the North River, and the others to Conneeticut pass through 
what is called Long Island Sound, which is forty miles broad in 
one part of it. On the river Delaware there are a number of 
boats also established, which ply between Philadelphia and 
Trenton, in New-Jersey; and Philadelphia and Bordenton, in 
New-Jersey; also others between Philadelphia and Newcastle, 
and Philade! phia and Wilmington ; beside ferry-beats which pass 
and repass the Delaware. Sev eral of those boats have low pres- 
sure engines, others have high pressure engines, working the 
high pressure engines from 100 to 140 pounds the square inch, 
and as high as 160; but those engines are constructed upon 
Oliver Evans’s plan, called the Columbian plan. 
Are they of wrought iron ?7—Yes ; there are no cast-iron hoilers 
in America. I presume that may arise from their not having 
foundries in which they can cast them sufficiently large ; they 
are all wrought-iron boilers or copper; all which have to pass 
through salt-water are copper. The boat Etna, which passes 
between Philadelphia and Wilmington, is ahigh pressure engine, 
and outstrips all the other boats; there is no competition at all 
between them. ‘There are boats which pass also on the Chesa- 
peak, which is there forty miles wide ; they pass from Baltimore 
to French Town and back, regular boats, two lines of boats ; 
one leaves Baltimore one day and the other the next; they pass 
every 
