/ - * aS % 
on the Steam Engine. > 339 - 
- Even in the more fatal cases which are here excluded, and in all ac- 
cidents of this nature, the chief loss is sustained by the crew and of 7 
ficers attached to the boats, who, by the nature of their employments, 
are compelled to encounter by far the greatest portion of the hazard. 
“ An earnest and persevering attention to the safety of steam boil- _ 
ers, and strict personal inquiry into the accidents which have occur- 
ted, enables me to state fearlessly, though in opposition to received 
opinions, that since the year 1824, no ae this region has 
been justly chargeable, either to want of water in the boiler or to 
culpable negligence or incompetency ; but every one has arisen 
the defective form and structure of the boilers which have failed. 
me of the most careful and meritorious of the engineers and at- 
tendants have suffered at their posts, and have sunk into their grave: 
under imputations as unmerited as they were gratuitous and crue 
Nor can a resort to legislative enactments either remedy the eptheate or 
afford any additional security ; but the matter must be left to the in- 
telligence of the age, and to the operation of motives which are’ 
more powerlully felt by the owners and managers of steam boats, 
a impose. 
steam boat pbcialnts during 
e last and present seasons,” still the hazard, or the average loss of 
life: is constantly diminishing, and will probably diminish in a still 
/ greater ratio, as soon as the large, ill-constructed, and unsafe boilers, 
Which were in vogue a few years since under the soothing cognomen 
of low pressure boilers, shall have been finally discarded, in which 
result considerable progress has already been made. 
The amount of steam boat business in this country has been in- 
creased immensely since 1824, and perhaps exceeds the average of 
the preceding period by fifty or one hundred fold. In 1824, but — 
he steam boat ran in the waters of Connecticut, and but two from 
New York, eastward, and-with a small number of passengers com- 
pared with what they now carry, Now we have sixteen or twenty 
in full activity in that direction. - One boat on the Hudson, built'in 
1825, has carried near two hundred thousand passengers, and we 
have now sixteen or eighteen boats plying on the Hudson, while 
Southward from this city the change has been equally great. So late 
8s the commencement of the year 1817, the whole number of steam 
which had been built on the western waters, was ten, and in 
that year the feat of performing a passage from New Orleans to the 
falls of the Ohio, in twenty five days, was celebrated by ee re- 
