AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 399 



SO cumbersome as to he useless, and lie advances the idea that such ma- 

 chinery should be placed in a separate vessel, to be used for towing vessels. 



The ideas of Hull were lost sight of and forgetten, until Watt (like 

 many others of the present day, being ignorant of previous inventions,) 

 actually took out a pateut for the application of the crank to the steam en- 

 gine, patented seven years before by Hull. 



Genevois, of Geneva, in 1759, published a scheme for improvement in 

 navigation, and proposed the use of a jointed propeller, or oar wheel, which 

 should be extended while actually propelling the boat, but should fold 

 together so as to pass through the water with very little resistance while 

 being moved forward to make a fresh stroke. 



The propellers he intended to work by the reaction of springs, proposing 

 the use of Newcomen's steam engine for this purpose. 



In 1774, Comte d'Auxiron constructed a steamboat, but as his engine 

 was inadequate to move the wheels, no practical advancement in the art 

 resulted from it. 



Peirer Fris resumed the d'Auxiron experiment the next year, but labor- 

 ing under ths same difficulty, obtained only power enough to stem the cur- 

 rent of the Seine. 



The Marquis de Jauifray, in 1778, constructed a boat 46^ inches long 

 and 4-| broad. This vessel had a single paddle wheel on each side, with 

 skillful machinery, but too weak for the purposes intended. Political dis- 

 turbances caused the Marquis to abandon his experiments. 



M. de Blanc, a French watchmaker, patented, in 179G, a method of pro- 

 pelling vessels by steam. This method, Jauflfray claimed, was obtained 

 from communications made by him to Blanc. Both experiments were tried 

 on the Seine, and the method of propulsion was by means of paddles, or 

 float boards, attached to an endless chain stretched over two wheels pro- 

 jecting from the side of the vessel. 



While these experiments were being made in Europe, Fitch and Kumsey 

 were making experiments in the same line in the United States. In 1783, 

 Fitch succeeded in moving a boat on the Delaware, by means of paddles 

 set in motion by a steam engine. Rumsey, his rival, about the same time, 

 exhibited models of a boat which he proposed moving by wheels, cranks 

 and poles. 



In 1787, he made a voyage on the Potomac with a boat 50 feet long, 

 propelled by the reaction of a stream of loater drawn in at the how and 

 forced out at the stern, by means of a pump worked by a steam engine, 

 which it is said made three or four miles an hour, carrying 3 tons, besides 

 her engine, which was one-third of a ton in weight. The boiler held only 

 5 gallons of water, and consumed 4 to 6 bushels of coal in 12 hours. 



He afterwards proposed long poles, reaching to the bed of the river, 

 when going against rapid currents. 



Becoming discontented in his rivalry with Fitch, he went to England 

 and constructed a vessel similar to that used on the Potomac, and although 



