402 



mated, of propelling her, fully loaded and in calm 

 weather, about 7 knots. They are situated near 

 the stern, and they ilrive a feathering screw-pro- 

 peller of the 'Bevis' type, the advantages and 

 efficiency of which have already been fullv demon- 

 strated in government vessels and large first -class 

 auxiliary yacht*. Hv suitable gearing \\ orked from 

 the engine room, ami led through the hollow of the 

 shafting, the disposition of the blades can be 

 altered relatively to the longitudinal axis of the 

 shafting as may be desired, and even turned so 

 as to be exactly in lino with the axis, in which 

 position of course they will oiler the least resist- 

 ance to the vessel's progress while proceeding under 

 sail alone. 



Steamships. When the steam-engine came into 

 vogue as a moving power its utility for the pur- 

 poses of ship-propulsion occurred to many minds. 

 The Spaniards claim that Blasco de Gary as early 

 as 1543 attempted to propel a vessel by steam in 

 the harbour of Barcelona. Denis 1'npin (q.v., 

 1647-1712) on 27th September 1707 employed a 

 steam-engine to drive a model boat fitted, with 

 paddle-wheels, on the river Fulda from Cassel 

 to M linden. Jonathan Hulls in England patented 

 in 1736 and described in 1737 a form of paddle- 

 steamer resembling in many essential features 

 vessels still in use. Other inventors proposed 

 more or less feasible schemes for applying the im- 

 perfect forms of the steam-engine as then known 

 to ship-propulsion. 



The real beginnings of practical steam-naviga- 

 tion, however, are to be found in the period 1780- 

 90, and almost simultaneously, and probably with 

 little knowledge of what was being done elsewhere, 

 the pioneers of progress set to work in England, 

 France, and America. The Marquis de Jouffroy 

 (q.v., 1751-1832) produced a paddle-steamboat at 

 Lyons, which, on being tried for speed there on 

 July 15, 1783, attained most encouraging success; 

 hut, ruined bv the Revolution, he failed to bring 

 his invention into practical use. About 1785 two 

 American inventors James Knmsey (c. 1743-92) 

 and John Fitch (q.v., 1743-98) were independ- 

 ently engaged in steamship experiments. Rumsey 

 in 1 <86 succeeded in driving a lioat at the rate of 

 4 miles an hour by jet-propulsion i.e. forcing by 

 steam-pumps a jet of water through the stern. 

 Hunisey died in London just prior to trials being 

 made on the Thames with another boat from his 

 plans. Fitch liegan his experiments with paddle- 

 wheels in 1785, but more successfully in 1787-88 

 with a series of paddles worked with a motion 

 resembling that of the Indian's paddle in canoe- 

 propulsion. In April 1790 another of Fitch's boats 

 made 7 miles an hour, and afterwards plied as a 

 passenger-bout on the Delaware. Fitch disputed 

 with Hnmsey and others the right to lie considered 

 the inventor of steam-navigation ; but losing all 

 hope of making headway in America, he went 

 to France in 1793. Again in 1796 he was back 

 in America experimenting with a little wrcw 

 steamboat on a pond in New York. This led to 

 no practical result, and Kiteh, disappointed and 

 In nken down, retired to Kentucky, where he seems 

 to have committed siiieide. For a numlierof years 

 prior to 1788 experiment* with lioaU driven by 

 paddle-wheels, worked by manual power, had been 

 made by Patrick Miller (1731-1815), a retired 

 Edinburgh luuiker, in a lake on liis estate of Dal- 

 Hwinton, Dumfriesshire. On the suggestion of 

 James Taylor, tutor to his SOUK, Miller was led to 

 think of applying steam as the motive-power 

 though the onginal idea is also claimed as his. 

 Taylor introduced to him William Symington, 

 a mechanic at Wanlockhead, who hud already 

 invented an engine for road locomotion, as an 

 annuitant in his experiments. During the summer 



and autumn of 1788 the skill and ingenuity 

 of Symington were exercised in constructing an 

 engine after the pattern of his own road-engine, 

 on board a boat 25 feet long by 7 feet broad, hav- 

 ing twin hulls with paddle-wheels between. On 

 October 14, 1788, this small craft was propelled 

 through the waters of the lake at the rate of 5 

 miles per hour, in presence of Robert Burns, Lord 

 Brougham (then a boy), Nasmyth the painter, and 

 other friends of Mr Miller. A year later (October 

 1789) a larger and more powerful vessel was built 

 and engined for Miller at Carron Ironworks, and 

 tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal, the speed 

 then attained being about 7 miles per hour. 

 Miller, as Carlyle tells us, 'spent his life and 

 his estate in that adventure, and died quasi- 

 bankrupt and broken-hearted.' Symington's 

 pecuniary circumstances did not admit of his 

 experimenting further on his own account, and 

 it was not until twelve years after that he had 

 the opportunity of following up previous etl'ori- 

 with one still more emphatically successful. Mean- 

 time in America others were at work besides 

 Fitch, amongst whom were Samuel Morley, Nathan 

 Read, John Steven, Nicholas Roosevelt, Chancellor 

 Livingston, and Robert Fulton. None of these, how- 

 ever, had materially advanced the cause of ship- 

 propulsion by steam, when in 1801-2 Symington 

 completed for Thomas, Lord Dundas of Kerse, a 

 steam-vessel intended for towing purposes on the 

 Forth and Clyde Canal. This was the Charlotte 

 Dundas, the ' first practically successful steamlxmt 

 ever built." The engine was of Watt's double- 

 acting type, turning a crank on the shaft of the 

 paddle-wheel, which was situated at the stern. 

 Early in 1802 she was launched on the canal at 

 Grangemouth, and in March of the same year 

 she towed two laden barges, each of 70 tons 

 burden, a distance of about 20 miles against a 

 strong headwind in six hours. After repeated 

 trials the proprietors of the canal were urged to 

 adopt the new plan of towing, but, fearing injury 

 to the banks of the canal from the wash caused 

 by the paddles, they declined the proposal. The 

 Charlotte l>iin<l(is was beached upon the canal 

 bank, and gradually broken up ; and Symington, 

 thoroughly disheartened, turned his attention to 

 other matters. 



Amongst those who are said, on sufficiently 

 credible authority, to have inspected tin- Charlotte 

 Dundas were Robert Fulton (q.v., 1765-1815) 

 ami Henry Bell (q.v., 1767-1830), two enterprising 

 spirits, afterwards destined the one in America, 

 the other in Scotland to achieve permanent suc- 

 cess \vith steamships. Fulton went to Paris in 

 1797, and for some years was engaged experi- 

 menting with submarine torpedoes and torpedo 

 boats. About 1801-2, jointly with Chancellor 

 Livingston, then ambassador at the court of 

 France, he built a steaml>oat on the Seine. 

 the engine for which, proving too heavy for the 

 hull, caused it to collapse and sink. " Nothing 

 daunted, Fulton recovered the machinery and 

 placed it in a new and stronger boat, 66 feet long 

 by 8 feet broad. ( >n August 9, 1803, this boat was 

 tried on the Seine, but attained only very limited 

 speed. Fulton, returning to England in May 1804, 

 remained for over two years ; and there- he drdeied 

 and saw completed by lioulton and Watt a steam- 

 engine which Livingston and he intended should 

 be utilised in America. He sailed in October 1806, 

 the engine following, and in August 1807 it was 

 part and parcel of the Clermont, a vessel 133 

 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 9 feet deep, built 

 to Fulton's order. Her first trip between New 

 York and Albany, a distance of 142 miles, was 

 made in thirty-two hours' steaming time, and 

 the return journey occupied thirty hours. Th 



