CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



A, A, and A- Numbers put before these letters 

 indicate the number of years for which they are 

 to hold the grade indicated by the letter; and 

 numbers (i or 2) put after the letters refer to the 

 completeness of their general equipment Thus, 

 124.1 denotes a wooden vessel of the highest 

 class for twelve years, fully and perfectly equipped. 

 If a ship has been built under the special super- 

 intendence of one of Lloyd's surveyors, it has, in 

 addition to the above letter, a star attached to its 

 name. Lloyd's committee publish an elaborate 

 set of rules and tables, giving the minimum dimen- 

 sions and thicknesses of which all the principal 

 parts of a vessel must be made in order that it 

 may be classed by them. They assign also to 

 each class or size a certain minimum number and 

 weight of anchors, length and size of cables, &c. ; 

 and in every respect do all they can to insure safe 

 and strong work. It is not many years since ships 

 were classified at Lloyd's with reference solely to 

 their age and the place where they were built. Thus, 

 two ships launched about the same time on the 

 Thames or the Wear were enrolled together in the 

 highest class in the register, and stood there for a 

 certain number of years, no matter how different 

 they might originally have been, or might after- 

 wards become. Such a system was so manifestly 

 preposterous, that it is only remarkable that it ever 

 existed at all, and the present elaborate rules and 

 periodical surveys are undoubtedly a very great 

 improvement on it. There are not wanting those, 

 however, who say and with a certain amount of 

 truth that, in the present state of shipbuilding 

 and naval architecture, ' Lloyd's elaborate regula- 

 tions operate to insure uniform mediocrity, and to 

 discourage invention and originality. 



STEAM-NAVIGATION. 



It would be impossible within the limits of this 

 article to give a continuous history of the growth 

 and progress of our merchant steam-fleet ; but it 

 may be both interesting and useful to give a 

 sketch of the early history and present condition 

 of the principal of those great companies whose 

 steamers carry British trade to every part of the 

 globe, as well as of the early history of steam-pro- 

 pulsion. 



To Scotland is due the honour of having given 

 the real start to steam -navigation, although 

 America was the first to prove the commercial 

 advantage of the system. Mr Patrick Miller, an 

 Edinburgh banker, who had a country residence 

 at Dalswinton, in Dumfriesshire, after much 

 speculation on the possibility of navigating a 

 vessel without oars or sails, prepared, in 1787, a 

 small triple boat, having rotary paddles in the 

 two interspaces, driven by a crank worked by four 

 men. Mr Taylor, tutor to Mr Miller's sons, 

 suggested a trial of steam instead of manual 

 power ; and it was agreed that a new boat should 

 be made, and fitted with a steam-engine, under 

 Taylor's superintendence, by Symington, an 

 ingenious mechanic. One paddle only was used 

 in this case, working in the interspace of a twin- 

 boat The first steam-voyage was made on a 

 small lake at Dalswinton, on the I4th October 

 1788. The cylinder of the engine was 4 inches 

 diameter, and the speed attained 5 miles. Another 



451 



steamboat, 60 feet long, was made for Mr Miller, 

 and was propelled on Christmas Day, 1789, at the 

 rate of 7 miles an hour, on the Forth and Clyde 

 Canal. It was, however, abandoned as a com- 

 mercial speculation, through fear that the undula- 

 tion produced by it would injure the canal banks. 

 Several years afterwards, Symington took out a 

 patent, under which a steamboat, called the 

 Charlotte Dundas, was tried for a time on the 

 same canal in 1803. It had a cylinder 22 inches 

 diameter, and 4 feet stroke, and had one wheel 

 working in a well-hole near the stern. Henry 

 Bell, a clever Glasgow mechanic, who had wit- 

 nessed the experiments of 1789, took up the sub- 

 ject at a later date, after Symington had abandoned 

 it. It was not, however, until 1811 that he placed 

 a small steamer in operation on the Clyde. This 

 was the Comet, a vessel of 25 tons burden, 40 feet 

 long, and 10' 6" beam, and with engines of 3 

 horse-power. Small as it was, it steamed down 

 the Clyde against a head-wind at 5 miles an hour. 

 Meanwhile, Robert Fulton, an American of great 

 ingenuity and energy, taking up an unsuccessful 

 patent of Livingston's (with whom he worked), 

 adding to it various details given to him by Bell 

 concerning Miller and Symington's twin-boat, and 

 supplying the rest from the resources of his own 

 mind, placed a steamboat, called the Clermont, of 

 1 60 tons burden, on the Hudson river in 1807. It 

 steamed no miles in 24 hours. The Clcrmonfs 

 engines, and those of at least two succeeding 

 boats, were made in this country by Boulton and 

 Watt. This is not the place to discuss the rela- 

 tive merits of Miller, Taylor, Symington, Bell, 

 and Fulton as inventors ; it is sufficient to say 

 that the present generation owes a debt to them 

 all. 



Thenceforward the progress of steam-navigation 

 was steady and rapid. The first steamer on the 

 Thames was the Margery, 70 tons burden, 

 and 14 horse-power, which ran between London 

 and Gravesend in 1816: it was probably built in 

 Glasgow about 1813. In June 1815, a small 

 Clyde-built steamer (the name of which it is not 

 easy to discover) arrived in the Mersey, and plied 

 on that river, carrying the passenger traffic between 

 Runcorn and Liverpool. 



The Clyde, however, has been more associated 

 with the growth of steam-navigation than any 

 other river. After various minor trials between 

 1811 and 1818, Mr David Napier sent a steamer 

 from Greenock to Belfast in the last-named year ; 

 it was the Rob Roy (go tons, and 30 horse-power) 

 which thus had the honour of being the first vessel 

 to steam across a sea. He next planned the 

 Talbot, to run between Holyhead and Dublin ; and 

 soon afterwards he established a line of steam-ships 

 between Glasgow and Liverpool. 



In America, the size and importance of the 

 rivers caused that country to take the lead it has 

 ever since maintained in r/zw-steaming. About 

 1813, Mr Stevens made a steam-voyage from New 

 York to the Delaware, along the Atlantic sea- 

 board; and in 1819 the Savannah crossed the 

 ocean from New York to Liverpool; but as she 

 was chiefly propelled by her sails, this cannot be 

 called a steam-voyage. The first bona-fide steam- 

 voyages across the Atlantic were made by the 

 Sirius and the Great Western in April 1838, the 

 one in eighteen days, using sails part of the time, 

 and the other in fifteen days. 



