14 THE HISTORY OF [SECT. i. 



* 



boiler below it, is raised, and depresses the other end of a lever connected to the 

 rod of a plunger of a pump, which causes the water to rise through the pipe, and 

 by the alternate action of the steam in the two cylinders a continual stream of 

 water is raised. Thus the first rude notice of the principle of employing high- 

 pressure steam under a piston was given. 



13. It does not appear that any thing was added to the existing knowledge 

 of the steam engine by Dr. Desaguliers, though, from his fondness for experimental 

 philosophy, we are led to expect he would have taken an important place in 

 reducing to fixed principles the phenomena he was daily called upon to witness 

 and make known to the world. This was not the case ; and, for historical inform- 

 ation, he was evidently too prejudiced in favour of particular individuals to allow 

 him to detail facts with candour and fairness ; therefore, the matter he collected, 

 in his ' Experimental Philosophy,' is no further valuable, than by making the state 

 of the engine at that period, and part of the researches of Beighton, known. 



1736. JONATHAN HULLS. 



14. The atmospherical steam engine, as improved by Beighton, began to be 

 very generally adopted in the coal works and copper mines ; and it does not seem 

 to have required any great stretch of invention to direct such an efficient power 

 to other purposes, besides that of raising water. 



The first attempt, however, on record, was one to apply steam to navigation, 

 and was made by Jonathan Hulls, who, on the 21st of December, 1736, obtained 

 a patent, for what may strictly be considered a steam boat. 



The letters patent, and a description of this boat, illustrated by a plate, was 

 published in a tract, by Hulls, in 1737, under the following title: 'A Descrip- 

 tion and Draught of a new-invented Machine for carrying Vessels or Ships out of 

 or into any Harbour, Port, or River, against Wind or Tide, or in a Calm.' 

 As the origin of the invention of steam boats has been strongly contested, this 

 pamphlet, which it is now very difficult to obtain on account of its rarity, has been 

 brought forward to prove that Jonathan Hulls was the first person who suggested 

 the power of steam as a means of propelling paddle wheels. His mode of con- 

 verting the reciprocating motion of the engine into a rotatory one, is less simple 

 than the crank, but it appears to have been the first attempt, and was done in the 

 following manner : Let a, b, c, be three wheels on one axis, and d, e, two wheels 

 loose on another axis A, with ratchets, so as to move the axis only when they move 

 forward ; /, g, h, are three ropes, and P is the piston of the engine. When the 



