MILLER'S FIRST STEAM-BOAT. 81 



We now approach the name of one of those who are most intimately connected with 

 the history of steam navigation, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton. In 1787 he published a 

 pamphlet* describing a triple vessel, propelled by paddle-wheels, and worked by cranks. 

 In it he very distinctly says : " I have also reason to believe that the power of the 

 steam-engine may be applied to work the ivheels, so as to give them a quicker motion, 

 and consequently to increase that of the ship. In the course of this summer I intend to 

 make the experiment," &c. A statement was presented to the Royal Society, Dec. 20th, 

 1787, regarding experiments made by Mr. Miller in the Firth of Forth, the previous summer, 

 in a double vessel, sixty feet long and fourteen and a half feet broad, put in motion by 

 a water-wheel, wrought by a capstan of five bars. On the lower part of the capstan a 

 wheel was fixed, with teeth pointing upwards, to work in a trundle fixed on the axis of 

 the water-wheel. She was worked at from three and a half to five miles an hour, with 

 four or five men at the capstan. Two men propelled her at the rate of two and a half 

 miles. 



The vessel was three-masted, and sailed well with a smart breeze, when the wheel was 

 invariably raised above the surface of the water. " After making sundry tacks in the Firth," 

 says the narrator, "with all the sails set, the wind fell to a gentle breeze, when all the 

 sails were taken in, and the following experiments made : 



"The vessel being put in motion by the water-wheel, wrought by five men at the 

 capstern (sic) was steered so as to keep the wind right ahead, and her going was found by 

 the log to be three and a half miles in the hour. 



"After this the wind was brought on the beam (that situation being considered as 

 the nearest to trying the effect of the wheel in a calm), when five men at the capstern made 

 the vessel to go at the rate of four miles an hour. 



"With the wind brought on the quarter, five men caused her to go at the rate of four 

 and a half miles an hour," &c. 



And so it goes on. Miller made some very distinct statements as to the distance the 

 different vessels should be placed from each other, and further states that the objection that 

 the sea would separate the different bottoms is not well founded, " top weight not being 

 detrimental to these ships in point of stiffness, all the beams on the different decks may 

 be of the same size; and the strength of these united must be very superior to any weight 

 or force which can operate against it when the ship is afloat, however agitated or high the 

 sea may be." These early experiments are particularly interesting now, when the Calais- 

 Douvres, a vessel which must be described hereafter, has proved a success. 



Mr. James Taylor may also be considered as one of the authors or inventors of the 

 present system of steam navigation. In a memorial laid before a Select Committee of 

 the House of Commons in 1824, he says : 



" Before, however, entering upon the main object, permit me to introduce it by a 

 short statement explanatory of my connection with Mr. Miller. In the autumn of 1785, 

 I went to live in Mr. Miller's house as preceptor to his two younger sons. I found him 

 a gentleman of great patriotism, generosity, and philanthropy, and at the same time of a 



* This brochure is extremely scarce. The curious in such matters will find it reprinted in full in 

 "Woodcroft's "Sketch of the Origin and Progress of Steam Navigation." 



51 



