MILLER, TAYLOR, AND SYMINGTON. 83 



inches diameter), at the rate of five miles an hour. After amusing ourselves a few days, 

 the engine was removed, and carried into the house, where it remained as a piece of 

 ornamental furniture for a number of years." The vessel was 25 feet long and 7 broad. 

 Thus was steam navigation inaugurated ! How few of the readers of the Dumfries 

 Newspaper, the Edinburgh Advertiser, or the Scots' Magazine, when reading the brief 

 account printed in their columns, dreamt of the revolution which this interesting and 

 successful little experiment involved. The latter could not see farther than its utility in 

 canals, and other inland navigation. The Annual Register for the year does not even 

 mention it. 



It was now agreed to repeat the experiment. A double engine with eighteen-inch 

 cylinder was constructed at Carron under Symington's directions. In November, 1789, 

 she was tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal. " After passing Lock 16," says Taylor, 

 we proceeded cautiously and pleasantly for some time, but after giving the engine full 

 play the arms of the wheels, which had been constructed too slight, began to give way, 

 and one float after another broke off, till we were satisfied no accuracy could be attained 

 in the experiment until the wheels were replaced by new ones of a stronger construction. 

 This was done with all possible speed, and upon the 26th December, we again proceeded 

 to action. This day we moved freely without accident, and were much gratified to find 

 our motion nearly seven miles per hour. Next day we repeated the experiment with 

 the same success and pleasure. Satisfied now th-at everything proposed was accomplished, 

 it was unnecessary to dwell longer upon the business; for, indeed, both this and the 

 experiment of last year were as complete as any performance made by steam-boats, even 

 to the present day." Mr. Miller, who paid all the expenses of these steam experiments, 

 did not pursue them further, and it is to be regretted, inasmuch as his name has not been 

 so popularly associated with the infancy of steam navigation as could be wished. He 

 was an enthusiast in many branches of practical science, and seems latterly to have 

 given his mind more particularly to improvements in agriculture. Mr. Taylor's 

 connection with steam-boat experiments ceased with those of the second boat in 1789. 

 "And it is clear/' says Woodcroft, "from his own statement and those of his friends, 

 that he was neither the inventor of the machinery by which either of those boats was 

 driven, nor of the mode of connecting the engines to the boat and wheels." His widow 

 received a small pension from Government, and in 1837 each of his four daughters 

 received a gift of 50 for their father's connection with the experiments. Miller sought 

 no pecuniary aid or reward of any kind; and, although he devoted his time and talents, 

 and expended nearly 30,000 of his own fortune in the improvement of artillery and 

 naval architecture, his services were wholly overlooked by the powers that were. 

 Mr. Woodcroft has very clearly shown that Miller, in spite of the apparent success of 

 the experiments, had not great faith in Symington's machinery, which he describes in 

 a letter "as the most improper of all steam-engines for giving motion to a vessel." 

 We find him much later describing, in a patent specification, a new form of flat boat, 

 with centre-boards and paddle-wheels, still worked by his favourite capstans. 



More than ten years elapsed before Symington, the builder of Miller's engines, 

 found another patron. In 1801, Thomas, first Lord Dundas, employed him to fit up a 



