Inaugural Lecture 1889 13 



and in this country. In 1787 Rumsey made some short 

 voyages on the Potomac with a boat about fifty feet long 

 propelled by the reaction of a stream of water drawn in at 

 the bow and forced out at the stern, by means of a pump 

 worked by a steam engine. In 1788 Mr Millar of Dalswinton 

 in Dumfriesshire fitted his pleasure boat with a boiler and 

 engine and the first steamer in British waters was a steam 

 launch on Dalswinton lake. Of him Carlyle says: "he spent 

 his life and his estate in that venture, and is not now to be 

 heard of in these parts, having had to sell Dalswinton and 

 die Quasi-bankrupt, and I should think broken-hearted." Steam 

 navigation, however, assumed no commercial importance 

 until Fulton, who had followed the experiments on both sides 

 of the Atlantic, returned to America, and in 1807 launched 

 the steamer " Clermont " of 160 tons burden which made several 

 trips on the Hudson river and in 1808 took its position as a 

 regular trading vessel running between New York and Albany 1 . 

 It was not till 1811 that Henry Bell, of Helensburgh on 

 riyde, built the "Comet," nor till January 1812 that she 

 began to ply regularly on the river. From that time to this 

 numerous experiments and an uninterrupted succession of 

 improvements have brought steam navigation to its present 

 high state of perfection. 



Steamship construction thus originated simultaneously and 



<>me extent independently in North America and in Great 



tin, and in both countries the adaptation of the steam 



me to the propulsion of river craft has been prosecuted 



with energy and success. It might have been expected that 



the ons working, not out of communication with each 



other, on the same material and for the same end would 



have turned out much the same article; yet how diffen nt 



not only in outward appearance but in almost every detail of 



construction, are the American and the European river steam, r 



rica steamers were built so as to suit Am< 

 which thou-h of great volume are in many places 

 1 The ship " Clerniont " \\.ts built r, n the East K lut her 



;il They \vrir lunlt t>Mi Full, m's order 



Messrs Boul ton .m<l \\.itt <>f I'.itniingham. Sec Life of Robert Fulton by 



