288 SECTION MECHANICS. 



There is a model and a drawing of the first steamboat in Europe 

 advertised for the conveyance of passengers and goods, and there is 

 also the original engine made and fitted on board that vessel. 



That vessel was the " Comet," built in Scotland in 1811-12 for Mr. 

 Henry Bell, of Helensburgh, the boat being designed and built by Mr, 

 John Wood, at Port-Glasgow. The " Comet " was the first steam- 

 vessel built in Europe that plied with success in any river or open sea. 

 The little vessel was forty-two feet long and eleven feet wide. Her 

 engine was of about four horse-power, with a single vertical cylinder. 

 She made her first voyage in January, 1812, and plied regularly between 

 Glasgow and Greenock at about five miles an hour. 



There had been an earlier commercial success than this with a 

 steam vessel in the United States of America, for a steamer called the 

 "Clermont" was built in 1807, and plied successfully on the Hudson 

 River. This boat, built for Fulton and Livingstone, was engined by 

 the English firm of Boulton and Watt. 



The reason for this choice of engineers by Fulton appears to have 

 been that Fulton had seen a still earlier steamboat for towing in 

 canals, also built in Scotland, in 1801, for Lord Dundas, and having an 

 engine on Watt's double-acting principle, working by means of a con- 

 necting rod and crank, and single stern wheel. 



This vessel, the " Charlotte Dundas," was successful so far as 

 propulsion was concerned, but was not regularly employed because of 

 the destructive effects of the propeller upon the banks of the canals. 

 This brings me to another interesting model. The engine of the canal 

 boat just spoken of was made by Mr. William Symington, and he had 

 previously made a marine engine for Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton, 

 Dumfriesshire. This last-named engine, made in Edinburgh in 1788, 

 marks, it is said, the first really satisfactory attempt at steam navigation 

 in the world, and the veritable engine is in this exhibition. It was 

 employed to drive two central paddle wheels in a twin pleasure-boat 

 (a sort of " Castalia") on Dalswinton Loch. The cylinders are only 

 four inches in diameter, but a speed of five miles an hour was attained 

 in a boat twenty-five feet long and seven feet broad. The models^ 

 &c., which I have referred to, cover the period from 1788 to 1812. 



There is also a model of the first steam vessel built in a royal dock- 

 yard. She too is called the " Comet." She appears to have been 



