PROSPECTS OF STEAM-NAVIGATION. 



273 



end of the vertical arm which supports it, by which that arm will be presented 

 upward instead of downward. The wheel, therefore, instead of being sub- 

 merged, will be supported at the stern of the vessel at the place where a boat 

 is usually suspended. 



The vessel will thus be free from all uosiruction in passing through the 

 water, and will acquire all the efficiency which any mere sailing-vessel can 

 have, besides which the propeller is placed in such a situation that it may be 

 repaired if necessary. 



The main shaft which drives the propeller when submerged is at a depth 

 of seven or eight feet under the lower deck. The cylinders by which it is 

 impelled are supported in a slanting position on the timbers of the vessel, 

 their piston-rods being presented toward the crank on the shaft, which they 

 drive in the usual manner by connecting-rods. The boilers and the fuel occu- 

 py the space immediately forward of the cylinders. The entire machinery, 

 including the boilers and fuel, are below the second deck of the vessel. 



Such are the general features of the arrangements projected by Captain 

 Ericsson,* and proposed to be adopted in a line of steam packet-ships to ply 

 between New York and Liverpool. The first of these vessels is now in an 

 advanced state at Boston, and the machinery is in progress in New York. 

 It is expected that this ship will make her first voyage in August, 1845. 



The fuel to be used is hard coal, and the furnaces will be ventilated by 

 blowers, worked by the engine. There will be no smoke, nor any need of 

 the draught produced by a chimney, and therefore that appendage will have 

 no other use than as an exit for the gases evolved in the combustion. A 

 square tunnel designed for this purpose is carried from the machinery upward 

 through the two decks, terminating on the poop-deck, where a sliding tube, 

 having a motion like a telescope-joint, by which a short discharge-pipe for 

 the hot air and offensive gases can be elevated when the machinery is worked, 

 and which can be lowered when the vessel is under sail. 



Such a vessel, then, presents none of the appearances, internal or external, 

 of a steamer. There is no visible machinery, no noise, heat, smoke, or per- 

 ceptible vibration. The main-deck, clear of machinery from stem to stern, is 

 occupied by the cabins, saloons, library, state-room, and the various other ac- 



* The triumphs of genius, like all sublunary pleasures, are not unattended with alloy. The moment 

 that any invention proves to be successful in practice, a swarm of vermin are fostered into being to 

 devour the legitimate profits of the inventor, and to rob geniusof its fair reward. Captain ERICSSOX, 

 so long as his submerged propeller retained the character of a mere experiment, was left in undis- 

 turbed possession of it ; but when it had forced its way into extensive practical use when it was 

 adopted in the United States navy, and in the revenue service when the coast of this country wit- 

 nested its application in numerous commercial vessels when it was known that in France and 

 England its adoption was decided upon then the discovery was made for the first time that this 

 invention of Captain Ericsson's was no invention at all that it had been applied since the earliest 

 dates in steam navigation. Old patents, some of which had been stillborn, and others which had 

 been for years dead and buried, were dug from their graves, and their dust brought into courts of 

 law, to overturn this invention, and wrest from Captain Ericsson his justly-earned reward. But 

 this was not all : every mechanical expedient has about it accidents and essentials. It is tlie same 

 with genius and art. Imitators, incapable of realizing the spirit or producing the essentials, are 

 nevertheless capable of copying the accidents and mere forms. The success of Ericsson's inven- 

 tions produced the usual swarm of imitators of this kind : and the smoke jack was accordingly pat- 

 ented by a so-called inventor at Philadelphia, in which, with a sintrnlar obliquity of ingenuity, he 

 stripped Ericsson's contrivance of everything that was good about it, and carefully combined all the 

 bad features which could possibly attach to the common wheel of oblique action. 



It is painful to be compelled to state that these base and contemptible proceedings have not failed 

 in some instances to obtain countenance in high quarters. Will it be believed that the steamship 

 Princeton, the performance of whose machinery was attended with complete success, has had its 

 propeller removed, and another substituted which is in fact a feeble and inefficient copy of the 

 original omitting, however, one or two of its best features ? It is pretended, also erroneously, as 

 will be proved that this inferior instrument has been more elHcicnt in operation than the original 

 wheel. No engineer or machinist, properly informed, can examine the wheel which has been thus 

 substituted, without being convinced that the change mnst have been prompted by motives entirely 

 unconnected with those of the improvement of the vessel. 



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