EVOLUTION OF SCREW PROPULSION IN THE UNITED STATES. 

 By Charlbs H. Cramp, Esq., Vice-Pre;sident. 



[Read at the eighteenth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in 



New York, November 17 and 18, 1910.] 



PART II — AMERICAN CLIPPER AND LARGE PADDLE-WHEEL STEAMERS. 



The period of the greatest activity in shipbuilding in this country, as 

 far as the hulls were concerned, which were all of wood, was between 1849 

 and i860, and it was about that time that iron had begun to take the place 

 of wood in Great Britain. It was at the close of the demand for a high 

 class of vessels, which originated during the famine in Ireland, that gold 

 was discovered in California. This necessitated quick transportation for 

 trade and travel, and the great American clipper, which had been introduced 

 in the East India trade, had developed into the highest state of perfection 

 ever attained in the art. The investment due to the favorable conditions 

 of the time was a correspondingly profitable one. This might also be said 

 of certain paddle-wheel steamers that began to make their appearance about 

 the same period. 



During the excitement, while rates for passengers and freight were high, 

 all kinds of inferior or obsolete vessels were sent out to CaUfornia at a hand- 

 some profit and most of them were permitted to remain in the Bay of San 

 Francisco until they rotted or were destroyed. 



Soon the clippers, and afterwards the steamers, began to swarm there; 

 charges had begun to settle down to a regular basis which still continued 

 high — about a dollar a cubic foot for freight, with passenger rates at as high 

 a range. Many clippers cleared themselves on the first voyage; they were 

 mostly built in New England on speculation and were sold at extravagant 

 prices. The charges for freight and passengers were a great stimulus to the 

 introduction of the high class of paddle-wheel steamers in the trade there, 

 and, notwithstanding the cost of running them, they became very profitable. 



Both of these classes of ships, particularly as far as the hulls are con- 

 cerned, were by all means the greatest and most interesting specimens of 

 naval architecture that the world has ever witnessed; not only as traders, 

 but for the beauty and gracefulness of their design, completeness of their 

 equipment, and seaworthiness. This superiority not only extended to the 

 hull of the ship and shipbuilder, but to the spar-maker, the rigger, the ship- 

 joiner and all others connected with the equipment and outfit. We must 



