on the Steam Engine, 339 



Even in the more fatal cases which are here excluded, and in all ac- 

 cidents of this nature, the chief loss is sustained by the crew and of- 

 ficers attached to the boats, who, by the nature of their employments, 

 are compelled to encounter by far the greatest portion of the hazard. 



" An earnest and persevering attention to the safety of steam boil- 

 ers, and strict personal inquiry into the accidents which have occur- 

 red, enables me to state fearlessly, though in opposition to received 

 opinions, that since the year 1824, no accident in this region has 

 been justly chargeable, either to want of water in the boiler, or to 

 culpable negligence or incompetency ; but every one has arisen from 

 the defective form and structure of the boilers which have failed. 

 Some of the most careful and meritorious of the engineers and at- 

 tendants have suffered at their posts, and have sunk into their graves 

 under imputations as unmerited as they were gratuitous and cruel. 

 Nor can a resort to legislative enactments either remedy the evil, or 

 afford any additional security ; but the matter must be left to the in- 

 telligence of the age, and to the operation of motives which are 

 more powerfully felt by the owners and managers of steam boats, 

 than any which legislative authority can impose. 



"Notwithstanding the multiplication of steam boat accidents during 

 the last and present seasons, still the hazard, or the average loss of 

 life is constantly diminishing, and will probably diminish in a still 

 greater ratio, as soon as the large, ill-constructed, and unsafe boilers, 

 which were in vogue a few years since under the soothing cognomen 

 of low pressure boilers, shall have been finally discarded, in which 

 result considerable progress has already been made. 



" The amount of steam boat business in this country has been in- 

 creased immensely since 1824, and perhaps exceeds the average of 

 the preceding period by fifty or one hundred fold. In 1824, but 

 one steam boat ran in the waters of Connecticut, and but two from 

 New York, eastward, and with a small number of passengers com- 

 pared vi^ith what they now carry. Now we have sixteen or twenty 

 in full activity in that direction. One boat on the Hudson, built in 

 1825, has carried near two hundred thousand passengers, and we 

 have now sixteen or eighteen boats plying on the Hudson, while 

 southward from this city the change has been equally great. So late 

 as the commencement of the year 1817, the whole number of steam 

 boats which had been built on the western waters, was ten, and in 

 that year the feat of performing a passage from New Orleans to the 

 frills of the Ohio, in twenty five days, was celebrated by public re- 



