EXHIBIT AT THE COTTON STATES EXPOSITION. 631 



exertions of several ingenious men living on the Atlantic seaboard to 

 adapt the steam engine to navigation. Prominent among these pioneers, 

 whose labors make good America's claim to the birthplace of the steam- 

 boat, was James Bumsey, some of whose experiments upon the Potomac 

 River were witnessed by General Washington as early as 1787. A model 

 of Rumsey's steamboat of 1788 and of that made by Fitch about 

 the same time are shown, together with the model of the first screw- 

 propelled steamboat to navigate the waters of any country, built by 

 John Stevens in 1804. Fulton's Clermont of 1807 and Stevens' Phoenix 

 of 1808 are also in the series which contains a model of the steamship 

 Savannah, built in 1818 by Georgia capitalists, which has the distinc- 

 tion of being the first steamship to cross the ocean, sailing from Savan- 

 nah, Ga., for Liverpool on her initial voyage Saturday, May 22, 1819. 

 The original log book containing the account of this historical voyage 

 is deposited in the National Museum. 

 The collection further embraces the following series: 



1. Boats pushed by poles or propelled by paddles or oars. 



2. Sailboats (driven entirely by the wind). 



3. Steamboats. 



The American railway. — As the South Atlantic States were foremost 

 in the introduction of trans-Atlantic steam navigation, so were they 

 early in the field of railroad construction. The first railway line 

 100 miles long built and operated in the world was the railroad, 139 

 miles long, built by the South Carolina Railroad Company from 

 Augusta, Ga., to Charleston, S. C. ; and the first steam locomotive built 

 upon the Western Continent for actual service was the Best Friend, 

 which was built for that road in 1830, and went into service in the 

 following year. 



Various forms of locomotives experimented with in England and 

 America previous to the construction of the Best Friend are illustrated. 



The first steam railway train in the South Atlantic States. — The South 

 Carolina Railway was built upon plans which would now entitle 

 it to be called an elevated railway. A model showing the method of 

 track construction, upon which is placed the first steam train that ran 

 in the South Atlantic States, December 14, 1830. Near it are placed 

 models of sleeping-car appliances built for railways terminating at 

 Richmond and Petersburg, Va., the earliest forms of sleeping berths 

 used in American cars. 



Land vehicles. — For the purpose of this Exposition the land vehicles 

 are arranged under the following classifications: 



I. Land vehicles drawn by men or domestic animals. 



1. The rolling load. 



2. Sledges and rollers. 



3. Vehicles with solid (or nearly solid) wheels. 



4. Vehicles with wheels containing spokes. 



II. Land vehicles propelled by natural or generated forces. 



1. Experimental sail cars and horse-power locomotives. 



2. Experimental steam locomotives. 



3. Experimental electrical locomotives. 



Early electrical apparatus. — In no other department of science have 

 American investigators, from the very beginning, been so successful, 

 not only in the discovery of fundamental truths, but also in the prompt 

 application of the principles deduced therefrom to useful purposes, as 

 in the domain of electricity. 



The success of Franklin's experiments in the year 1784 in the con- 

 struction of what he calls the " electrical wheel" is illustrated, for the 

 first time, in these collections in the models of the two devices involving 



