THE LOG OF THE SAVANNAH. 613 



PROJECTS AND EXPERIMENTS. 



To navigate the ocean by a vessel propelled by steam was the dream of 

 many inventors years before a successful steamboat had been put in ser- 

 vice.* Although Papin's and Savery's experiments, in the seventeenth 

 century, had been devoted to perfecting stationary engines for raising 

 water from the mines, in addition to the proposal of the former " to 

 apply this power to draw water or ore from mines, and to discharge 

 iron bullets to a great distance," he also states that the power can be 

 used t " to propel ships against the wind " by an arrangement of 

 paddle-wheels, which he describes. It does not appear, however, that 

 he ever attempted to construct even an experimental steamboat. 

 Nor does it appear that Savery, who constructed several pumping 

 engines, made a commercial success of any of them. Although he in 

 1696 obtained a patent "for rowing ships with greater ease and expedi- 

 tion than had hitherto been done by any other," and in 1698 stated that 

 he still "believed steam might be made useful to ships," his ideas took 

 no tangible form. 



John Barrow, under-secretary of the English admiralty, in his auto- 

 biography states: "There can be no doubt that Jonathan Hulls (1737) 

 was the real inventor of the steamboat." Hulls, in a pamphlet pub- 

 lished in 737, gives detailed drawings and a full description of the 

 manner of applying the power of steam to drive a stern-wheel tow- 

 boat, with wheels similar in design to those on the boats now in use on 

 the Ohio River. This was the first practical proposition in the history 

 Of steam navigation, and so thoroughly did Hulls understand the sub- 

 ject, that the mechanic of to-day could build the steam machinery for a 

 boat upon his plans that would go against the stream on most Ameri- 

 can rivers. He proposed to use the type of engine which IsTewcomeu, 

 profiting by the experiments of Papin and Savery, had greatly im- 

 proved. Although Hulls' plans were so ably drawn, it does not appear 

 that he constructed a boat. It was not until after Watt (who began to 

 improve the steam-engine where Newcomen left off), a half century 

 later, met with success in perfecting the stationary engine — a success 

 which demonstrated that he was the most prolific inventor of the age — 



* Opinions eighteen years before and sixteen years after the first transatlantic 

 voyage of the steamship Savannah : 



"This, sir, whether I bring it to perfection or not, will be the mode of cross- 

 ing the Atlantic in time, for packets and armed vessels." (Extract from letter 

 written in 1791, by John Fitch to David Rittenhouse, the Philadelphia astronomer, 

 in which he solicited a loan to complete the steamboat, with which he had been 

 experimenting in the Delaware River.) 



"As to the project, which is announced in the newspapers, of making a voyage 

 direct from New York to Liverpool (by steamship), it is, I have no hesitation in 

 saying, perfectly chimerical, and they might as well talk of making a voyage 

 from New York or Liverpool to the moon." (Dr. Dionysius Lardner, author of 

 Lardner's Encyclopedia, in a lecture afc Liverpool, December, 1835.) 



t Dissertationum De Novis Quibusdam Machinis, by DiouysisPapin, Marburg, 1695. 



