614 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



that Fitch, Ramsey, Stevens, Fulton, Livingston, Millar, Symington, 

 and others conducted the experiments that have formed the basis of 

 the claims for each, that he was the original inventor of the steam- 

 boat. 



The history of steamboat invention since 1785 has been so frequently 

 written, and the claims of the friends of these rival inventors have been 

 so fully discussed, that it is not necessary to enter into the details of 

 the controversies, which in past years were carried on with considerable 

 ardor. 



It will be of interest to review briefly, in chronological order, the 

 events of importance in the history of steam navigation after, 



Jonathan Hulls, 



With his patent skulls, 



Invented a machine, 



To go against wind with steam; 



But he being an ass, 



Couldn't bring it to pass, 



And so was ashamed to be seen.* 



The scope of this article requires that reference shall only be made 

 to those inventors who, by drawings, models, or by the actual con- 

 struction of machines, demonstrated that they had practical ideas. 



In the "Annales des Arts et Manufactures," Paris, 1803, are several 

 drawings! to illustrate a machine, contrived by Daniel Bournoulli, 

 1753, to drive " vanes" on each side of the vessel and in the stern " set 

 at an angle of 60 degrees with the keel of the vessel." These, he says, 

 " can be moved by men aboard the vessels or by steam-engines, or on 

 rivers by horses placed in the barges." 



In 1783 the Marquis de Jouffroy, whose labors in the latter part of 

 the last century furnish the ground for the claim that the invention of 

 the steamboat should properly be credited to the French nation, de- 

 signed a steamboat 400 metres long, to contain a steam-engine with a 

 horizontal cylinder geared by a rack to a shaft on which were paddle 

 wheels. 



A print of this boat, made by M. Jamont from the original drawing, 

 is preserved in the English patent office library. It bears the title 

 "Plan et Profil du Bateau a Vapeur, Execute par Marquis de Jouffroy 

 a Lyon, 1783." 



In the U. S. National Museum is preserved a portion of the chain- 

 gearing of the machinery of a boat which was constructed by James 

 Rumsey, and exhibited by him to Gen. George Washington, at Berkeley 

 Springs, Virginia, in 1784. The certificate given- to him by Washing- 

 ton, under date September 7, 1784, contains the statement " that the 



* Doggerel sung by the boys of Campden in Gloucestershire, Hulls' native town. 

 See Notes and Queries, vol. in, series 1. 

 t See Tome, xx p., 329. 



