CHAPTER V.

The 'Atlantic'Fig. 59.—The “Atlantic,” 1882.

Fig. 59.—The “Atlantic,” 1882.

They subsequently built several “grasshopper” engines (Fig. 59), some of which ran many years, doing good work, and one or two of which are still in existence. The first—the“Atlantic”—was set at work in September, 1832, and hauled 50 tons from Baltimore 40 miles, over gradients having a maximum rise of 37 feet to the mile, and on curves having a minimum radius of 400 feet, at the rate of 12 to 15 miles an hour. This engine weighed 61∕2tons, carried 50 pounds of steam—a pressure then common on both continents —and burned a ton of anthracite coal on the round trip. The blast was secured by a fan, and the valve-gear was worked by cams instead of eccentrics. This engine made the round trip at a cost of $16, doing the work of 42 horses, which had cost $33 per trip. The engine cost $4,500, and was designed by Phineas Davis, assisted by Ross Winans.

Mr. Miller, on his return from the Liverpool & Manchester trial, ordered a locomotive for the Charleston & Hamburg Railroad from the West Point Foundery. Thisengine was guaranteed by Mr. Miller to draw three times its weight at the rate of 10 miles an hour. It was built during the summer of 1830, from the plans of Mr. Miller, and reached Charleston in October. The trials were made in November and December.

The 'Best Friend'Fig. 60.—The “Best Friend,” 1830.

Fig. 60.—The “Best Friend,” 1830.

This engine (Fig. 60) had a vertical tubular boiler, in which the gases rose through a very high fire-box, into which large numbers of rods projected from the sides and top, and passed out through tubes leading them laterally outward into an outside jacket, through which they rose to the chimney. The steam-cylinders were two in number, 8 inches in diameter and of 16 inches stroke, inclined so as to connect with the driving-axle. The four wheels were all of the same size, 41∕2feet in diameter, and connected by coupling-rods. The engine weighed 41∕2tons. The “Best Friend,” as it was called, did excellent work until June, 1831, when the explosion of the boiler, in consequence of the recklessness of the fireman, unexpectedly closed its career.

The 'West Point'Fig. 61.—The “West Point,” 1831.

Fig. 61.—The “West Point,” 1831.

A second engine (Fig. 61) was built for this road, at the West Point Foundery, from plans furnished by Horatio Allen, and was received and set at work early in the spring of 1831. The engine, called the “West Point,” had a horizontal tubular boiler, but was in other respects very similar to the “Best Friend.” It is said to have done very good work.

The Mohawk & Hudson Railroad ordered an engine at about this time, also, of the West Point Foundery, and the trials, made in July and August, 1831, proved thoroughly successful.

This engine, the “De Witt Clinton,” was contracted for by John B. Jervis, and fitted up by David Matthew. It had two steam-cylinders, each 51∕2inches in diameter and 16 inches stroke of piston. The connecting-rods were directlyattached to a cranked axle, and turned four coupled wheels 41∕2feet in diameter. These wheels had cast-iron hubs and wrought-iron spokes and tires. The tubes were of copper, 21∕2inches in diameter and 6 feet long. The engine weighed 31∕2tons, and hauled 5 cars at the rate of 30 miles an hour.

The 'South Carolina'Fig. 62.—The “South Carolina,” 1831.

Fig. 62.—The “South Carolina,” 1831.

Another engine, the “South Carolina” (Fig. 62), was designed by Horatio Allen for the South Carolina Railroad, and completed late in the year 1831. This was the first eight-wheeled engine, and the prototype, also, of a peculiar and lately-revived form of engine.

In the summer of 1832, an engine built by Messrs. Davis & Gartner, of York, Pa., was put on the Baltimore & Ohio road, which at times attained a speed, unloaded, of 30 miles an hour. The engine weighed 31∕2tons, and drew, usually, 4 cars, weighing altogether 14 tons, from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills, a distance of 13 miles, in the schedule-time, one hour.

Horatio Allen’s engine on the South Carolina Railroad is said to have been the first eight-wheeled engine ever built.

It was at about the time of which we are now writing that the first locomotive was built of what is now distinctivelyknown as the American type—an engine with a “truck” or “bogie” under the forward end of the boiler. This was the “American” No. 1, built at the West Point Foundery, from plans furnished by John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer, for the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad. Ross Winans had already (1831) introduced the passenger-car with swiveling trucks.[56]It was completed in August, 1832, and is said by Mr. Matthew to have been an extremely fast and smooth-running engine. A mile a minute was repeatedly attained, and it is stated by the same authority,[57]that a speed of 80 miles an hour was sometimes made over a single mile. This engine had cylinders 91∕2inches diameter, 16 inches stroke of piston, two pairs of driving-wheels, coupled, 5 feet in diameter each; and the truck had four 33-inch wheels. The boiler contained tubes 3 inches in diameter, and its fire-box was 5 feet long and 2 feet 10 inches wide. Robert Stephenson & Co. subsequently built a similar engine, from the plans of Mr. Jervis, and for the same road. It was set at work in 1833. In both engines the driving-wheels were behind the fire-box. This engine is another illustration of the fact—shown by the description already given of other and earlier engines—that the independence of the American mechanic, and the boldness and self-confidence which have to the present time distinguished him, were among the earliest of the fruits of our political independence and freedom.

These American engines were all designed to burn anthracite coal. The English locomotives all burned bituminous coal.

Stevens RailFig. 63.—The “Stevens” Rail. Enlarged Section.

Fig. 63.—The “Stevens” Rail. Enlarged Section.

Robert L. Stevens, the President and Engineer of the Camden & Amboy Railroad, and a distinguished son of Colonel John Stevens, of Hoboken, was engaged, at the time of the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad,in the construction of the Camden & Amboy Railroad. It was here that the first of the now standard form ofT-rail was laid down. It was of malleable iron, and of the form shown in the accompanying figure. It was designed by Mr. Stevens, and is known in the United States as the “Stevens” rail. In Europe, where it was introduced some years afterward, it is sometimes called the “Vignolles” rail. He purchased an engine of the Stephensons soon after the trial at Rainhill, and this engine, the “John Bull,” was set up on the then uncompleted road at Bordentown, in the year 1831. Its first public trial was made in November of that year. The road was opened for traffic, from end to end, two years later. This engine had steam-cylinders 9 inches in diameter, 2 feet stroke of piston, one pair of drivers 41∕2feet in diameter, and weighed 10 tons. This engine, and that built by Phineas Davis for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, were exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, in the year 1876.

'Old Ironsides'Fig. 64.—“Old Ironsides,” 1832.

Fig. 64.—“Old Ironsides,” 1832.

Engines supplied to the Camden & Amboy Railroad subsequent to 1831 were built from the designs of Robert L. Stevens, in the shop of the Messrs. Stevens, at Hoboken. The other principal roads of the country, at first, very generally purchased their engines of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, then a small shop owned by Matthias W. Baldwin. Baldwin’s first engine was a little model built for Peale’s Museum, to illustrate to the visitors of that then well-known place of entertainment the character of thenew motor, the success of which, at Rainhill, had just then excited the attention of the world. This was in 1831, and the successful working of this little model led to his receiving an order for an engine from the Philadelphia & Germantown Railroad. Mr. Baldwin, after studying the new engine of the Camden & Amboy road, made his plans, and built an engine (Fig. 64), completing it in the autumn of 1832, and setting it in operation November 23d of that year. It was kept at work on that line of road for a period of 20 years or more. This engine was of Stephenson’s “Planet” class, mounted on two driving-wheels 41∕2feet in diameter each, and two separate wheels of the same size, uncoupled. The steam-cylinders were 91∕2inches in diameter, 18 inches stroke of piston, and were placed horizontally on each side of the smoke-box. The boiler, 21∕2feet in diameter, contained 72 copper tubes 11∕2inches in diameter and 7 feet long. The engine cost the railroad company $3,500. On the trial, steam was raised in 20 minutes, and the maximum speed noted was 28 miles an hour. The engine subsequently attained a speed of over 30 miles. In 1834, Mr.Baldwin completed for Mr. E. L. Miller, of Charleston, a six-wheeled engine, the “E. L. Miller” (Fig. 65), with cylinders 10 inches in diameter and 16 inches stroke of piston. He made the boiler of this engine of a form which remained standard many years, with a high dome over the fire-box. At about the same time, he built the “Lancaster,” an engine resembling the “Miller,” for the State road to Columbia, and several others were soon contracted for and built. By the end of 1834, 5 engines had been built by him, and the construction of locomotive-engines had become one of the leading and most promising industries of the United States. Mr. William Norris established a shop in Philadelphia in 1832, which he gradually enlarged until it, like the Baldwin Works, became a large establishment. He usually built a six-wheeled engine, with a leading-truck or bogie, and placed his driving-wheels in front of the fire-box.

The 'E.L. Miller'Fig. 65.—The “E. L. Miller,” 1834.

Fig. 65.—The “E. L. Miller,” 1834.

At this time the English locomotives were built to carry 60 pounds of steam. The American builders adopted pressures of 120 to 130 pounds per square inch, the now generally standard pressures throughout the world. In the years 1836 and 1837, Baldwin built 80 engines. They were of three classes: 1st, with cylinders 121∕2inches in diameter and of 16 inches stroke, weighing 12 tons; 2d, with cylinders12 by 16, and a weight of 101∕2tons; and 3d, engines weighing 9 tons, and having steam-cylinders of 101∕2inches diameter and of the same stroke. The driving-wheels were usually 41∕2feet in diameter, and the cylinder “inside-connected” to cranked axles. A few “outside-connected” engines were made, this plan becoming generally adopted at a later period.

The railroads of the United States were very soon supplied with locomotive-engines built in America. In the year 1836, William Norris, who had two years before purchased the interest of Colonel Stephen H. Long, an army-officer who patented and built locomotives of his own design, built the “George Washington,” and set it at work. This engine, weighing 14,400 pounds, drew 19,200 pounds up an incline 2,800 feet long, rising 369 feet to the mile, at the speed of 151∕2miles an hour. This showed an adhesion not far from one-third the weight on the driving-wheels. This was considered a very wonderful performance, and it produced such an impression at the time, that several copies of the “George Washington” were made, on orders from British railroads, and the result was the establishment of the reputation of the locomotive-engine builders of the United States upon a foundation which has never since failed them. The engine had Jervis’s forward-truck, now always seen under standard engines, which had already been placed under railroad-cars by Ross Winans.

In New England, the Locks & Canals Company, of Lowell, began building engines as early as 1834, copying the Stephenson engine. Hinckley & Drury, of Boston, commenced building an outside-connected engine in 1840, and their successors, the Boston Locomotive Works, became the largest manufacturing establishment of the kind in New England. Two years later, Ross Winans, the Baltimore builder, introduced some of his engines upon Eastern railroads, fitting them with upright boilers, and burning anthracite coal.

The changes which have been outlined produced the now typical American locomotive. It was necessarily given such form that it would work safely and efficiently on rough, ill-ballasted, and often sharply-winding tracks; and thus it soon became evident that the two pairs of coupled driving-wheels, carrying two-thirds the weight of the whole engine, the forward-truck, and the system of “equalizing” suspension-bars, by which the weight is distributed fairly among all the wheels, whatever the position of the engine, or whatever the irregularity of the track, made it the very best of all known types of locomotive for the railroads of a new country. Experience has shown it equally excellent on the smoothest and best of roads. The “cow-catcher,” placed in front to remove obstacles from the track, the bell, and the heavy whistle, are characteristics of the American engine also. The severity of winter-storms compelled the adoption of the “cab,” or house, and the use of wood for fuel led to the invention of the “spark-arrester” for that class of engines. The heavy grades on many roads led to the use of the “sand-box,” from which sand was sprinkled on the track, to prevent the slipping of the wheels.

In the year 1836, the now standard chilled wheel was introduced for cars and trucks; the single eccentric, which had been, until then, used on Baldwin engines, was displaced by the double eccentric, with hooks in place of the link; and, a year later, the iron frame took the place of the previously-used wooden frame on all engines.

The year 1837 introduced a period of great depression in all branches of industry, which continued until the year 1840, or later, and seriously checked all kinds of manufacturing, including the building of locomotives. On the revival of business, numbers of new locomotive-works were started, and in these establishments originated many new types of engine, each of the more successful of which was adapted to some peculiar set of conditions. This variety of type is still seen on nearly all of the principal roads.

The direction of change in the construction of locomotive-engines at the period at which this division of the subject terminates is very well indicated in a letter from Robert Stephenson to Robert L. Stevens, dated 1833, which is now preserved at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He writes: “I am sorry that the feeling in the United States in favor of light railways is so general. In England we are making every succeeding railway stronger and more substantial.” He adds: “Small engines are losing ground, and large ones are daily demonstrating that powerful engines are the most economical.” He gives a sketch of his latest engine, weighingnine tons, and capable, as he states, of “taking 100 tons, gross load, at the rate of 16 or 17 miles an hour on a level.” To-day there are engines built weighing 70 tons, and our locomotive-builders have standard sizes guaranteed to draw over 2,000 tons on a good and level track.

[44]Vide“Theatrum Machinarum,” vol. iii., Tab. 30.[45]Evans’s prediction is less remarkable than that of Darwin,elsewherequoted.[46]See“Life of Trevithick.”[47]For a detailed account of the progress of steam on the highway,see“Steam on Common Roads,” etc., by Young, Holley, & Fisher, London, 1861.[48]“Life of Trevithick.”[49]Printed by T. & J. Swords, 160 Pearl Street, New York, 1812.[50]“Progress of the City of New York.”[51]“Lives of George and Robert Stephenson,” by Samuel Smiles. New York and London, 1868.

[44]Vide“Theatrum Machinarum,” vol. iii., Tab. 30.

[45]Evans’s prediction is less remarkable than that of Darwin,elsewherequoted.

[46]See“Life of Trevithick.”

[47]For a detailed account of the progress of steam on the highway,see“Steam on Common Roads,” etc., by Young, Holley, & Fisher, London, 1861.

[48]“Life of Trevithick.”

[49]Printed by T. & J. Swords, 160 Pearl Street, New York, 1812.

[50]“Progress of the City of New York.”

[51]“Lives of George and Robert Stephenson,” by Samuel Smiles. New York and London, 1868.

[52]Vide“A Description of the Safety-Lamp invented by George Stephenson,” etc., London, 1817.

[53]The American chilled wheel of cast-iron, a better wheel than that above described, has never been generally and successfully introduced in Europe.

[54]Smiles.

[55]One of these sectional boilers is still preserved in the lecture-room of the author, at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

[56]“History of the First Locomotives in America,” Brown.

[57]“Ross Winansvs.The Eastern Railroad Company—Evidence.” Boston, 1854.

“Voilà la plus merveilleuse de toutes les Machines; le Mécanisme ressemble à celui des animaux. La chaleur est le principe de son mouvement; il se fait dans ses différens tuyaux une circulation, comme celle du sang dans les veines, ayant des valvules qui s’ouvrent et se ferment à propos; elles se nourrit, s’évacue d’elle même dans les temps réglés, et tire de son travail tout ce qu’il lui faut pour subsister. Cette Machine a pris sa naissance en Angleterre, et toutes les Machines à feu qu’on a construites ailleurs que dans la Grande Brétagne ont été exécutées par des Anglais.”—Belidor.

Among the most obviously important and most inconceivably fruitful of all the applications of steam which marked the period we are now studying, is that of the steam-engine to the propulsion of vessels. This direction of application has been that which has, from the earliest period in the history of the steam-engine, attracted the attention of the political economist and the historian, as well as the mechanician, whenever a new improvement, or the revival of an old device, has awakened a faint conception of the possibilities attendant upon the introduction of a machine capable of making so great a force available. The realization of the hopes, the prophecies, and the aspirations of earlier times, in the modern marine steam-engine, may be justly regarded as the greatest of all the triumphs of mechanical engineering. Although, as has already been stated,attempts were made at a very early period to effect this application of steam-power, they were not successful, and the steamship is a product of the present century. No such attempts were commercially successful until after the time of Newcomen and Watt, and at the commencement of the nineteenth century. It is, indeed, but a few years since the passage across the Atlantic was frequently made in sailing-vessels, and the dangers, the discomforts, and the irregularities of their trips were most serious. Now, hardly a day passes that does not see several large and powerful steamers leaving the ports of New York and Liverpool to make the same voyages, and their passages are made with such regularity and safety, that travelers can anticipate with confidence the time of their arrival at the termination of their voyage to a day, and can cross with safety and with comparative comfort even amid the storms of winter. Yet all that we to-day see of the extent and the efficiency of steam-navigation has been the work of the present century, and it may well excite our wonder and our admiration.

The history of this development of the use of steam-power illustrates most perfectly that process of growth of this invention which has been already referred to; and we can here trace it, step by step, from the earliest and rudest devices up to those most recent and most perfect designs which represent the most successful existing types of the heat-engine—whether considered with reference to its design and construction, or as the highest application of known scientific principles—that have yet been seen in even the present advanced state of the mechanic arts.

The paddle-wheel was used as a substitute for oars at a very early date, and a description of paddle-wheels applied to vessels, curiously illustrated by a large wood-cut, may be found in the work of Fammelli, “De l’artificioses machines,” published in old French in 1588. Clark[58]quotes fromOgilby’s edition of the “Odyssey” a stanza which reads like a prophecy, and almost awakens a belief that the great poet had a knowledge of steam-vessels in those early times—a thousand years before the Christian era. The prince thus addresses Ulysses:

“We use nor Helm nor Helms-man. Our tall shipsHave Souls, and plow with Reason up the deeps;All cities, Countries know, and where they list,Through billows glide, veiled in obscuring Mist;Nor fear they Rocks, nor Dangers on the way.”

Pope’s translation[59]furnishes the following rendering of Homer’s prophecy:

“So shalt thou instant reach the realm assigned,In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind;...Though clouds and darkness veil the encumbered sky,Fearless, through darkness and through clouds they fly.Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling main,The seas may roll, the tempests swell in vain;E’en the stern god that o’er the waves presides,Safe as they pass and safe repass the tide,With fury burns; while, careless, they conveyPromiscuous every guest to every bay.”

It is stated that the Roman army under Claudius Caudex was taken across to Sicily in boats propelled by paddle-wheels turned by oxen. Vulturius gives pictures of such vessels.

This application of the force of steam was very possibly anticipated 600 years ago by Roger Bacon, the learned Franciscan monk, who, in an age of ignorance and intellectual torpor, wrote:

“I will now mention some wonderful works of art and nature, in which there is nothing of magic, and which magiccould not perform. Instruments may be made by which the largest ships, with only one man guiding them, will be carried with greater velocity than if they were full of sailors,” etc., etc.

Darwin’spoetical prophecywas published long years before Watt’s engine rendered its partial fulfillment a possibility; and thus, for many years before even the first promising effort had been made, the minds of the more intelligent had been prepared to appreciate the invention when it should finally be brought forward.

The earliest attempt to propel a vessel by steam is claimed by Spanish authorities, as has been stated, to have been made by Blasco de Garay, in the harbor of Barcelona, Spain, in 1543. The record, claimed as having been extracted from the Spanish archives at Simancas, states the vessel to have been of 200 tons burden, and to have been moved by paddle-wheels; and it is added that the spectators saw, although not allowed closely to inspect the apparatus, that one part of it was a “vessel of boiling water”; and it is also stated that objection was made to the use of this part of the machine, because of the danger of explosion.

The account seems somewhat apocryphal, and it certainly led to no useful results.

In an anonymous English pamphlet, published in 1651, which is supposed by Stuart to have been written by the Marquis of Worcester, an indefinite reference to what may probably have been the steam-engine is made, and it is there stated to be capable of successful application to propelling boats.

In 1690, Papin proposed to use his piston-engine to drive paddle-wheels to propel vessels; and in 1707 he applied the steam-engine, which he had proposed as a pumping-engine, to driving a model boat on the Fulda at Cassel. In this trial he used the arrangement of which a sketch has been shown, his pumping-engine forcing up water to turn a water-wheel, which, in turn, was made to drive the paddles.An account of his experiments is to be found in manuscript in the correspondence between Leibnitz and Papin, preserved in the Royal Library at Hanover. Professor Joy found there the following letter:[60]

“Dionysius Papin, Councillor and Physician to his Royal Highness the Elector of Cassel, also Professor of Mathematics at Marburg, is about to dispatch a vessel of singular construction down the river Weser to Bremen. As he learns that all ships coming from Cassel, or any point on the Fulda, are not permitted to enter the Weser, but are required to unload at Münden, and as he anticipates some difficulty, although those vessels have a different object, his own not being intended for freight, he begs most humbly that a gracious order be granted that his ship may be allowed to pass unmolested through the Electoral domain; which petition I most humbly support.G. W. Leibnitz.“Hanover,July 13, 1707.”

G. W. Leibnitz.

“Hanover,July 13, 1707.”

This letter was returned to Leibnitz, with the following indorsement:

“The Electoral Councillors have found serious obstacles in the way of granting the above petition, and, without giving their reasons, have directed me to inform you of their decision, and that, in consequence, the request is not granted by his Electoral Highness.H. Reiche.“Hanover,July 25, 1707.”

H. Reiche.

“Hanover,July 25, 1707.”

This failure of Papin’s petition was the death-blow to his effort to establish steam-navigation. A mob of boatmen, who thought they saw in the embryo steamship the ruin of their business, attacked the vessel at night, and utterly destroyed it. Papin narrowly escaped with his life, and fled to England.

In the year 1736, Jonathan Hulls took out an English patent for the use of a steam-engine for ship-propulsion, proposing to employ his steamboat in towing. In 1737 he published a well-written pamphlet, describing this apparatus, which is shown inFig. 66, a reduced fac-simile of the plate accompanying his paper.

He proposed using the Newcomen engine, fitted with a counterpoise-weight and a system of ropes and grooved wheels, which, by a peculiar ratchet-like action, gave a continuous rotary motion. His vessel was to have been used as a tow-boat. He says, in his description: “In some convenient part of the Tow-boat there is placed a Vessel about two-3rds full of water, with the Top closed; and this Vessel being kept Boiling, rarifies the Water into a Steam, this Steam being convey’d thro’ a large pipe into a cylindrical Vessel, and there condensed, makes a Vacuum, which causes the weight of the atmosphere to press down on this Vessel, and so presses down a Piston that is fitted into this Cylindrical Vessel, in the same manner as in Mr. Newcomen’s Engine, with which he raises Water by Fire.

Hulls's SteamboatFig. 66.—Hulls’s Steamboat, 1736.

Fig. 66.—Hulls’s Steamboat, 1736.

“P, the Pipe coming from the Furnace to the Cylinder.Q, the Cylinder wherein the steam is condensed.R, the Valve that stops the Steam from coming into the Cylinder, whilst the Steam within the same is condensed.S, the Pipe to convey the condensing Water into the Cylinder.T, a cock to let in the condensing Water when the Cylinder is full of Steam and the Valve,P, is shut.U, a Rope fixed to the Piston that slides up and down in the Cylinder.

“Note.This Rope,U, is the same Rope that goes round the wheel,D, in the machine.”

In the large division of his plate,Ais the chimney;Bis the tow-boat;CCis the frame carrying the engine;Da,D, andDbare three wheels carrying the ropesM,Fb, andFa,Mbeing the ropeUof his smaller figure, 30.HaandHbare two wheels on the paddle-shafts,II, arranged with pawls so that the paddle-wheel,II, always turns the same way, though the wheelsHaandHbare given a reciprocating motion;Fbis a rope connecting the wheels in the vessel,Db, with the wheels at the stern. Hulls says:

“When the Weight,G, is so raised, while the wheelsDa,D, andDbare moving backward, the RopeFagives way, and the Power of the Weight,G, brings the WheelHaforward, and the Fans with it, so that the Fans always keep going forward, notwithstanding the WheelsDa,D, andDbmove backward and forward as the Piston moves up and down in the Cylinder.LLare Teeth for a Catch to drop in from the Axis, and are so contrived that they catch in an alternate manner, to cause the Fan to move always forward, for the WheelHa, by the power of the weight,G, is performing his Office while the other wheel,Hb, goes back in order to fetch another stroke.

“Note.The weight,G, must contain but half the weight of the Pillar of Air pressing on the Piston, because the weight,G, is raised at the same time as the WheelHbperforms its Office, so that it is in effect two Machines acting alternately, by the weight of one Pillar of Air, of such a Diameter as the Diameter of the Cylinder is.”

The inventor suggests the use of timber guards to protect the wheels from injury, and, in shallow water, the attachment to the paddle-shafts of cranks “to strike a Shaft to the Bottom of the River, which will drive the Vessel forward with the greater Force.” He concludes: “Thus I have endeavoured to give a clear and satisfactory Account of my New-invented Machine, for carrying Vessels out of and into any Port, Harbour, or River, against Wind and Tide, or in a Calm; and I doubt not but whoever shallgive himself the Trouble to peruse this Essay, will be so candid as to excuse or overlook any Imperfections in the diction or manner of writing, considering the Hand it comes from, if what I have imagined may only appear as plain to others as it has done to me, viz., That the Scheme I now offer is Practicable, and if encouraged will be Useful.”

There is no positive evidence that Hulls ever put his scheme to the test of experiment, although tradition does say that he made a model, which he tried with such ill success as to prevent his prosecution of the experiment further; and doggerel rhymes are still extant which were sung by his neighbors in derision of his folly, as they considered it.

A prize was awarded by the French Academy of Sciences, in 1752, for the best essay on the manner of impelling vessels without wind. It was given to Bernouilli, who, in his paper, proposed a set of vanes like those of a windmill—a screw, in fact—one to be placed on each side of the vessel, and two more behind. For a vessel of 100 tons, he proposed a shaft 14 feet long and 2 inches in diameter, carrying “eight wheels, for acting on the water, to each of which it” (the shaft) “is perpendicular, and forms an axis for them all; the wheels should be at equal distances from each other. Each wheel consists of 8 arms of iron, each 3 feet long, so that the whole diameter of the wheel is 6 feet. Each of these arms, at the distance of 20 inches from the centre, carries a sheet-iron plane (or paddle) 16 inches square, which is inclined so as to form an angle of 60 degrees, both with the arbor and keel of the vessel, to which the arbor is placed parallel. To sustain this arbor and the wheels, two strong bars of iron, between 2 and 3 inches thick, proceed from the side of the vessel at right angles to it, about 21∕2feet below the surface of the water.” He proposed similar screw-propellers at the stern, and suggested that they could be driven by animal or by steam-power.

But a more remarkable essay is quoted by Figuier[61]—the paper of l’Abbé Gauthier, published in the “Mémoires de la Société Royale des Sciences et Lettres de Nancy.” Bernouilli had expressed the belief that the best steam-engine then known—that of Newcomen—was not superior to some other motors. Gauthier proposed to use that engine in the propulsion of paddle-wheels placed at the side of the vessel. His plan was not brought into use, but his paper embodied a glowing description of the advantages to be secured by its adoption. He states that a galley urged by 26 oars on a side made but 4,320 toises (8,420 meters), or about 5 miles, an hour, and required a crew of 260 men. A steam-engine, doing the same work, would be ready for action at all times, could be applied, when not driving the vessel, to raising the anchor, working the pumps, and to ventilating the ship, while the fire would also serve to cook with. The engine would occupy less space and weight than the men, would require less aliment, and that of a less expensive kind, etc. He would make the boiler safe against explosions by bands of iron; would make the fire-box of iron, with a water-filled ash-pit and base-plate. His injection-water was to come from the sea, and return by a delivery-pipe placed above the water-line. The chains, usually leading from the end of the beam to the pump-rods, were to be carried around wheels on the paddle-shaft, which were to be provided with pawls entering a ratchet, and thus the paddles, having been given several revolutions by the descent of the piston and the unwinding of the chain, were to revolve freely while the return-stroke was made, the chain being hauled down and rewound by the wheel on the shaft, the latter being moved by a weight. The engine was proposed to be of 6 feet stroke, and to make 15 strokes per minute, with a force of 11,000 pounds.

A little later (1760), a Swiss clergyman, J. A. Genevois,published in London a paper relating to the improvement of navigation,[62]in which his plan was proposed of compressing springs by steam or other power, and applying their effort while recovering their form to ship-propulsion.

It was at this time that the first attempts were made in the United States to solve this problem, which had begun to be recognized as one of the greatest which had presented itself to the mechanic and the engineer.

William Henrywas a prominent citizen of the then little village of Lancaster, Pa., and was noted as an ingenious and successful mechanic.[63]He was still living at the beginning of the present century. Mr. Henry was the first to make the “rag” carpet, and was the inventor of the screw-auger. He was of a Scotch and North-of-Ireland family, his father, John Henry, and his two older brothers, Robert and James, having come to the United States about 1720. Robert settled, finally, in Virginia, and it is said that Patrick Henry, the patriot and orator, was of his family. The others remained in Chester County, Pa., where William was born, in 1729. He learned the trade of a gunsmith, and, driven from his home during the Indian war (1755 to 1760), settled in Lancaster.

In the year 1760 he went to England on business, where his attention was attracted to the invention—then new, and the subject of discussion in every circle—of James Watt. He saw the possibility of its application to navigation and to driving carriages, and, on his return home, commenced the construction of a steam-engine, and finished it in 1763.

Placing it in a boat fitted with paddle-wheels, he made a trial of the new machine on the Conestoga River, near Lancaster, where the craft, by some accident, sank,[64]andwas lost. He was not discouraged by this failure, but made a second model, adding some improvements. Among the records of the Pennsylvania Philosophical Society is, or was, a design, presented by Henry in 1782, of one of his steamboats. The German traveler Schöpff visited the United States in 1783, and at Mr. Henry’s house, at Lancaster, was shown “a machine by Mr. Henry, intended for the propelling of boats, etc.; ‘but,’ said Mr. Henry, ‘I am doubtful whether such a machine would find favor with the public, as every one considers it impracticable against wind and tide;’ but that such a Boatwillcome into use and navigate on the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, he had not the least doubt of, but the time had not yet arrived of its being appreciated and applied.”

John Fitch, whose experiments will presently be referred to, was an acquaintance and frequent visitor to the house of Mr. Henry, and may probably have there received the earliest suggestions of the importance of this application of steam. About 1777, when Henry was engaged in making mathematical and philosophical instruments, and the screw-auger, which at that time could only be obtained of him, Robert Fulton, then twelve years old, visited him, to study the paintings of Benjamin West, who had long been a friend and protégé of Henry. He, too, not improbably received there the first suggestion which afterward led him to desert the art to which he at first devoted himself, and which made of the young portrait-painter a successful inventor and engineer. West’s acquaintance with Henry had no such result. The young painter was led by his patron and friend to attempt historical pictures,[65]and probably owes his fame greatly to the kindly and discerning mechanic. Says Galt, in his “Memoirs of Sir Benjamin West” (London, 1816): “Towards his old friend, William Henry, of Lancaster City, he always cherished the mostgrateful affection; he was the first who urged him to attempt historical composition.”

When, after the invention of Watt, the steam-engine had taken such shape that it could really work the propelling apparatus of a paddle or screw vessel, a new impetus was given to the work of its adaptation. In France, the Marquis de Jouffroy was one of the earliest to perceive that the improvements of Watt, rendering the engine more compact, more powerful, and, at the same time, more regular and positive in its action, had made it, at last, readily applicable to the propulsion of vessels. The brothers Périer had imported a Watt engine from Soho, and this was attentively studied by the marquis,[66]and its application to the paddle-wheels of a steam-vessel seemed to him a simple problem. Comte d’Auxiron and Chevalier Charles Mounin, of Follenai, friends and companions of Jouffroy, were similarly interested, and the three are said to have often discussed the scheme together, and to have united in devising methods of applying the new motor.

In the year 1770, D’Auxiron determined to attempt the realization of the plans which he had conceived. He resigned his position in the army, prepared his plans and drawings, and presented them to M. Bertin, the Prime Minister, in the year 1771 or 1772. The Minister was favorably impressed, and the King (May 22, 1772) granted D’Auxiron a monopoly of the use of steam in river-navigation for 15 years, provided he should prove his plans practicable, and they should be so adjudged by the Academy.

A company had been formed, the day previous, consisting of D’Auxiron, Jouffroy, Comte de Dijon, the Marquis d’Yonne, and Follenai, which advanced the requisite funds. The first vessel was commenced in December, 1772. When nearly completed, in September, 1774, the boat sprung a leak, and, one night, foundered at the wharf.After some angry discussion, during which d’Auxiron was rudely, and probably unjustly, accused of bad faith, the company declined to advance the money needed to recover and complete the vessel. They were, however, compelled by the court to furnish it; but, meantime, d’Auxiron died of apoplexy, the matter dropped, and the company dissolved. The cost of the experiment had been something more than 15,000 francs.

The heirs of d’Auxiron turned the papers of the deceased inventor over to Jouffroy, and the King transferred to him the monopoly held by the former. Follenai retained all his interest in the project, and the two friends soon enlisted a powerful adherent and patron, the Marquis Ducrest, a well-known soldier, courtier, and member of the Academy, who took an active part in the prosecution of the scheme. M. Jacques Périer, the then distinguished mechanic, was consulted, and prepared plans, which were adopted in place of those of Jouffroy. The boat was built by Périer, and a trial took place in 1774, on the Seine. The result was unsatisfactory. The little craft could hardly stem the sluggish current of the river, and the failure caused the immediate abandonment of the scheme by Périer.

Still undiscouraged, Jouffroy retired to his country home, at Baume-les-Dames, on the river Doubs. There he carried on his experiments, getting his work done as best he could, with the rude tools and insufficient apparatus of a village blacksmith. A Watt engine and a chain carrying “duck-foot” paddles were his propelling apparatus. The boat, which was about 14 feet long and 6 wide, was started in June, 1776. The duck’s-foot system of paddles proved unsatisfactory, and Jouffroy gave it up, and renewed his experiments with a new arrangement. He placed on the paddle-wheel shaft a ratchet-wheel, and on the piston-rod of his engine, which was placed horizontally in the boat, a double rack, into the upper and the lower parts of which the ratchet-wheel geared. Thus the wheels turned in thesame direction, whichever way the piston was moving. The new engine was built at Lyons in 1780, by Messrs. Frères-Jean. The new boat was about 140 feet long and 14 feet wide; the wheels were 14 feet in diameter, their floats 6 feet long, and the “dip,” or depth to which they reached, was about 2 feet. The boat drew 3 feet of water, and had a total weight of about 150 tons.

At a public trial of the vessel at Lyons, July 15, 1783, the little steamer was so successful as to justify the publication of the fact by a report and a proclamation. The fact that the experiment was not made at Paris was made an excuse on the part of the Academy for withholding its indorsement, and on the part of the Government for declining to confirm to Jouffroy the guaranteed monopoly. Impoverished and discouraged, Jouffroy gave up all hope of prosecuting his plans successfully, and reëntered the army. Thus France lost an honor which was already within her grasp, as she had already lost that of the introduction of the steam-engine, in the time of Papin.

About 1785, John Fitch and James Rumsey were engaged in experiments having in view the application of steam to navigation.

Rumsey’s experiments began in 1774, and in 1786 he succeeded in driving a boat at the rate of four miles an hour against the current of the Potomac at Shepherdstown, W. Va., in presence of General Washington. His method of propulsion has often been reinvented since, and its adoption urged with that enthusiasm and persistence which is a peculiar characteristic of inventors.

Rumsey employed his engine to drive a great pump which forced a stream of water aft, thus propelling the boat forward, as proposed earlier by Bernouilli. This same method has been recently tried again by the British Admiralty, in a gunboat of moderate size, using a centrifugal pump to set in motion the propelling stream, and with some other modifications which are decided improvementsupon Rumsey’s rude arrangements, but which have not done much more than his toward the introduction of “Hydraulic or Jet Propulsion,” as it is now called.

In 1787 he obtained a patent from the State of Virginia for steam-navigation. He wrote a treatise “On the Application of Steam,” which was printed at Philadelphia, where a Rumsey society was organized for the encouragement of attempts at steam-navigation.

Rumsey died of apoplexy, while explaining some of his schemes before a London society a short time later, December 23, 1793, at the age of fifty years. A boat, then in process of construction from his plans, was afterward tried on the Thames, in 1793, and steamed at the rate of four miles an hour. The State of Kentucky, in 1839, presented his son with a gold medal, commemorative of his father’s services “in giving to the world the benefit of the steamboat.”

John Fitchwas an unfortunate and eccentric, but very ingenious, Connecticut mechanic. After roaming about until forty years of age, he finally settled on the banks of the Delaware, where he built his first steamboat.

In April, 1785, as Fitch himself states, at Neshamony, Bucks County, Pa., he suddenly conceived the idea that a carriage might be driven by steam. After considering the subject a few days, his attention was led to the plan of using steam to propel vessels, and from that time to the day of his death he was a persistent advocate of the introduction of the steamboat. At this time, Fitch says, “I did not know that there was a steam-engine on the earth;” and he was somewhat disappointed when his friend, the Rev. Mr. Irwin, of Neshamony, showed him a sketch of one in “Martin’s Philosophy.”

Fitch’s first model was at once built, and was soon after tried on a small stream near Davisville. The machinery was made of brass, and the boat was impelled by paddle-wheels. A rough model of his steamboat was shown toDr. John Ewing, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who, August 20, 1785, addressed a commendatory letter to an ex-Member of Congress, William C. Houston, asking him to assist Fitch in securing the aid of the General Government. The latter referred the inventor, by a letter of recommendation, to a delegate from New Jersey, Mr. Lambert Cadwalader. With this, and other letters, Fitch proceeded to New York, where Congress then met, and made his application in proper form. He was unsuccessful, and equally so in attempting to secure aid from the Spanish minister, who desired that the profits should be secured, by a monopoly of the invention, to the King of Spain. Fitch declined further negotiation, determined that, if successful at all, the benefit should accrue to his own countrymen.

In September, 1785, Fitch presented to the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia, a model in which he had substituted an endless chain and floats for the paddle-wheels, with drawings and a descriptive account of his scheme. This model is shown in theaccompanying figure.

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