das, one of the proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Canal, had a stern wheel boat built to tow the canal boats on the canal, instead of towing with horses, and named Charlotte Dundas. The vessel was fitted with an engine of 22 inches cylinder by 4 feet stroke. The trial was made in March 1802 with two boats in tow, and 31⁄2 miles per hour was made for a distance of nearly 20 miles. This was not thought to be satisfactory in every regard, so the vessel was put out of service. There was one feature of its use that was looked upon with apprehension and that was, it threatened the banks of the canal from the violent agitation of the water produced by the paddle wheel. It was now 10 years further before another steam vessel was built in Great Britain, and in the meantime Livingston and Fulton had constructed four steamboats for the Hudson River, and the Raritan for the New Jersey line, and the New Orleans for the western rivers; while John Stevens had built the Phenix and sent her to sea from New York to Philadelphia, Pa. This vessel was built in 1812 at Glasgow by John Wood for Henry Bell, and was the first successful steam vessel in Great Britain. The hull was 42 feet long by 11 feet beam and 5 feet 6 inches deep, and named Comet. By means of spur wheel gearing the power was transmitted to two pairs of paddles. As this arrangement proved to be unsatisfactory the vessel was fitted with a single pair of wheels, and the hull was lengthened to 60 feet, and the engine power increased. The speed of this vessel was originally five miles per hour. The first iron hull steam vessel built in Great Britain was in 1822 named the Aaron Manby, built at the Horsley Iron Works near Birmingham. The vessel was 166 feet long and 16 feet beam, and fitted with a 30 horse-power engine operating "Oldham's Revolving Oars that enter and leave the water edgewise."

First American Steam Vessels.— The period when the first experiment with a steam vessel in the United States was made, so far as the mechanical side was concerned, was anything but inviting to those interested. There was not in the United States at the time one steamengine in use, and it is doubtful if the first principles of its working were understood. The American people were comparatively poor at this time, having but a few years prior to this date returned to the peaceful pursuits of life after the long and costly War of the Revolution. After a few years the "steam mania» broke out, and the application of steam to navigation was under trial. To John Fitch of Connecticut must be given the credit for the first steamboat in the United States, imperfect as it was. He made his first trial on 22 Aug. 1787, but was not able to attain more than three miles an hour. This boat was propelled "by 12 oars or paddles five and a half feet, which work perpendicularly and are represented by the stroke of the paddle of a canoe." Then in 1789 another boat was built that was fitted with more power, that developed on trial a rate of speed of eight miles an hour. These experiments were carried on by a company who furnished the capital for the enterprise, and not meeting with the success anticipated after three years' labor, refused to advance any more funds for the further prose

cution of the enterprise, thus leaving Fitch to carry on his trials on his own account. This he did for a short time only, as he was unable to procure the means for the necessary changes in the vessel, and it was the financial condition that finally forced him to abandon the whole business. He made an experiment on the Collect Pond in New York in a common yawl boat, with both side wheels, and it is claimed with a sort of propeller in the stern of the boat. Nothing seems to have come from these later experiments. Fitch has been described as having been brought up from manhood as a watchmaker, and being fond of mechanics through the prosecution of his trade, he was continually experimenting along different lines, and at last drifted into the application of steam to navigation. He no doubt had a small knowledge of the steam-engine, but his peculiar disposition, with his intemperate habits, ever urged on by his impulses, kept him groping in the dark with his experiments, and subjected him to many disappointments and triais. There is no doubt he accomplished more in propelling his boats than some others have done at a later date. This man of misfortune, after spending years in poverty and distress, took up his residence at Bardstown, Ky., where he died about I July 1798. James Rumsey, a native of Maryland, and a strong competitor in the experimental stage of steam navigation with John Fitch, constructed in 1784 a boat that was propelled by cranks and a series of "setting poles." This project was soon abandoned. In 1787 he constructed a boat about 50 feet long, that was propelled by admitting water through a trunk on the keelson of the vessel, and by means of a steam pump discharging it at the stern. This boat was never put to any practical use. Leaving the United States to his opponent, Rumsey sailed for London, where he built another vessel, but he died before its trial in 1793. To Oliver Evans of Pennsylvania must be given some credit for his trials in steam navigation. His early attempts in the application of steam were more directed to mill work and steam wagons, but it would appear that after Fitch began his trials Evans took up the same line of experiments. But the results obtained from his labors do not appear to have been very satisfactory. After he had constructed an engine in 1801 that gave fairly good results for manufacturing purposes, he was called on the next year to construct an engine of 9 inches cylinder by 36 inches stroke, for a boat of 80 feet long and 18 feet beam, built in Kentucky for Capt. James McKeever, U. S. N., and Louis Valcourt, and floated to New Orleans, La. Before the vessel was completed the river had fallen so much as to leave the vessel high and dry on shore. The engine and boiler were taken out and placed in a saw-mill, where they were in use until the mill was destroyed by fire. It would seem as though Oliver Evans by this unfortunate accident was robbed of the credit of having the first successful steamboat in operation nearly five years before the Clermont was placed on the Hudson River. In 1804 he constructed for the city of Philadelphia a machine for dredging the slips of the city. The machinery was fitted in place on a large scow, 30 feet long by 12 feet beam, and was driven by

a stern-wheel that was operated by a small steam-engine. It was driven down the Schuylkill River to the Delaware River, and up the latter river, in all some 14 or 15 miles.

Robert Fulton. After the withdrawal of Fitch from the activities of steam navigation, and the death of Rumsey, there does not seem to have been that mania for the application of steam to navigation. It languished for a time, but not long: for Robert R. Livingston of New York was granted by the New York legislature the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of the State with a vessel propelled by steam. Livingston was a man of wealth, and had a taste for mechanics. He was associated with John Stevens and Nicholas J. Roosevelt in experiments with a steamboat that year, but the results were unsatisfactory. Other trials were made the next year with another vessel, but with no better success. The grant by the State had now expired. Robert R. Livingston had been appointed minister to France, and while there had met Robert Fulton, who had been engaged in experiments with the application of steam to navigation, among other things, and in 1803 made a trial with a boat propelled by paddle wheels, which showed with

Fulton's Clermont (1807).

improvement in the engine they might look for better results. During the same year Livingston had the legislative privileges restored to him and Fulton, for two years, by the legislature. As those were not complied with, it was extended in 1807 for two years. John Stevens, then of New York, but later of Hoboken, N. J., was also a man of large means, with a mechanical turn of mind. His trials with the screw propeller began in 1802 and lasted until some time in 1806. He was doomed to disappointment in these trials like most of the early experimenters, for the want of proper tools and workmen to execute the work, but he met with some degree of success. This was the first practical application of the propeller to a vessel. Robert Fulton before leaving Europe in 1806 had parts of a steam-engine built to his order by Boulton & Watt of Birmingham, England, that were shipped to New York. He had the hull of a vessel constructed at New York in 1806-7, and the engine from Boulton & Watt was fitted on board. This vessel was named North River Steamboat of Clermont. It was 140 x 16 x 7 feet deep, and the engine having a bell crank motion, had a cylinder of 24 inches diameter and 4 feet stroke. Her trial trip from New York to Albany was commenced on

17 Aug. 1807. The vessel was enlarged during the following winter. The success of Robert Fulton dates from the time of the adoption of the side wheels as the propelling agency in his experiments. This means of propulsion had been on trial in this country prior to their use by Robert Fulton, and to these early experimenters should be given some credit for their trials. As early as 1789 Nathan Reed tried side wheels on a small boat driven by hand power at Danvers, Mass., and Samuel Morey of New Hampshire, in 1797 at Bordentown, N. J., had constructed a small steamboat that was "propelled by the means of two wheels, one on each side. The shaft ran across the boat, with the crank in the middle, worked from the beam of the engine." Then Nicholas J. Roosevelt, who had been interested in the early experi ments with Livingston and Stevens, suggested the use of side wheels in one of the trials. But no. They were not at this time ready for so simple a means of propulsion. The latter undoubtedly knew what had been done in this line by those preceding them, and made use of the information when adopting the side wheels. As there was no part of the original Clermont that was an invention of Robert Fulton, though he obtained patents at a subsequent date on improvements, his theoretical knowledge of steam navigation and its adaptation to practical purposes was the cause of his success. He knew very nearly all that had been done in the way of experiments, and his ability lay in selecting those features that were of value and bringing them together so they were first seen in the Clermont. He must certainly have had mechanical ability of no mean order for that day to have accomplished so much at one stroke. The first complete American-built steamboat, both hull and machinery, was the Phenix, constructed in 1808 by John Stevens; and as Fulton held the exclusive privilege of New York waters for steam vessels, Stevens sent the vessel around to the Delaware River, leaving New York 8 June 1809, to form part of a line between New York and Philadelphia. About the same time the Raritan was built to run from New York to New Brunswick, N. J., to form the New York end of the New York and Philadelphia line. This vessel was run in the interest of the New York monopoly.

Early Ferry-boats.- Fulton and his associates, or the North River Steamboat Company, met much opposition in the prosecution of their enterprise, and it became so bold after a time in placing obstacles in the way, during the running of their vessels, that they were compelled to resort to the legislature of the State for a law to protect them in their lawful rights. There was one company who built two boats that were originally fitted with experimental engines, that were removed almost as soon as erected on board, and steam-engines and boilers substituted, in defiance of the rights of the Fulton company, to be operated in the State. After three years in the courts the vessels were delivered into the possession of the Fulton company, who broke them up. This exclusive privilege was the cause of a petition being laid before the New York legislature in 1814 by Aaron Ogden of New Jersey, who desired to run a steamboat on his ferry to Elizabethtown,