STEAMBOAT, a boat or vessel pro pelled by steam acting either on paddles by Denis Papin, who navigated it safely down the Fulda as long ago as 1707. Unfortunately this pioneer craft was de stroyed by jealous sailors, and even the very memory of it was lost for three quarters of a century. In 1775 Perrier, another Frenchman, built an experi mental steam vessel at Paris. Eight years later, in 1783, Jouffroy took up the idea that had been evolved by Papin and Perrier and built a steamboat which did good service for some time on the Saone.
The first American to attempt to apply steam to navigation was John Fitch, a Connecticut mechanic, who made his in itial experiments in the year 1785. To what extent Fitch was indebted to the three illustrious French inventors named above we are not informed, but that his models were original there is not the least doubt. In the first he employed a large pipe kettle for generating the steam, the motive power being side pad dles working after the fashion of oars on a common rowboat. In the second Fitch
craft the same mode of propulsion was adopted with the exception that the paddles were made to imitate a revolving wheel and were fixed to the stern— clearly foreshadowing the present stern wheeler.
This last mentioned boat was the first American steam vessel that can be pro nounced a success. It made its first trip to Burlington in July, 1788. But, after The oldest and simplest consists of a bent tube partially filled with mercury, one end of which springs from the boiler, so that the steam rising in the all, it was not till after the opening of the 19th century that steam navigation started into actual life. In 1801 Syming ton designed a boat for towing, which at tained a speed of 31/2 miles an hour. In 1807 Robert Fulton, an American, in conjunction with one Robert R. Living ston, built the "Clermont" and estab lished a regular packet service between New York and Albany.