READ, Nathan, American inventor: b. Warren, Worcester County, Mass., 2 July 1759; d. near Belfast, Maine, 20 Jan. 1849. He was graduated from Harvard in 1781; studied medi cine; in 1796 established with others the Salem iron foundry, where chain cables and other iron work for ships were manufactured, and in 1798 patented a nail-making machine. In 17:: he became interested in steam navigation, and as his first task attempted the construction of a boiler that should be at once compact, light and safe. He made, in 1788 or 1789, the first draw ings of what he styled his ((portable furnace botler,o which was devised for use on steam car riages and steamboats, and for which he ob tained a patent 26 Aug. 1791. He had built a steamboat in 1789, and by a trial of this craft, which was fitted with paddle-wheels and a crank operated by hand, was satisfied that his method of applying steam to the propulsion of vessels would work suitably. This steamboat is said to have been substantially identical with that of Fulton's of 1807, and it is further stated that he withdrew his application for a patent in 1790, under a misapprehension, There is no evidence, however, that he succeeded in even an experimental demonstration of his plans, His model steam carriage, exhibited by him while endeavoring to obtain aid in his schemes, was never developed. He did, how
ever, invent the vertical multi-tubular firebox boiler, which has long been in use as a standard form. Among his other inventions were sev eral forms of pumping engines, and a plan for utilizing the force of the tide by means of reser voirs alternately so filled and emptied as to produce a continuous stream of water. Much credit belongs to Read for his early and clear perception of the importance of steam navi gation. From 1800 to 1803 he was a Fed eralist representative in Congress, and after his removal to Maine was for many years chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas of Hancock County. Consult Read, (Nation Read) (1870) ; Thurston, 'A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine) (1878).