STEAM-VESSEL, a vessel moved by the power of a steam-engine acting upon paddle-wheels or other mechanism for propelling it through the water. Under Slue, SHIP-BUILDING, &c., were explained the prin ciples on which vessels are constructed ; and under STEAM, STFAM ENOINE, PROPELLER, &c., have been described the means of propulsion. Before entering upon the construction of steam-vessels, we give a brief notice of the rise and progress of the application of steam to navigation.
A curious claim has been brought forward on behalf of Blasco de Garay, a sea captain, who is stated to have exhibited in Spain, in 1543, an engine by which ships and vessels of the largest size could be pro pelled, even in a calm, without the aid of oars or sails. The documents relating to this claim, which, if correct, gives Spain the priority by a long period in experiments on steam navigation, were discovered in the royal archives at Simancas, and were published iu 1826, by Thomas Gonzales, director of the archives.
Stuart, in his ' Anecdotes of Steam-Engines,' endeavours to establish something like a claim to the invention of steam navigation by the Marquess of Worcester. The author alludes to a little engine, or great model, which he had " already erected " at Lambeth ; and among many other purposes to which his invention might be applied, states that it may be used "to draw or hale ships, boatel, &c. up rivers against the streame ; to draw carts, wagons, &c. as fast without cattel ; to draw the plough without cattel, to the same despatch if need be," &c.
The project to be next alluded to is that of Papin, who proposed an apparatus somewhat like that subsequently patented in England by Jonathan Hulls. Those who have endeavoured to establish a claim to the invention of steam navigation on behalf of France, hare pleaded Papin's suggestion in favour of their views ; but none, so far as we know, have asserted that he put his scheme to the test of experiment.
Ou December 21, 173G, a patent was granted to Jonathan Hulls for a machine which may be designated a steam tug-boat ; of which a full description was published in the following year, in a sensible pamphlet, entitled A Description and Draught of a new-invented Machine for carrying Vessels or Ships out of or into any Harbour, Port, or River, against Wind and Tide, or in a Calm.' Hulls proposed to place an atmospheric steam-engine in the tug-boat, and to communicate its power by means of ropes to the axis of a kind of paddle-wheel mounted in a frame-work projecting from the stern of the vessel. A contrivance is added for continuing the motion of the paddles by the descent of a counterbalance-weight, in the intervals between the strokes of the piston. To guard against the injury of the fans or paddles by the violence of the waves, Hulls proposed to lay pieces of timber so as to swim on each aide of them. The objections likely to be brought against the scheme are anticipated and answered by the writer, who expresses his opinion that it would be found better to place the machine in a separate vessel than in the ship itself, because the machinery would be cumbersome in the ship, and, if in a separate vessel, it might lie at any port to be ready for use, &c.
The next circumstances which claim notice in the history of the invention of steam navigation afford the principal reasons for attri buting, as some of their writers have done, the origin of the art to the French. In 1774, the Comte d'Auxiron, a French nobleman of seien tifie attainments, constructed a steam-boat, and tried it on the Seine, near Paris. It appears that the engine had not sufficiAt power to
move the wheels efficiently, an error into which many of the early experimenters fell ; and consequently the result was unsatisfactory, and the persons who had united to enable the Comte to construct the machine, abandoned the project. In the next year, 1775, the eldest of the ingenious brothers Pener, who had assisted in d'Auxiron's experi ment, resumed the attempt, and placed a very imperfect engine, of about ono-horso power, in a boat on the Seine, connecting the engine with two paddlewheels. Ile also laboured under the disadvantage of having too little engine-power, and therefore failed to obtain any satis factory result ; his boat moving but slowly against the current of the Seine. Fortified by the favourable opinion of the Marquis Duerest, who perceived the cause of his disappointment, " l'erier did not," observes Stuart, " altogether abandon the subject ; and in succeeding years he made a few attempts with other propelling mechanism instead of paddlewheels, which he thought were defective substitutes for oars, and which, in his view, occasioned his failure." He did not, however, accomplish anything important; nor did his attempts, according to the author just quoted, excite much attention in France, or any at all in England. In an Historical Notice on Steam-Engines, by M. Arago, in the French ' Annuaire ' for 1837, it is stated, probably from inad vertence, that 31. Pericr was the first to actually construct a steam vesseL From this paper we learn that trials were made on a larger scale, in 1778, at Baurne-les-Dames, by the Marquis de Jouffroy, who, in 1731 or 1782, tried a boat of considerable dimensions upon the Saone, at Lyon. Several English authorities give the dimensions of this boat as 140 feet long and 15 feet broad ; hut Arago says it was 46 metres long and 44 broad. Colden's Life of Fulton, in an extract from the ' Journal des Debats ' for March 28, 1816, states the dimensions to have been 130 feet long and 14 broad. The vessel had a single paddle-wheel on each side, and the machinery appears to have been constructed with some skill, although it was not sufficiently strong. The experiments of the Marquis were eventually stopped by the political disturbances of the country. After a long exile, he returned to his country about 1796, and found that M. des Blanes, a watchmaker of Trevoux, had obtained a patent for a steam-vessel, which, it has been supposed, was constructed chiefly on the informa tion which he could collect respecting that of the Marquis. Jouffroy appealed to the government; but nothing important resulted from his doing so, or from the experiments of M. des Blanes, which, like those of Jouffroy, were made on the Sa6ne. While M. des Blanca was engaged in his steam-boat project, Fulton, who was then in France, was also experimenting upon the same subject. It appears, indeed, that both tried the scheme of propelling by means of paddles or float boards attached to an endless chain stretched over two wheels project ing from each side of the vessel. Fulton abandoned this plan, and adopted paddle-wheels in its stead; but during his experiments, M. des Blanes complained of his operations as an infringement upon his patent right, and remonstrated with Fulton upon the subject.