STEAM NAVIGATION. The Spaniards assert that as early as 1543 Blasco de Daray made au attempt to propel a vessel by steam in the harbor of Barcelona. In the absence of direct proof of the fact this may well be doubted. At the time mentioned the most advanced scientists in Europe had not yet begun seriously to consider steam as a source of power. The assertion is also made that Denis Papin (q.v.) in 1707 propelled a boat by steam on the River Fulda. Papin invented the safety valve and a single-acting steam cylinder pump, and made various improvements in steam pumps. but it does not appear that he ever built what might be called a steam engine. The boat which has been mentioned and which is frequently referred to had some sort of paddle wheels. but they were operated by the crew and not driven by steam power. In 1729 Dr. John Allen took out a patent in England for a method of propelling a boat by means of forcing water out of the stern with steam or other pressure. In 1736 the rather vague ideas of Allen were improved upon by Jonathan Hulls, a elockmaker of Campden, Eng land, and he was granted a patent for mechanism to propel a boat by steani power. Like Allen, he apparently made no serious attempts to put his ideas into practice. In 1752 the French Acad emy of Sciences awarded a prize to the distin guished physicist Daniel Bernoulli for an essay on the manner of propelling boats without wind. in addition to other suggestions he proposed the use of the screw propeller.
Up to this time sueeessful steam navigation was impossible because a practical steam engine did not exist. This defieieney was supplied by Watt, who took out his first patent in 1769, but the engines contemplated were really single acting pumps. In 1782. however, Watt. brought out the double-acting engine, and developed the principle of expansive working by cutting off the steam at a suitable point instead of allowing it to full stroke. All the conditions for the propulsion of vessels by steam were now in existence and experimental boats rapidly ap peared. In 1783 the Marquis de Joulfroy built one which was tried at Lyons, and it is said to have been successful ; but before it could be de veloped into a form for practical use the Revo Intion overtook and ruined him. At the same time John Fitch, James Hussey, and Oliver Evans were experimenting in America. Rum se's boats. like the proposed vessel of Dr. Allen, were fitted with jet propellers, whereby a stream of water was discharged by a st ea in-driven pump. His first boat was tried in Virginia in 1784 and a second. which attained a speed of 4 knots, was completed in 1786. lie died in Lon don in 1792. just previous to the trial of a new boat built from his plans. Fitch's boats were fitted with various types of propelling machinery —with paddle wheels in 1785 and afterwards with long paddles which were given motion similar to that of the paddle of an Indian canoe. In 1790
one of Fiteh's boats attained a speed of 7 knots, and afterwards was used on the Delaware to carry passengers. In 1793 Fitch went to France: in 1796, after returning to America, he built a small screw steamboat, the exact measure of success that he attained is uncertain. Evans ex perimented with various peculiar types of steam boats, one of which was fitted with a rude screw and wheels with which to run on shore. In Eng land .Joseph Bramah obtained a patent in 1785 for propelling vessels by means of "a wheel with inclined Fans or Wings similar to the fly of a Smoke-jack or the vertical sails of a windmill." _1 patent for a similar invention was issued to William Lvttleton in 1784 and to Edward Shorter in 1800. In 1791 John Stevens of Hoboken, N. J., patented a nuiltitubular steam boiler, and he soon after began experiments with steam pro pulsion of boats, in which lie was assisted by the celebrated engineer Mark Isamhard Brunel, then an exile. Brunel left the United States in 1799, however, and it was not till three years later that Stevens completed a small screw-propelled boat which he used for his own pleasure. This little boat, only twenty-five feet in length, was the first. successful screw-propelled craft bnilt. En gines suitable for large screw steamboats were not yet invented, so that commercial success in this direction was not yet aimed at. Patrick Sill ier. a retired banker of Edinburgh, for several years experimented with hoots of various types in a lake on his estate of Dalswinton in Dumfries . shire. These boats had two or three hulls con nected by a flying deck and driven by paddle wheels placed in the space between the hulls. In the earlier experiments men were employed to turn the wheels, but in 1788, partly at the in stance of James Taylor, a tutor in his family, Miller engaged a Scotch engineer by the name of Symming,ton to fit the boats with steam power. A small boat was tried and gave such promises of success that a larger one was built in 1789. In October of that year this boat at tained a speed of seven miles an hour on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Either because of lack of interest or of means, Miller ceased there after to interest himself in the matter and noth ing further was attempted. But in 1801 Sym mington was commissioned by Lord Dundas of Kerse to build a steamer for towing barges on the Forth and Clyde Canal. This was the cele brated Charlotte Dundas. She was a success in all essential respects. but the proprietors of the canal refused to use her because they feared the effect of the wash from her paddles on the banks of the canal. She was therefore broken up and her disappointed designer turned bis attention to land machinery.