Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/365

 STEAM NAVIGATION 353 Chancellor R. Livingston. (See FULTON, ROB- ERT.) Fulton had known William Henry in the United States, and seems to have been familiar with the work of contemporary in- FIG. 3. Col. John Stevens's Steam Engine, Boiler, and Screws, 1804. ventors, and he had visited England, where he found others at work upon the same problem. In 1804 Col. John Stevens experimented with encouraging success with a small vessel driven by a high-pressure engine, a sectional boiler, and a single screw. He also tried twin screws, the steamboat having a length of 68 ft. and a breadth of 14 ft. This machinery (fig. 3) is retained in a good state of preservation at the Stevens institute of technology, Hoboken, N. J. Placed in a new hull on the Hudson in 1844, this engine produced a speed of 8 m. an hour. The experiments of Oliver Evans have been mentioned under STEAM CARRIAGE. Fulton, after studying the subject abroad, returned to the United States in 1806, and with Livingston had a boat built in which he placed machinery made by Boulton and Watt in England. The craft was 130 ft. long, of 18 ft. beam, 7 ft. depth, and 160 tons burden. The hull was built by Charles Brown of New York. The engine had FIG. 4. Engine of the Clermont, 180T. a steam cylinder 24 in. in diameter and a stroke of 4 ft. The boiler was 20 ft. long, 7 ft. deep, and 8 ft. wide. The wheels were 15 ft. in di- ameter, with floats of 4 ft. length and 2 ft. dip. This steamboat, the Clermont, made a success- ful trip to Albany in 1807, leaving New York at 1 o'clock P. M. on Monday, Aug. 7, stop- ping at Livingston Manor (Clermont) from 1 o'clock Tuesday until 9 A. M. Wednesday, and reaching Albany at 5 P. M. on that day. The average speed was nearly 5 m. an hour. The return trip, on Thursday and Friday, occupied 30 hours, the rate of speed being 5 m. an hour. The Clermont, lengthened 10 ft., and with ma- chinery slightly altered, made regular trips to Albany in 1808, and was the first steamboat ever made commercially successful. Almost simultaneously with Fulton's Clermont, Ste- vens brought out the Phoenix, a side-wheel steamer having hollow water lines ; in the fol- lowing year it was provided with feathering paddle wheels. This steamer could not ply on the Hudson, as Fulton and Livingston held a monopoly of the navigation of that river, and the Phoenix was taken by sea around to the Delaware river. This was the first sea voyage ever made by a steam vessel. From this time the steamboat was rapidly introduced. Fulton with his coadjutors placed a fleet upon the Hud- son river and Long Island sound, and Stevens worked with his sons upon the Delaware and the Connecticut, and finally in the waters of New York also. In 1811 Fulton and Living- ston began building steamers at Pittsburgh. In 1812 the Comet, built by Henry Bell, inau- gurated regular steam navigation on the river Clyde in Scotland. This steamboat was 40 ft. long, 10 ft. wide, and of 25 tons burden. The engines, of three horse power, drove two pairs of paddle wheels. The speed attained was about 5 m. an hour. In 1825 James P. Allaire of New York built compound engines for the Henry Eckford, and subsequently constructed similar engines for several other steamers, of which the Sun made the trip from New York to Albany in 12 hours 18 minutes. Soon after- ward Erastus W. Smith introduced this form of engine on the great lakes, and still later they were introduced into British steamers. The machinery of the steamer Buckeye State was constructed at the Allaire works, New York, in 1850, from the designs of John Baird and Erastus W. Smith, the latter being the designing and constructing engineer. The steamer was placed on the route between Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit in 1851, and gave most satisfactory results, consuming less than two thirds the fuel required by a similar vessel of the same line fitted with the single-cyl- inder engine. The steam cylinders of this en- gine were placed one within the other, the low- pressure exterior cylinder being annular. They were 37 and 80 in. in diameter respectively, and the stroke was 11 ft. Both pistons were connected to one cross head, and the general arrangement of the engine was similar to that of the common form of beam engine. The steam pressure was from 70 to 75 Ibs., about the maximum pressure adopted a quarter of a century later on transatlantic lines. This steam- er was of high speed as well as economical of fuel. Ocean navigation by steam, begun by Stevens in 1808, was made an assured success by the voyage of the Savannah in 1819, from Savannah, Ga., to Russia via England. In this vessel both sails and steam were used. She re- turned to New York, direct from St. Petersburg, in 26 days. Between 1821 and 1825 John Bab- cock, Robert L. Thurston, and Capt. Northup