Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/618

STEAM NAVIGATION. celebrated engineer Mark Isambard 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 built. Engines suitable for large screw steamboats were not yet invented, so that commercial success in this direction was not yet aimed at. Patrick Miller, a retired banker of Edinburgh, for several years experimented with boats of various types in a lake on his estate of Dalswinton in Dumfriesshire. These boats had two or three hulls connected 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 instance of James Taylor, a tutor in his family. Miller engaged a Scotch engineer by the name of Symmington 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 attained a speed of seven miles an hour on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Either because of lack of interest or of means. Miller ceased thereafter to interest himself in the matter and nothing further was attempted. But in 1801 Symmington was commissioned by Lord Dundas of Kerse to build a steamer for towing barges on the Forth and Clyde Canal. This was the celebrated 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 his attention to land machinery.





The next development was Robert Fulton's Clermont, and her advent marks the beginning of steam navigation as a commercial success. In 1797 (q.v.) went to Paris from England

and soon afterwards began experiments with submarine torpedoes and torpedo boats. About the year 1801 he secured the assistance of Robert Livingston, then the United States Minister to France, and they built a small steamboat. Her engines proved to be too heavy for the poorly constructed hull, which collapsed and sank. The engines were recovered, however, and placed in a larger boat 66 feet long and 8 feet broad, and on August 9, 1803, this boat was tried on the Seine, but the speed obtained was unsatisfactory. In 1804, as the agent of Livingston. Fulton went to England, where he ordered of Boulton and Watt the machinery for a much larger vessel which was to be built in the United States. In the autumn of 1806 Fulton returned to America, and the new engine followed him almost immediately. A hull, built in New York, was launched early in 1807, the engines were placed on board, and on August 7, 1807, the Clermont started on her trial trip. She proceeded without stopping to Clermont, the home of Livingston, on the Hudson, 110 miles away, and twenty hours later went on to Albany. The next day she started to New York and made the trip in thirty hours at an average speed of 5 miles an hour. Within a month she began to run regularly between Albany and New York.

The success of paddle steamers for sheltered waters was now assured, and they multiplied rapidly, particularly in the United States, where the conditions were particularly suitable. In Great Britain the use of steamers was less immediate. The first commercially successful one to be completed there was the Comet, built by Henry Bell in 1811-12. She went into service on the Clyde and was soon followed by others. In the meantime the use of steamers for ocean navigation was being tried. In 1813 Fulton began the war steamer Demologos (see, section on Navy), which was the first steam war vessel as well as the first ocean-going steamer. Several steamers began to make regular trips along the British coast in 1818-19, but the voyages were all short. In 1819 a vessel fitted with steam power crossed the Atlantic. This was the Savannah, of 350 tons, with a length of 100 feet, which crossed from Savannah to Liverpool in 25 days. In her, however, the engines were purely auxiliary: she was fitted with full sail power, and when the wind was fair or the seas too boisterous for steaming the paddle wheels were unrigged and taken in on deck. The beginning of real transatlantic voyages under steam was made by the Sirius and the Great Western. The latter was built for transatlantic service and was the larger and more powerful, while the former was taken from the London and Cork line. The Sirius started on April 4, 1838, and the Great Western four days later. They arrived in New York within twenty-four hours of each other, the Sirius at 10 P. M. on the evening of April 22d and the Great Western the next afternoon at three o'clock. The average speed of the Sirius was 161 miles per day—the highest 220 miles and the lowest 85 (half day only); the amount of coal consumed was 450 tons. The Great Western averaged 208 miles per day and her highest run was 247 miles. Neither vessel carried much sail.

For two or three years the transatlantic