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STEAMSHIPS AND THEIR STORY

THE WHITE STAR LINER “OLYMPIC”

(Drawn by Charles Dixon, R.I.)

STEAMSHIPS
AND THEIR STORY

BY
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON
Author of “Sailing Ships and Their Story”

WITH 153 ILLUSTRATIONS

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1910

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

The exceptionally kind reception on the part of both Press and public which greeted the appearance of my history of the sailing ship last year, and the numerous expressions of appreciation that have reached me from so many parts of the world, have encouraged me to attempt in a similar manner to set out the story of the steamship from the earliest times to the present day.

I am by no means unaware that between the sailing ship and the steamship there is a wide difference, as well in character as in their respective development. But that is no reason for supposing that the steamship is less interesting in her history or less deserving of admiration in her final presentation. Around the sailing ship there hovers eternally a halo of romance; that is undeniable even by the most modern enthusiast. But, on the other hand, the sailing ship in the whole of her career has not done more for the good of humanity than the steamship within a century or less. It requires but a moment of thought to realise the truth of this statement; and for that reason alone, the history of the steamship makes its appeal not to a special class of reader, but to all who interest themselves in progress, in the development of their own country and empire, in the welfare of the world generally, and the evolution from stagnation to beneficial activity and prosperity. There are but few civilised people nowadays who have not been brought into contact with the steamship in one way or another. Perhaps sometimes it has been unwillingly, though at other times to their great gain. In some of those moments which have seemed to drag on wearily during the enforced idleness of a voyage, the inquiring mind has over and over again exhibited a desire to know something of the nature of the fine creature which is carrying him from one distant country to another. He has desired to know in plain, non-technical language, how the steamship idea began; how it developed; how its progress was modified, and what were the influences at work that moulded its character as we know it to-day. Further, he has felt the desire to show an intelligent interest in her various characteristics and to obtain a fair grasp of the principles which underlay the building and working of the steamship. As a normal being himself, with mind and sympathy, he has wished to be able to enter into the difficulties that have been overcome so splendidly by the skill and enterprise of others, both past and present. If he talks to the professional sailor or marine engineer, they may not, even if they have the inclination to unbend, be able easily to separate their explanation from the vesture of technicality, and the inquirer is scarcely less satisfied than before. It is, then, with a view of supplying this want that I have aimed to write such a book as will interest without, I trust, wearying, the general reader.

The plan on which I have worked has been to give the historical continuity of the steamship from the most reliable and authoritative material obtainable, and to supplement and correct a number of false statements by comparison with the latest researches. At the same time, my object has been not merely to ensure absolute historical accuracy, but to show how in a special manner and peculiar to itself the steamship is every bit as romantic, and equally deserving of our affectionate regard, as her predecessor the sailing ship, whose sphere of utility she has succeeded so materially in limiting. After having been brought safe and sound through gales of wind, across many thousands of miles of ocean, past cruel coast, and through treacherous channels, until at last the fairway and the harbour of safety have been reached, no one who has any heart at all can step ashore without feeling that he is parting from one of the noblest and best friends that a man ever had. True, there are some people, as an officer on one of the crack liners once remarked to me, who, as soon as ever the big ship is tied up alongside the landing-stage, hurry ashore from her as if she were a plague-ship. But such, let us hope, are the few rather than representative of the majority who have been brought into intimate relationship with the steamship.

Nor only to the history and the glamour of the great steam-driven vessel have I confined myself. The sea is not merely a wide ocean, but contains within its mighty bosom many smaller areas such as channels and bays wherein the steamboat is able to ply as well for pleasure as for profit; and besides the big, brave sisters with their enormous displacement and their powerful engines, there are other children which run across smaller sea-ways, and these, too, are not to be passed over lightly. Then there are fleets of special steamships which in a quiet, unostentatious manner do their noble work, and are none the less efficient, even if they escape the limelight of general publicity. I shall seek to show in the following pages not merely the conditions which in the past have hindered or helped the ship-maker, but to indicate the modern problems which have still to be faced and overcome.

The difficulty that awaits an author who writes on a technical subject for the benefit of the non-technical, average reader, is always to make himself intelligible without being allowed the full use of the customary but technical terms. In order that, as far as possible, the present volume may be both a full and accurate account of the steamship, in all times and in all the phases of her development, whilst yet being capable of appreciation by those to whom technicalities do not usually appeal, I have endeavoured whensoever possible to explain the terms employed.

The story of the steamship may at the first mention seem to be bereft of any interest beyond that which appeals to an expert in marine engineering. Pipes and boilers and engines, you are told, are not suggestive of romance. To this one might reply that neither were sails and spars during the first stages of their history; and I shall hope that after he has been so kind as to read the following pages, the reader may feel disposed to withdraw the suggestion that the steamship is a mere inanimate mass of metal. On the contrary, she is as nearly human as it is possible to made a steel shell, actuated by ingenious machinery; and, after all, it is the human mind and hand which have brought her into being, and under which she is kept continuously in control. It would be surprising, therefore, since she has been and continues to be related so closely to humanity, if she should not exhibit some of the characteristics which a human possesses.

It is fitting that the history of the steamship should be written at this time, for if final perfection has not yet arrived, it cannot be very far distant. It is but three or four years since the Lusitania and Mauretania came into being, and only during the present year have they shown themselves to possess such exceptional speed for merchant ships. On the 20th of October, 1910, will be launched the Olympic, whose size will dominate even the Mauretania. Much further than a 45,000-ton ship, surely, it cannot be possible to go; and the likelihood is that with the commercial steamship’s manifested ability to steam at the rate of over thirty-one land miles per hour, we are in sight of the limitations which encompass her. As to the future of transport, changes happen so quickly, and possess so revolutionary a character, that it is hardly safe to prophesy; but it is significant that the week before this preface was written, an aeroplane succeeded in flying, in perfect ease and safety, the 150 miles which separate Albany from New York; and thus, just a century after Fulton had convinced the incredulous by traversing the same course through water in his steamship, the latest means of travelling from one place to another has caused to look insignificant the wonderful record which Fulton, in his Clermont, was the first to set up. If, then, as will be seen from this volume, the steamship has done so much within a hundred years, what, we may legitimately ask, will be accomplished by the airship or aeroplane before another century has come to an end? Those who have the temerity to give expression to their opinions, suggest that the steamship will ultimately be made obsolete by the flying craft. If that be a true forecast, it is perhaps as well that the steamship’s story should be told here and now whilst yet she is at her prime.

Of the matter contained within this volume, much has been obtained at first hand, but much has also been derived from the labours of others, and herewith I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness. I would especially wish to mention in this connection: “A Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation, 1543–1882,” by Geo. Henry Preble, Rear-Admiral U.S.N. (1883); certain articles in the “Dictionary of National Biography”; “Ancient and Modern Ships: Part II., The Era of Steam, Iron and Steel,” by Sir George C. V. Holmes, K.C.V.O., C.B. (1906); “The Clyde Passenger Steamer: Its Rise and Progress,” by Captain James Williamson (1904); “The History of American Steam Navigation,” by John H. Morrison (1903); “The History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation,” by Henry Fry (1896); “The American Merchant Marine,” by W. L. Martin (1902); “The Atlantic Ferry: Its Ships, Men, and Working,” by Arthur J. Maginnis (London, 1893); “Ocean Liners of the World,” by W. Bellows (1896); “Life of Robert Napier,” by James Napier (1904); “Handbook on Marine Engines and Boilers,” by Sir G. C. V. Holmes (1889); “The Royal Yacht Squadron,” by Montague Guest and W. B. Boulton (1903); “The Rise and Progress of Steam Navigation,” by W. J. Millar (1881); “Practical Shipbuilding,” by A. Campbell Holms; “The Boy’s Book of Steamships,” by J. R. Howden (1908); “The Steam Turbine,” by R. M. Neilson (1903); “Our Ocean Railways, or Ocean Steam Navigation,” by A. Macdonald (1893); “Life of R. Fulton and a History of Steam Navigation,” by T. Wallace Knox (1887); “Life on the Mississippi,” by Mark Twain; “American Notes,” by Charles Dickens; “The Orient Line Guide,” by W. J. Loftie (1901); “The History of the Holyhead Railway Boat Service,” by Clement E. Stretton (1901); the “Catalogue of the Naval and Marine Engineering Collection in the Science Division of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington” (1899); “Catalogue of the Mechanical Engineering Collection in the Science Division” of the above (1907); “The Progress of German Shipbuilding” (1909); “Leibnizens und Huygens Briefwechsel mit Papin,” by G. W. Von Leibnitz (1881); “British Shipbuilding,” by A. L. Ayre (1910); “Lloyd’s Calendar.” In addition to the above, I have laid myself under obligation to a number of articles which have appeared at one time and another in the newspapers and periodicals within the last century, and especially to certain contributions in the Century Magazine, the Yachting Monthly, the Engineer and in Engineering. For the rest, I have relied on material which I have myself collected, as well as on much valuable matter which has been courteously supplied to me by the various shipbuilding firms and steamship lines.

My thanks are also due for the courteous permission which has been given to reproduce photographs of many of the steamships seen within these pages. To the authorities at South Kensington I am indebted for the privilege of reproducing a number of the exhibits in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I wish also to thank the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company for permission to reproduce the Royal William; Mr. James Napier for [the illustration of the British Queen]; the Cunard Steamship Company for the various photographs of many of their fleet; also the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, Messrs. Ismay, Imrie and Co., Messrs. Anderson, Anderson and Co., the American Line, the Norddeutscher Lloyd Company, the Liverpool Steam Towing and Lighterage Company, Messrs. L. Smit and Co., the Ymuiden Tug Company, Messrs. Lobnitz and Co., Renfrew, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Liverpool, Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Messrs. William Doxford and Sons, Sir Raylton Dixon and Co., Messrs. Cochrane and Sons, Selby, the Fall River Line, Messrs. A. and J. Inglis, Messrs. Thos. Rhodes and Co., the Caledon Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Messrs. Camper and Nicholson, Messrs. Cammell, Laird and Co., the Great Western Railway Company, the London and North Western Railway Company, the London and South Western Railway Company, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company, Messrs. Harland and Wolff, and Messrs. C. A. Parsons and Co. To the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope, to the New Jersey Historical Society, and also to the proprietors of the Century Magazine I wish to return thanks for being allowed to reproduce certain illustrations connected with Fulton’s early experiments in steam navigation, and to the Yachting Monthly for permission to reproduce the diagrams of steam yachts and lifeboats.

Finally, I have to apologise if through any cause it should be found that in spite of extreme carefulness errrors should have found their way into this narrative. The nature of the subject is necessarily such that to have erred herein would have been easy, but I have been at great pains to prevent such a possibility occurring.

E. Keble Chatterton.

June, 1910.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

STEAMSHIPS AND THEIR STORY

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

In my previous book, “Sailing Ships and Their Story,” which, indeed, this present volume is meant to follow as a complement of the story of the development of the ocean carrier, I ventured to submit the proposition that a nation exhibits its exact state of progress and degree of refinement in three things: its art, its literature, and its ships; so that the development of the ship goes on side by side, and at the same rate, as the development of the State. And if this was found to be true with regard to the vessel propelled by sails, it will be seen that the same can be affirmed with no less truth in respect of the steamship.

In setting out on our present intention to trace the story of the steamship from its first beginnings to the coming of the mammoth, four-funnelled, quadruple-screw, turbine liners of to-day, it is not without importance to bear the above proposition in mind. For though the period occupied by the whole story of the steamer is roughly only about a hundred years, yet these hundred years represent an epoch unequalled in history for wealth of invention, commercial progress, and industrial activity. The extraordinary development during these years, alone, not merely of our own country and colonies, but of certain other nations—of, for instance, the United States of America, of Germany, of Japan—has been as rapid as it has been thorough. Consequently, if our proposition were correct, we should expect to find that the rate of development in the ship had been commensurate. Nor have we any cause for disappointment, for as soon as we commence to reckon up the achievements made in art and literature during the nineteenth, and the first decade of the twentieth centuries, and to compare the rate of progress of the ship during this same period, it seems at first not a little difficult to realise that so much should have been accomplished in so short a time.

When the inhabitant of the Stone Age had succeeded in putting an edge on his blunt stone implement, he had instantly “broken down a wall that for untold ages had dammed up a stagnant, unprogressive past, and through the breach were let loose all the potentialities of the future civilisation of mankind.” It is by no means an unfitting simile if I suggest that we liken the invention of steam to the discovery of the potentialities of the edge. Until the coming of the former we may well say that progress, as we now know it, remained stagnant, at any rate in respect of rapid movement. Omitting other uses for steam not pertinent to our present subject, we may affirm that in annihilating space, in quickly bridging over the trackless expanse of oceans, steamships have succeeded in accelerating the development of the countries of the world.

Ever since the time when primitive man first learned to harness the wind in his navigation of the waters of the earth, there had always been sailing vessels of some sort. For, at any rate, 8,000 years there is a chain of evidence illustrating one kind of sailing craft or another, and the work of later centuries was but to improve and increase the capabilities of the sailing vessels handed down from one generation to the other. But with the first experiments in steamships it was quite different. Here was a case of experimenting, with but few data on which to rely. For, granted that already some knowledge had been collected concerning the capabilities of steam, and notwithstanding the fact that a great deal more knowledge was extant concerning the art of shipbuilding, yet the condition of relationship between ships and steam was unknown, untried. How to generate the maximum of steam power at the lowest cost; how to apply this power in such a manner as to cause the hull to go through the water at a fair pace; whether the propelling power should find its expression at the side or the extremity of the ship—these and many other problems could be solved, not by previous history, but simply and solely by experimenting, as the primitive man had solved the problem of the mast and sail in their relation to the wind.

And yet it was scarcely probable that the value of the sail, which had been appreciated for so many thousands of years, should be suddenly found worthless. Inventions are no sooner born than they find themselves compelled in their weak infancy to fight for their lives against the militant conservatism of established custom. Seamen-descendants of ages and ages of seamen, themselves the most conservative of any section of society, were not likely to believe so readily that pipes and boilers were going to do as much for the ship as spars and sails. Nor, in fact, did they all at once. But something had to come as a greater propelling power than uncertain wind. For the world in the early part of this hundred years was waking up again after the dull Georgian period. It was perhaps rather a new birth—another Renaissance. Soon it began to get busy, and speed, not repose, became the general cry, whose noise is heard now louder and louder each day on land as well as sea. Every known device of the architect and builder was employed to coax additional knots out of the sailing ship: all the improvements in sails and gear were utilised to this purpose. As the result of these demands the magnificent clippers doing their marvellous passages homewards evolved. But that was all too slow. Passengers and freights were in a hurry to get from shore to shore, and, later, perishable food supplies could not be entrusted to the sailing ship. And so, when once the steamship had appeared, even though not as a pronounced success, yet the spirit of the times was such that she should be encouraged as being likely to satisfy the cravings of an active, restless age.

In the history of human progress we find everywhere exemplified a continuous effort through centuries and centuries of change to obtain an end with the least expenditure of labour. It is one of the most striking characteristics of our nature that we proceed along that road offering the least resistance and requiring the smallest amount of endeavour. Not more true is this assertion to-day than in the ages which have sunk into oblivion, and but for this human instinct, or failing, the progress of the world would have been impossible. The prehistoric man found the action of paddling his dug-out so irksome and wearying that he invented the sail as a means of harnessing the wind to do his work, and, as a result, what does the world not owe to his apparent laziness? How else would new countries have been discovered and peopled, commerce extended to nations beyond the seas, untilled areas made to yield their fruitful produce, and wealth amassed by production and exchange of commodities? It was not until Europe had at last begun to build her big caravels and caracks, and to learn how to handle them with adequate seamanship, that the art of navigation advanced so far as to enable Columbus to sail across the Atlantic, and to lay the foundation of the prosperity of the New World. To have attained such a feat by the means of physical propulsion would have been impossible; it was only by the invention of the sail and the perfection of the sailing ship after many centuries of experimenting that this came about. For man’s endurance is hedged in by stern limits. He can only work for part of the day, and he must eat and sleep. But by yoking the wind to the sail the voyage could be continued without the necessity for plying the oar, and most of the crew could be below at their rest or their meals.

But the sailing ship, too, has her limitations. When the wind drops her range of usefulness automatically ends. When the wind becomes contrary, or rises in sufficient fierceness as to become a gale, the sailing ship again loses some of her utility, whilst tides and currents in like manner combine to impede her advance from one port to another. And so, realising all these harassing circumstances, man has ever had a desire to shake himself free from such irritating restrictions, to assert his own independence of winds and seas and tides, and to steer his ships where he liked, and as fast as he liked with the minimum effort.

And yet he has been a very long time indeed finding the means of rising superior to the forces of Nature. He has had to fight very hard against heavy odds, he has had to devise no end of ingenious methods, most of which have been utterly useless, and many a man, overjoyed at his discovery of a sure means of overcoming the problem of propelling craft without sails or oars, has found at the last that in practice it was unworkable or too costly. Some have died from sheer want through sacrificing their all to this one end; others, rendered more sensitive by the ridicule and scorn of their fellow-men, have, on witnessing their own failure, died of a broken heart, and been reckoned by the least discerning as among those who wasted their lives in pursuing a shadow, frittered their time and money in seeking to attain the unattainable, and left behind them no monument except a pile of unworkable propositions and theories.

But no generation is at any time of its career independent. From its first moments it is under a debt to those which have come and gone. Literature is but a collection of data amassed by our predecessors and handed down to the next age, which adds a little more to what is already known. It is scarcely possible to point to one man and say that he alone was the inventor of any new theory or device, although in carelessness we actually so speak. His own conclusions have been based on the accumulation of what his predecessors have left for him; and it is the same with the invention of the steamship. Some writers of different nationalities have patriotically upheld one man or another as the father of the steamship with a zeal that does more credit to their national loyalty than to their sense of historical fairness. In point of fact, although in different epochs one man has been more successful in practical experiment than another, we cannot, at any rate in the history of the steamship, give to that man a place of honour to the exclusion of all those who have gone before. Without their help he would never have succeeded. Their failures, even if they left him little to work on, at least showed him what to avoid. As an example we might here cite the instance of using a propeller shaped after the manner of a duck’s foot, which, being a close copy of the method employed by a species of animal which has its being on the surface of the water, appealed powerfully to more than one inventor as the likely way to solve a great problem; just as the early days of aviation were wasted in endeavouring to follow too closely the methods of locomotion adopted by birds. The years of man are but threescore and ten, and he cannot go on wasting his allotted time in trying and discarding all the experiments possible; but from the disordered mass of accumulated data he can extract just those which have any semblance of sound sense and practicability, from which he can deduce his own new theory and put it to actual test.

Because, then, of this mutual inter-dependence we shall give the palm to no individual, but endeavour to show how, step by step, the ship has shaken herself free of entire slavery to the wind, one age helping her a little in her ambition, others sending her forward farther still towards her goal. Chance plays so curious a game with progress. A genius may spring up too early or too late to be appreciated. He may be hailed as a dangerous lunatic or as a benefactor of mankind, according to whether the time was ripe for his appearance.

Papin, as we shall see presently, was born out of due season. His fellow-men did not want his steamer, so they smashed it to pieces. Solomon de Caus, who showed that he knew more about the application of steam than anyone who had ever lived, was shut up as a madman, whereas Fulton, another man of rare genius and wonderful fertility of invention, has recently had his centenary celebrated and fêtes in his memory held, lest the recollection of his great gift to mankind should be easily forgotten. But Fulton was just the kind of man to acknowledge his dependence on the work of his predecessors, and, in fact, did this in so many words when he was being denounced by a rival inventor. Desblanc, a Frenchman, pretended that his was the prior invention, but Fulton wisely replied that if the glory of having invented the steamboat belonged to anyone, it belonged not to himself nor to Desblanc, but to the Marquis de Jouffroy, who had obtained a success with his steamer on the Saône twenty years before. And the designers and builders of the Mauretania and Lusitania to-day would be among the first to admit that such achievements as these mammoth ships are but the results of all that has gone before: in other words, it is evolution rather than sudden invention.

Genius is the exclusive possession of no particular nation, still less of any particular age: but it needs just that happy condition of opportunity which means so little or may mean so much. And the more we realise that this is so, and that it is even possible for two men, separated by thousands of miles, to be working at the same scientific problem and to arrive at similar solutions at about the same date (as happens more than once in the story of the steamship), so much more quickly shall we approach a fair and impartial verdict in assessing praise to whom praise is due. All the mutual recriminations and slanders, all the long years of law-suits, and the pain and grief to both parties in several instances regarding their rival claims for priority of invention of the essential characteristics of the steamboat, might have been thus avoided. Coincidence is a recognisable factor, and when men’s minds are at one particular time more keenly set on bringing about a craft capable of moving without sails or oars, and working with the same historical data before them, it is, in fact, more probable than improbable that the same conclusions will be arrived at by men who have never seen each other, nor availed themselves of each other’s secrets.

There had always been a feeling that some means other than sails or oars could be found for ship-propulsion, but it was not until the possibilities of steam had begun to be appreciated that the idea of a mechanically-propelled ship took on any practical form. Thus we might divide our study into two separate sections. The first would consist of all those vessels propelled by some mechanism moved by man or beast: in other words, by physical strength employed to turn a paddle-wheel or other arrangement. The other section would include all those efforts to turn the machinery, not by physical, but by steam force. The first dates from a time almost as old as the ship herself; the second in actual success covers, as we have already said, a space of about a hundred years only, but the first efforts date from the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Papin performed his historic achievement.

For years and centuries man has longed to be able to navigate the air, and to this end he has tried all shapes and kinds of balloons, yet he is always more or less dependent on the currents of the sky. But the recent jump from years of failure to marvellous success is due as much to the collateral invention and development of the motor. It was chance that caused the aeroplane and the motor industry to develop simultaneously, and yet but for the latter the former could not have advanced. It is much the same with the evolution of the steamship. It was only after Solomon de Caus had, early in the seventeenth century, published his treatise on the application of steam as a means for elevating water, and the Marquis of Worcester, in 1663, had published his description of “An admirable and most forcible way to drive up water by fire,” that Papin was able to supply the key to the question of the mechanical propulsion of ships. Even if it were possible to prove that he had never acquainted himself with the theories of de Caus and the Marquis of Worcester, that argument would avail but little, for the solution was bound to come sooner or later; it was inevitable. There must be, man reasoned, some means for propelling a ship along the water other than by sails or oars. The Chinese had been working at the idea, the Romans had at least attempted it; through the Middle Ages there had been actually accredited instances, and so the eighteenth century was not too soon for its accomplishment. Thus, when Papin determined to apply steam power to vessels, he was just one of those many benefactors of the world who have succeeded by means of Nature to overcome Nature: by employing fire and water to overcome water and space.

Let us, then, turn to the next chapter and see something more of the different methods which were tried before the satisfaction of full and undoubted success rewarded man in his struggle against the limits to his freedom. As this is a history rather of steamships than of all kinds of mechanically-propelled craft, we must examine not all the ingenious theories and the wild conceptions which many minds in many ages have conceived for propelling ships by mechanical means other than steam (for with those alone we could fill this book), but having shown something of the main principles which underlay these, we shall pass on to tell, for the benefit of the general reader, something of the vicissitudes through which has passed that swift and majestic creature which carries him across vast oceans and broad turbulent channels, as well as the peaceful waters of the land-locked lake and river. For this reason, while not omitting anything that shall contribute to the better understanding of the story, we shall omit from our study such technical details and theories as came to nothing practical and, notwithstanding their importance in fashioning the future of the steamship, are of less interest to the average reader than to the shipbuilder and engineer. Modern activity is now so rapid; event follows event so quickly; the ship of yesterday is already made obsolescent by a newer type, that we cannot fairly be accused of living too near the period to obtain an accurate perspective. Whether steamships will flourish much longer, or whether they will in turn be surpassed, as they have ousted the sailing ship, is a debatable proposition. At any rate, to anyone who has at heart one of the greatest and most powerful forces in the spread of civilisation, the story of steamship evolution, from comparative inutility to a state of efficiency which is remarkable even in this wonder age, cannot but appeal with an attractiveness commensurate with its importance.

CHAPTER II
THE EVOLUTION OF MECHANICALLY-PROPELLED CRAFT

When the prehistoric man was returning home from his day’s fishing or hunting, and the evening breeze had died away to a flat calm so that the primitive sail became for the time a hindrance rather than a saving of labour, and the tired navigator was compelled reluctantly to resort to his paddles once more—it was, no doubt, then that our ancestry was first inoculated with the germ for desiring some mechanical form of propulsion, and the fever went on developing until it broke out in full infection when the possibilities of steam were beginning to be weighed.

The earliest records of the employment of some artificial means for sending the ship along are not preserved to us, although it is certain that repeated attempts were made in many ages to do without oars and sails. When slave labour was cheap and plentiful, and this could easily be turned into propelling power, perhaps it was hardly likely that there would be much incentive for discovering or rediscovering such forces as steam to do the work of physical energy. It seems to me to be a curious and interesting fact that it was not until the freedom of the individual from some sort of slavery and servitude—whether belonging to ancient times or the Middle Ages—began to be asserted that there was any real progress made in labour-saving devices. The dignity of man, and his superiority as a being possessed of intelligence and discernment, and, consequently, his right to be considered as something more than a drawer of water, a hewer of wood, and the motive force for any method of transport, had fully to be recognised and appreciated before means were earnestly sought to save human labour. The cry of the last few years and the tendency exhibited by many world movements have been all for asserting the right of the individual. The French Revolution, the American War of Independence, the rise of Socialism of some sort or another in most civilised countries, have happened collaterally with the progress of machinery, and the development of power independent of physical force, necessitating less and less the expenditure of human energy. Never in the history of the world has so much been accomplished for obtaining mechanical energy as within the last hundred and fifty years, and never perhaps has the individual been able to possess himself of so much freedom.

But even in those days when slaves could be made to work to the limits of their endurance, it is fairly evident that man believed that there was a future for the mechanical propulsion of ships, and the usual form which this took was of applying paddle-wheels to the side of the ship, and revolving these by means of a capstan turned either by slaves or by oxen. The Chinese, it is scarcely to be wondered at, adopted this means, and so also did the Romans. In 264 B.C., when Appius Claudius Caudex one dark night crossed the Straits of Messina to Sicily, he transported the troops in boats propelled by paddle-wheels through the medium of capstans revolved by oxen, and there is in existence an ancient bas-relief which shows a galley with three wheels on either side to be used for this purpose. Over and over again this same idea was exploited, and even as recently as 1829 Charles Napier, a British naval officer, when he was in command of the frigate Galatea, was by special permission of the Admiralty allowed to fit her with paddles, which were worked by winches on the main deck. He found that in a calm he could thus get his ship along at three knots an hour, and tow a line-o’-battle ship at one and a half knots. But it was noticed then, what experimenters of this nature always found in every age, that, firstly, this method of capstan-plus-paddle-wheels was good only for a short distance; and, secondly, that so great an expenditure of physical force could be more advantageously applied by using the old-fashioned method of rowing.

Many a student and philosopher pictured in his mind some novel method for doing away with sails and oars, among whom we might mention Roger Bacon; but most of these theories seem not to have gone farther than the walls of the study. In 1543 another attempt was made by one Blasco de Garray, on June 17. Himself a native of Biscay, he proceeded to Barcelona, and experimented first with a vessel of 109 tons, and later with one of about twice the size. For many years it was commonly, but erroneously, stated that this was the first steamship. Apart altogether from the unlikeliness of this being the case at so early a date, it has now been proved to be little better than a fable based on insufficient evidence. Even to this present day this inaccuracy is still repeated, and it is not out of place to emphasise the fact yet again that de Garray’s was not a steamship. Special research has been undertaken in the Royal archives of Simancas by able and discriminating students, and the result is that, while it was found that two separate experiments were made with two different vessels, and that one ship had a paddle-wheel on either side worked by twenty-five men, and the other ship by forty men, and that a speed equal to three and a half English miles per hour was obtained, yet there was discovered among these manuscripts no mention whatsoever of the use of steam. The vessels were found to steer well, but the same conclusion was again arrived at—viz. that for a passage of any length it was far easier to use oars.

The idea, however, was not dead, and we find it coming up again in the time of Elizabeth. During her reign there were numbers of little books issued to make the seamen more efficient, and these, of course, deal with the sailing ship. One of the most entertaining that I know of is that entitled “Inventions or Devises Very necessary for all Generalles and Captaines, or Leaders of men, as well by Sea as by Land: Written by William Bourne.” It was published in London in 1578, and is full of fascinating matter for preventing the enemy from boarding ships, and useful tips for sinking him even when he is superior in strength and size to the ship he is attacking. Bourne mentions the following “devise” on page 15:—“And furthermore you may make a Boate to goe without oares or Sayle, by the placing of certaine wheels on the outside of the Boate, in that sort, that the armes of the wheeles may goe into the water, and so turning the wheeles by some provision, and so the wheeles shall make the Boate to goe.” And the next “devise” refers to the fact that “also, they make a water Mill in a Boate, for when that it rideth at an Anker, the tyde or streame will turne the wheeles with great force, and these Milles are used in France.”

In another interesting sixteenth century book, full of curious and wonderful machines, entitled “Theatrum Instrumentorum et Machinarum Jacobi Bessoni, Mathematici ingeniosissimi,” published in 1582, there are detailed illustrations and descriptions of a curious ship which is in shape something like a heart, the bow being the apex, so to speak; the stern has two ends, between which is fitted a species of paddle-wheel of unusual kind. It consists of a cigar-shaped object of wood, not unlike a modern torpedo, but broader. Through this is an axle which allowed the wheel to revolve freely, and on the axle at either end rests a vertical spar, which is fastened to another spar at the top parallel with the wheel. From the centre of this spar an enormous kind of mast or sprit rose high up into the air, which was worked by means of a tackle and ropes leading down to a winch, turned by two men. Thus, if the reader will imagine an object resembling one of those rollers employed in the preservation of a cricket pitch, but made of wood instead of metal, he will get something of the shape of this curious machine. Besson evidently thought a great deal of this invention and speaks of it as “inventum vix credibile,” but it was a clumsy method and cannot really have had many virtues to commend it.

Seven years after Besson’s publication there appeared another book which throws light on the prevailing passion for mechanical propulsion, though it refers back to the time of the ancient galley. In “The History of Many Memorable Things Lost, which were in use among the Ancients ... written originally in Latin by Guido Pancirollus, and now done into English Vol. i.,” published in London in 1715, but first issued in 1589, the following statement is made on page 120:—“I saw also the pictures of some ships, called Liburnæ which had three wheels on both sides, without, touching the water, each consisting of eight spokes, jetting out from the wheel about an hand’s breadth, and six oxen within, which by turning an engine stirr’d the wheels, whose Fellys [spokes], driving the water backwards, moved the Liburnians with such force that no three-oar’d gally was able to resist them.” This would seem to confirm the statement that the ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean certainly employed the paddle-wheel.

But a year before Pancirolli published his book there appeared another interesting work, which shows yet again that the employment of paddle-wheeled craft was far from non-existent. There is a scarce book in the British Museum, published in 1588, entitled “Le Diverse et Artificiose Machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli,” which is illustrated with some highly informative plates. Fig. CLII. shows a kind of pontoon, to be employed by the enemy in attacking a town from the other side of a stream or river. A horse brings a rectangular shaped construction down to the water’s edge, where it is launched and floats. Everywhere this kind of built-up dray is covered in, but in the bows a man is seen firing his harquebus from his protected shelter, while on either side of this craft a paddle-wheel is seen revolving with its six blades, that are not straight, as in the modern wheels, but curved inwards like a scythe. The illustration shows these wheels being turned by a man standing up inside; the wheels are quite open, without paddle-boxes. An oar projecting at the stern enables the craft to be steered.

We see, then, that that earliest form of ship propulsion by mechanical means, the paddle-wheel, was thoroughly grafted into man’s mind long before he had brought about the steamboat. We cannot give here every theory and suggestion which the seventeenth century put forward, but we can state that during this period various patents were being taken out for making boats to go against wind and tide, some of which were conspicuously distinguished by their display of ingenuity to overcome the forces of Nature. We come across all sorts of ideas for “to make boats, shippes, and barges to go against strong wind and tide,” “to draw or haul ships, boates, etc., up river against the stream,” “to make boates for the carryage of burthens and passengers upon the water as swifte in calms and more saft [sic] in stormes than boates full sayled in greater wynes.” The Marquis of Worcester, in 1663, published a little book entitled “A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Inventions,” and he himself patented an invention for sending a boat against the stream by using the actual force of the wind and stream in a reverse manner. But the fact to be borne in mind for our present purpose is that from all these ingenious propositions nothing practical ever evolved that was found to be of any service to man, or the transportation of his commerce. At any rate, there is no record of this.

HERO’S STEAM APPARATUS.

From the Exhibit in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.

Now that we have traced in outline the vain attempts at physical propulsion, let us turn to take a view of the evolution of that other invention whose advent alone delayed the practical utility of the paddle-wheel to boats. Who shall say how it was that steam came first to be regarded as a means of giving power? In certain parts of the world, where geysers and boiling springs existed, man must naturally have been struck by the elastic force which steam possessed. An intellect which had any leaning to the side of practical economy must have reasoned that here was a valuable force running to waste, which might have been employed in the service of mankind, just as the swift-running rivers could be made to turn the water-wheels. But, as we said just now, steam was not wanted yet, for human labour was too cheap to bother about it; and we might remark incidentally that it was owing to this same cheapness that the galley, or rowing craft, was encouraged for many centuries in the Mediterranean, to the partial exclusion and great discouragement of the big sailing ship. Indeed, slavery, or abundance of cheap, compulsory labour, has been the means of holding back the progress of the world. Had the big sailing ships come at an earlier date the far-off countries would have been discovered much sooner, and the study of the properties of steam—or some other means as the equivalent of physical power—would have been regarded with a greater enthusiasm. Perhaps it would be more accurate to speak of the re-discovery of steam than of its invention: for as early as 130 B.C. Hero, of Alexandria, had written a treatise on “Pneumatics,” and described a light ball supported by a jet of steam which came out of a pipe into a cup, much as one sees in the rural fairs of to-day the same idea used when the force of water raises a light ball for the bucolic rifleman to shoot at. Hero also referred to the “aeolipile,” which was a hollow ball mounted on its axis between two pivots, one of which was hollow and acted as a steam pipe. Two nozzles formed part of the ball and were fitted at right angles to the pivots on which the ball revolved, and owing to the reaction caused by the escape of the steam from the jets touching the ball the latter was made to revolve. This is well illustrated in the [plate facing page 18].

From the time of Hero to the seventeenth century ensues a wide hiatus, although in the meantime there were not wanting some who now and again added slightly to the body of knowledge which the world possessed on the subject. Of these we might mention such names as Archimedes in the second century B.C., and Mathesius in the sixteenth century A.D. But Solomon de Caus, or Carrs, in the first half of the seventeenth century showed that the steam given off by boiling water could be used for raising water, and Giovanni Branca, about the same time, brought about what is really the progenitor of the modern turbine. In this seventeenth century, also, another ingenious Italian, Evangelista Torricelli, proved that the atmosphere in which we live possessed weight, and to-day everyone is aware that this is so, and that the pressure of the air is 15 lb. per square inch. The working of the mercurial barometer is the simplest proof of this. We shall see presently how an isolated fact unearthed in one age becomes the foundation of the mighty success of a later inventor, and thus the assertion which we made on an earlier page, that the credit of inventing the steamboat belongs neither to one man nor to one age, is not devoid of truth.

Otto von Guericke, about the middle of the same century, showed the practical utility of producing a vacuum, of which the syringe and the common suction pump are such excellent examples. But we are not writing a history of inventions, nor of steam, but of the steamship, and we shall pass on presently to see how each of these separate important discoveries eventually blended to form the subject of our present study. In 1663 Edward Somerset, the second Marquis of Worcester, to whom we have already referred, also published his description of “An Admirable and most Forcible Way to drive up Water by Fire,” and in this year he obtained protection by Act of Parliament for his “water commanding engine.” When he had interested himself so much in the problem of sending a craft against a current, and simultaneously was obtaining success in the development of steam power, it certainly seems a little strange that the Marquis did not advance just that one step farther which was necessary to complete the syllogism, and apply steam for the purpose of solving the problem of going against the tide or stream. That, however, was reserved for another inventor, and of a different nationality.

And so we come to one whose name is deserving of especial mention in the history of the steamship, for it was he who was the first to do what myriads of others have since done. Many writers have asserted wrongly that this man or the other was the first to succeed: they have gone back as far as de Garray and as short a distance as Fulton. Some have stated timidly and with reserve that Denis Papin is said to have been associated with this honour. But there can be no manner of doubt that to Papin certainly belongs the high distinction of having caused the steamboat to be an actual fact and not merely a figment of imagination. Papin was a French engineer, who, being a Calvinist was, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, obliged to go into exile. For that reason, therefore, he betook himself to the Court of the Landgrave of Hesse, where he found refuge. In 1690 he published a suggestion for obtaining power by means of steam. His idea was to have a cylinder made of thin metal; water was to be placed therein and heated. In the cylinder were to be also a piston and rod on which was a latch, and when the water had been heated sufficiently so that enough steam had been generated, the piston would be moved upwards and be kept there by means of the latch. Thereupon the fire was to be taken away, and, the steam then condensing, as soon as the latch was loosed the piston was bound to drop to the bottom of the cylinder; and if a rope and pulley were attached to the rod, then the descent of the piston would be able to raise a weight at the end of the rope. This was practically what was afterwards known as the atmospherical engine, and Papin was of the opinion that it could be employed for draining rivers, throwing bombs and other purposes. But it is especially notable for our purpose that he firmly believed that it could be employed for rowing a craft against the wind, and indeed would be preferable to the working of galley slaves for getting quickly over the sea; for men, he explained, occupied too much space, consumed too much food, and his tubes and pumps would make a far less cumbersome arrangement. It is worth while noting that the idea of these early inventors of the steamboat was not so much to propel the ship as to row her mechanically by oars or paddles. We still call them paddle-wheels rather than propelling wheels, and the early wheels used for the steamboat were practically paddles placed crosswise, with a blade at the end of each spar. When fitted to an axle, of course, they moved in a circular fashion. The French “roue à aubes,” which is the expression that these French inventors made use of in describing their creations, conveys precisely the same idea.

Papin, casting about for some method of bringing about the steamboat, suggests the use of these rotatory oars, and mentions having seen them fixed to an axle in a boat belonging to Prince Robert of Hesse. This latter was one more of those attempts to propel a craft by physical means, for these revolving oars were turned by horses. Papin, in considering the matter, thought that instead of horses the wheels might be made to go round by steam force, and in 1707 he actually constructed the first steamboat, which he successfully navigated on the River Fulda, in Hanover. He even did so well that he set off in her to steam down to the sea and cross to London; but, of course, the old, conservative prejudice of the local boatmen was bound to make its appearance as soon as so historical a craft had shown her ability. And so, arriving at Münden, the watermen, either through fear that this new self-propelling craft would take away their livelihood through inaugurating a fresh era, or, being envious of a success which no man had ever before obtained, they attacked this steamboat, smashed it to pieces, and Papin himself barely escaped with his life. Thus, a craft and its engines, which to-day would be welcomed by any museum in the world, was annihilated by the men who had the privilege of witnessing the first steamship. Papin never got over the grief caused by so cruel a reception of his brilliant labours, and it is deplorable to think that such scant encouragement was possible. Besides being the successful originator of the steamboat, he was also the inventor of the safety valve.

The publication of Papin’s correspondence with Leibnitz puts the case beyond all possibility of doubt, and the reader who cares to pursue the subject will find the facts he requires in “Leibnizens und Huygens’ Briefwechsel mit Papin,” by Dr. Ernst Gerland. From this we see that Papin had already published a treatise dealing with the application of heat and water. In a letter, dated March 13, 1704, he wrote to Leibnitz of his intention to build a boat which could carry about four thousand pounds in weight, and expressed the opinion that two men would be able to make this craft easily and quickly to ascend the current of a river by means of a wheel which he had adjusted for utilising the oars. That Papin made no aimless plunge, but went into the matter scientifically, is quite clear. He studied carefully the important fact of the resistance which is offered to a vessel passing through the water, and thus found what he believed to be the correct lines on which his ship was to be built. He shows that he had been hard at work expanding his theories, and was longing to have the opportunity to put them to a practical test. On July 7, 1707, he writes to say that he has many enemies at Cassel (where he was then sojourning) and contemplates going to England; and in asking permission so to do he brings forward the plea that it is important that the new type of ship should have a chance of proving its worth in a seaport such as London. He does not conceal the great faith which he reposes in this novel craft: “qui, par le moien du feu, rendra un ou deux hommes capables de faire plus d’effect que plusieurs centaines des rameurs.” Then, writing again to Leibnitz, also from Cassel, under date of September 15 of the same year, relating the result of his experiment of this first steamboat, he remarks: “Je Vous diray que l’experience de mon batteau a êté faitte et qu’elle a reussi de la manière que Je l’esperois: la force du courant de la riviere ètoit si peu de chose en comparaison de la force de mes rames qu’on avoit de la peine à reconnoitre qu’il allât plus vite en dêcendant qu’en montant.”

With such statements as these before us, we can no longer be in any doubt as to the first author of the steamboat.

Papin had discovered a method of producing a vacuum by the condensation of steam, but Thomas Savery is one of the many instances of the case where two men in different countries were working separately and unknown to each other at a common problem. The latter had patented an apparatus for raising water by the impellent force of fire so far back as the year 1698, or nine years before Papin’s steamboat made her appearance; but he had also independently discovered a method of producing a vacuum by the condensation of steam just as had Papin. And this same Savery had shown that the same problem which Papin had succeeded in solving was also interesting himself: for he had gone so far as to ask for a patent for an invention for moving a paddle-wheel on either side of a ship by means of a capstan, which capstan was to be revolved by men. Eventually it occurred to him, as it had not occurred to the Marquis of Worcester, that steam might be employed as helpful to ships. Nevertheless, Savery did not carry this idea to any practical test.

We come now to Thomas Newcomen, who, notwithstanding the fact that his home was at Dartmouth, where in the Elizabethan years so much had been done in connection with ship-building and the sending forth of so many naval expeditions across the seas, does not seem ever to have done anything directly for the development of the steamboat. But indirectly Newcomen did much, and the machine which he introduced, and with which his name is inseparably connected, was practically an English equivalent of Papin’s atmospheric engine, to which we have already referred. Newcomen’s engine is important to us, inasmuch as it embodied in a practical manner the main characteristics of what eventually became the familiar reciprocating steam engine; and had it not been for this, Watt might not have evolved his historic engine, and consequently Fulton not succeeded as he did. I shall endeavour not to weary the non-technical reader, but I must pause a moment here to give some idea of the nature of Newcomen’s engine, because of the close relation which it bears to the subsequent development of the steam engine as fitted in ships and boats. It consisted, then, of a vertical cylinder, which, unlike our modern cylinders, was open at the top. It was provided with a piston to which were attached chains that connected with one end of a beam, the centre of the beam being so fixed as to allow it to oscillate. Steam was generated in a boiler, on the top of which was a primitive cylinder, and by opening a valve, steam was admitted into the cylinder and so pushed up the piston. When the piston had reached the top of the cylinder the valve was closed so that the steam was shut off. Then cold water from a cistern was allowed to enter the bottom of the cylinder, and by this means the steam was condensed, so causing a vacuum; by the pressure of the air—which, as already mentioned, is 15 pounds to the square inch—the piston was forced down again. We get here, then, the essential features of that steam engine which is so familiar to all who travel by land or by sea. But these early atmospheric engines were not invented for the purpose of transport: it was for the pumping of water from mines that they were principally contrived, and in the case of the Newcomen engine, the other end of the beam opposite to that which was worked upwards by steam pressure (and downwards by atmospheric pressure) was attached to pump-rods that worked in connection with the buckets for pumping out the water. Thus, like the movement of the see-saw, when the piston-rod was down at the bottom of the cylinder the pump-rods were correspondingly elevated, and vice versa. As soon as the piston descended to the base of the cylinder through the cessation of the vacuum the spray of cold water was stopped, and steam was again admitted into the cylinder to cause another upward stroke. At the same time it was necessary to discharge the hot water which had accumulated at the bottom of the cylinder, and this was done through a pipe fitted with a valve which would not allow of its return; any air admitted with the steam and the cooling water was blown out through a snifting valve (so-called because of the noise it makes) as the powerful steam came in. But, the reader may ask, what about the open top of the cylinder? How can it be any good to use an uncovered cylinder in conjunction with steam? The answer is, that since the top of the piston was always kept flooded with water, all air was excluded.

We have thus seen the steam engine in its most elementary form; how that it employs boiling water until it becomes steam which is then admitted to a cylinder and by its own force moves a tight-fitting disc or piston up and down. We have also seen that by attaching a rod to this disc, and, further, by connecting this rod to a beam, we can make the latter go up (by means of the steam pressure) or come down (through the pressure of the air). In order to effect the latter we have remarked the fact that a vacuum had to be made by condensing the steam through spraying cold water.

With this explanation in the mind of the general reader, to whom engineering matters do not usually appeal, we may proceed with the progress of our story, and pass on to the year 1730, when a method differing entirely from any that we have yet mentioned was brought forward. Strictly speaking it had nothing to do with steam, but, as we shall see when we come to consider the subject of steam lifeboats, it embodied an idea which could only be satisfactorily employed by the adoption of steam. In the year mentioned there was published a little book under the title “Specimina Ichnographica: or a Brief Narrative of several New Inventions and Experiments: particularly, The Navigating a Ship in a Calm, etc.,” by John Allen, M.D. The author’s idea was to propel a ship by forcing water, or some other fluid, through the stern by means of a proper engine. To this end he experimented with a tin boat 11 inches long, 5 inches broad and 6 inches deep. Placing this little ship into stagnant water, he loaded it until it sank in the water to a depth of 3¾ inches. Into the boat he also placed a cylindrical-shaped object 6 inches high and about 3 inches in diameter and filled it with water. At the bottom of the cylinder was a small pipe, a quarter of an inch square, and this led through the stern of the craft at a distance of an inch and a half below the surface of the water in which the boat was floating. As soon as Allen removed his finger from the outlet of the pipe in the stern the water, of course, ran out from the cylinder, and this action caused the boat to travel, the speed being reckoned, in the case of the model, at about one-fifth of a mile per hour. Although nothing actually came of this theory at the time, it is none the less perfectly workable, with some adaptations, and some of the steam lifeboats, in order to avoid using propellers, which are liable to get foul of wreckage when going alongside a ship in distress, have an elaboration of this principle. They are propelled by engines which work a pump that drives a stream of water through pipes placed below the water-line in much the same manner as in Allen’s model. Allen at first contemplated working the pumps by men, and then causing them to be driven by an atmospheric steam engine. A similar device was employed in Virginia, U.S.A., by James Rumsey in 1787. In his boat water was sucked in at the bow and ejected at the stern. It was found that as long as the vessel travelled at all she went at the rate of four miles an hour, but as she only covered less than a mile and then stopped, it cannot be said that this experiment was conclusive. In 1788, the following year, however, another boat was made actually to go a distance of four miles in one hour, and the device was patented in that country during the year 1791, but Allen had already patented his invention in England thirty years earlier.

It is when we come to Jonathan Hulls or Hull that we encounter the first Englishman to apply steam to ships. Hulls was a native of Gloucestershire, who, in 1736, patented a method of propelling vessels by steam, and in the following year issued a booklet on the subject of his invention which was subsequently reprinted. The title reads thus: “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 ... by Jonathan Hulls.” His idea was to provide a steam tug so that it should be able to render beneficial service to those sailing ships accepting it. His preference for placing the “machine,” or engines, into a separate ship, and thus using her as a tug-boat, instead of installing the engines on board each vessel was because he believed the “machine” might be thought cumbersome and take up too much room in a vessel laden with cargo. But besides the advantage of having a tow-boat always in readiness in any port, he suggested that an old ship which was not able to go far abroad could well be adapted for receiving this “machine.”

“In some convenient part of the Tow-Boat,” he explains, “there is placed a Vessel about two-thirds full of Water, with the Top close shut. This Vessel being kept boiling, rarefies the Water into a Steam: this Steam being convey’d thro’ a large Pipe into a Cylindrical Vessel and there condens’d, makes a Vacuum, which causes the weight of the Atmosphere to press on this Vessel, and so presses down a Piston that is fitted into this Cylindrical Vessel in the same manner as in Mr. Newcomen’s Engine, with which he raises Water by Fire.”

It will thus be seen that Hulls was an adapter of Newcomen’s atmospherical engine to marine purposes rather than an actual inventor of something new and unheard of. But Hulls seems to have anticipated this criticism, for he adds: “if it should be said that this is not a New Invention, because I make use of the same Power to drive my Machine that others have made use of to Drive theirs for other Purposes, I Answer, The Application of this Power is no more than the Application of any common and known Instrument used in Mechanism for new-invented Purposes.”

JONATHAN HULLS’ STEAM TUG-BOAT.

After the Drawing attached to his Specification for the Patent.

We have already noticed that the most which Newcomen could get out of his engine was an up-and-down movement, which was all very well for the purpose for which it was intended, namely, pumping up water, but before it was applicable for propelling a ship the power had to be adapted to give a rotary motion. [The accompanying illustration], which is taken from Hulls’ specification for his patent, and reproduced in the booklet mentioned above, will afford some idea of his proposal. In the lower half of the picture the “tow-boat” is seen in imagination hauling an eighteenth century full-rigged ship, a performance which in actual truth she never achieved. There is, in fact, some doubt as to whether Hulls ever did put the idea to a practical test. Admiral Preble, a distinguished American Naval officer, in his “Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation,” published in Philadelphia in 1883, a volume which contains a vast amount of interesting detail up to that date, says that Hulls did not produce a satisfactory experiment. Scott Russell, one of the greatest authorities on such matters in the nineteenth century, affirmed that Hulls did carry out his theory in definite shape, and the recent “Dictionary of National Biography” also states that at any rate he experimented with a vessel on the River Avon in the neighbourhood of Evesham in 1737. One thing is certain, that whatever merits the proposition might have had in certain respects, it was, commercially, a complete failure. On the other hand, in enunciating a method of converting the rectilineal motion of the piston-rod into a rotary movement Hulls undoubtedly showed the direction in which others were to follow.

In the upper half of [the illustration of Hulls’ drawing], beginning at the bottom right-hand corner, we see the details of his “machine.” P is the pipe which comes from the furnace and brings the steam to Q, the cylinder in which the steam was also condensed. (This last remark is important to bear in mind, as we shall see later to what extent this feature was modified.) The point marked R is the valve which enables the steam to be cut off from entering the cylinder whilst that amount of steam which has already been allowed to go in is being condensed. The other small pipe S conveys the cooling water which condenses the steam in the cylinder, and T is the cock which lets in the condensing water after the cylinder is full of steam and the valve is shut. U is the rope which is fixed to the piston that slides up and down the cylinder, and this is the same rope that goes round the wheel D in the machine shown in the larger illustration.

In this latter picture, too, wherein the tow-boat is seen steaming along, A denotes, of course, the chimney “coming from the furnace,” while B is the tow-boat and CC are the two pieces of timber which are framed to support the machine. It will be noticed that inboard are three wheels marked respectively Da, D, and Db. These are on one axis and receive the ropes as shown. Ha and Hb are two wheels also on the same axis projecting beyond the stern, and the six fans or paddles are marked I, which move alternately in such a manner that when the wheels Da, D, and Db move backwards or forwards they keep the fans or paddles in a direct motion. When these three wheels Da, D, and Db move forward then the rope Fb must move the wheel Hb forward, and so cause the paddles to revolve in the same direction. So also the rope Fa connects the wheel Ha to Da, and when the latter and its two sister wheels revolve the wheel Da, then the wheel Ha draws the rope F and raises the weight G (barely decipherable in the sketch to the left of Da), at the same time as the wheel Hb brings the paddles forward.

Furthermore, when the weight G is raised while the wheels Da, D and Db are moving backwards, the rope Fa gives way and the power of the weight G brings the wheel Ha forward and the paddles with it: so that the latter always keep going forward, notwithstanding that the three wheels Da, D, and Db move backwards and forwards as the piston moves up and down in the cylinder. LL—scarcely recognisable owing to the reduction of the sketch—indicate the teeth for a catch to drop in from the axis, and are so contrived that they catch in an alternate manner to cause the paddles to move always forward, for the wheel Ha, by the power of the weight G, is performing its work while the other wheel Hb goes back in order to fetch another stroke. Hulls explains that the weight G must contain but half the weight of the pillar of air pressure on the piston, because the weight G is raised at the same time as the wheel Hb is doing its duty, so that in effect there are really two machines acting alternately by the weight of one pillar of air of such a diameter as is the diameter of the cylinder.

Hulls expressed another crude idea for when the ship was navigating “up in-land Rivers” and the bottom could be reached. The paddles were then to be removed and “cranks placed at the hindmost Axis to strike a Shaft to the bottom of the River, which will drive the Vessel forward with greater Force.”

Daniel Bernoulli, in the year 1753, proved on paper that it was mathematically possible to use a steam engine for propelling ships, the medium being also wheels with vanes attached. There were not wanting other theories and experiments also in the eighteenth century which attained little or no success, their defects arising sometimes through lack of sufficient power to go against a stream, or through some erroneous principle. Of these we might mention especially the experiment made in France by Périer, who, after devoting careful consideration to the problem of the amount of power required, and, after reckoning the necessary force likely to be essential, by the number of horses which were required for drawing along a boat from the towing-path, set to work in his own manner. It happened that in the year 1775, to which we are now referring, there was on view in Paris a unique engine which the now famous and ever memorable James Watt had made. This aroused so much interest that it was decided to hire a boat on the Seine and place therein a Watt machine of one horse-power. Périer carried out his experiment, though owing to the force of the current of the Seine, and the too limited horse-power which the engine was capable of producing, the result was a failure. But one of Périer’s associates, the Marquis de Jouffroy, had also been excited by the advent of this English engine which was an improvement on anything that the world had yet seen, and he resolved to try for himself to find some means of making a ship to go against swift-running rivers independent of horse-towage. In spite of the prejudice which was likely to be aroused in case he should prove successful (for the owners of the monopoly of the more primitive form of inland water transport would not quietly consent to see their living taken away from them), he set forth with considerable courage and an heroic determination. Since it is doubtful whether these interesting experiments would ever have been made had it not been for the happy coincidence of Watt’s engine becoming known when it did, it is only right that we should first see something of the circumstances which combined to bring the Englishman’s work into such prominence, and then return to follow de Jouffroy in his efforts.

To James Watt, notwithstanding that his work and ingenuity were expended for the purpose of land engines, belongs the honour of having removed the most harassing obstacles which were delaying the full and entire possibility of the marine steam engine. In the chain of discoveries which leads back into early times, without whose cumulative effect he himself would not have done what he did, James Watt comes immediately next to Thomas Newcomen. Despised in his weak, delicate boyhood by his companions, his is another instance of the stone which the builders rejected becoming the head corner-stone. Or, to put the proposition in another way, Watt absorbed all the existing good that there was in the latest engineering knowledge, and advanced that several steps further until it reached the goal of practicability.

In the Newcomen engine there were several notable defects which marred its usefulness, and it was not until these could be improved upon that there could possibly be a future for the steamboat. This type of “machine” was not closely enough related to the work which it was called upon to perform. Its pre-eminent fault lay in the fact that the condensation took place in the cylinder. This meant a considerable waste, for after the latter had been made cool by the admission of the cold water for condensing the steam, the cylinder had to be heated again before every upward stroke. Heat, in fact, was literally thrown away. It was in the year 1764 that Watt, while endeavouring to repair a model of one of these Newcomen engines and to remedy its poor performance, was struck by the inadequacy of its mechanism and realised that some means should be found to ensure a greater economy of steam. From his ingenious brain, therefore, came an improvement. He provided for the condensation to take place not in the cylinder but in a separate condenser, in which a jet of water was to spray, and finally the condensed steam, the injected water, and the air which had also found its way in, were to be drawn off by means of an air-pump. After a delay of several years Watt was introduced to Matthew Boulton, founder of the Soho Engineering Works, near Birmingham, and in 1769 Watt’s invention, embodying the principle of the separate condenser, was patented. Although he had worked out his idea as far back as the year 1765, it was not till four years after that he had the means to secure its protection. In the specification for his patent Watt enunciated what is appreciated as an essential doctrine to-day, that the walls of the cylinder should be maintained at the same heat as the steam which was about to enter into the cylinder. And he proposed to bring about this improvement by adding an external casing to the cylinder, leaving a space between the casing and the outside of the cylinder itself and keeping always in this space steam so as to preserve a high temperature.

But, as was mentioned on a previous page, the steam engine at this date was not developed with a view to transport, but for the convenience of pumping up water from mines. As a result of Watt’s success a considerable demand arose among Cornish mine-owners for these engines made by Boulton and Watt, who were now working in partnership together. For the work of pumping, these machines continued to serve admirably, so long as a vertical up-and-down motion was required. At length Watt turned his mind to some method of obtaining rotary movement from his engine, but in a manner different from that in which Hulls had attempted to attain his end. Watt had covered in the top of his cylinder to keep out the cooling effect of the air, and his well-known beam pumping engine was an improvement on Newcomen’s, owing to the simple fact that in economising steam it halved the cost of fuel, and not even to-day are these old-fashioned engines in disuse. As we shall see later on, the beam engine is very much in evidence in some of the river steamships of the United States, apart altogether from those beam engines which are still worked for pumping in some parts of our own country.

With such satisfactory results to encourage him it was inevitable that sooner or later so brilliant a schemer would think out some means for rotary movement, and Watt’s first intention was to cause the beam (which was pushed up by the rod joining the piston) to drive a fly-wheel by introducing a crank in something of the same manner in which nowadays the crank of a bicycle drives round the cog-wheel, the cyclist’s leg being, so to speak, the connecting rod which joins the beam. But before Watt had a chance of getting legal protection for this method his secret was stolen by one of his workmen, named Pickard, who revealed it to a Bristol man of the name of Wasbrough, who was also in search of some method of obtaining rotary motion. The latter, therefore, having in 1780 obtained his patent by stealth, Watt was compelled to cast about for some other means of attaining the same end: but his fertile mind soon gave forth what was required, and in the following year he patented what is known as the “sun-and-planet” gear, which converted the vertical movement into a rotary. Put in a few words, the working of the engine was as follows: At the top was the straight beam of wood; from one side of this there hung vertically a rod which connected with the piston in the cylinder, and was thus made to go up and down as in the Newcomen engine. It will be remembered that in Newcomen’s machine, at the opposite end of the beam was the other rod for pumping the water. Now in Watt’s rotary engine the piston-rod was moved up and down as before, but the opposite rod, at the other end of the beam, was connected with a spur-wheel having cogs in it. There was also a large fly-wheel which had a similar cog-wheel on its shaft, and thus, as the piston rod pushed up its end of the beam the opposite end of the beam was lowered and its rod also. But through the arrangement of the two cog-wheels the connecting rod caused the fly-wheel to revolve, and at twice the rate at which it would have gone round had Watt’s original rod and crank idea been employed, for the “planet” cog-wheel goes round in a circle but does not revolve on its own axis. Some of his engines of this type were so arranged that the speed of the fly-wheel shaft was not so much greater than in the case where a crank was employed.

Thus, in this important adaptation of the vertical to the rotary movement, we get the nucleus of the future steamboat engine, which was to turn the paddle-wheels round. But Watt did not stop there. We have seen that whilst it was the steam which pushed the piston and its rod upwards, it was yet the pressure of the air and the weight of the parts which caused the piston and rod to descend. Now, as we have seen, Watt had already resolved to cover in the top of the cylinder in order to keep out the air from cooling the latter. It was, then, but a natural transition to utilise the steam not merely for pushing the piston upwards, but also for sending the same down after its ascent had been made. We thus get what is the well-known double-action of the modern reciprocating engine, in which steam is employed from either side of the piston alternatively, so that each stroke becomes a working stroke and the power of the engine is doubled. It was Watt who, as early as the year 1782, discovered the advantages which were possessed by the expanditure of steam, but as this does not enter into practical application just yet, we can postpone the subject to a later chapter. We need only emphasise the fact that the fly-wheel which is so familiar to all of us was the invention of Watt, and it is perhaps scarcely necessary to explain that the reason for the existence of this wheel is in order that it may, at the beginning of the stroke, when the engine is at its strongest, store up the surplus energy and give it back towards the end of the stroke. It thus maintains an equal motion throughout the whole stroke given forth by the piston and its rod.

The earliest marine steam engines were very much on these lines, then, and were really a slightly modified form of land engine. But, as we shall soon come to refer to the more complicated type of engine, and to make use of other terms, it may not be out of place here to deal at once with the expression “horse-power,” which is used for the purpose of indicating the force which an engine is capable of developing. The origin of this expression is not without interest, and Sir Frederick Bramwell, Bart., F.R.S., D.C.L., in his entertaining article on the life of Watt in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” points out that Savery, to whom we have referred, was accustomed to calculate that where any machinery had to be driven by means of a single horse, it would entail a stock of three of these animals being kept, so that one should be able always to be at work. Thus supposing that the power exerted by six horses was necessary to drive a pump, and Savery made an engine capable of doing the same work by mechanical means, he would call it not a six horse-power engine, but an eighteen horse-power. Watt, however, did not credit his engine with the idle horses. He satisfied himself that an average horse could continue working for several hours when exerting himself so as to raise one hundredweight to a height of 196 feet in one minute, which is about equal to lifting 22,000 pounds one foot high in the same time, as the reader will find by simple arithmetic. But in order that no purchaser of his engines should have any ground for complaint, Watt went one step better, and determined that each horse-power of his engine should be capable of raising to a height of one foot, in one minute, not 22,000 pounds, but 33,000 pounds, or half as much again. And so to-day when we speak of an engine possessing such and such horse-power we still mean that it is equivalent to such a power as would raise 33,000 foot-pounds per minute. I make no apology for dwelling to such an extent on this point, but since at least one writer on steamships has seen fit to refer to this assessment of horse-power as being entirely arbitrary, and to admit in the same paragraph that he was altogether ignorant as to what power a horse was actually capable of producing, I have thought it not inappropriate to make the point clear in the mind of the reader.

THE MARQUIS DE JOUFFROY’S STEAMBOAT.

From Mr. R. Prosser’s Pen-and-Ink Sketch in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.

Let us now cross the Channel again to France, and remembering that Watt had patented his engine in 1769 and that Périer, after seeing one of the Englishman’s engines, had installed one in his boat on the Seine in 1775, and failed in his experiment, let us see the attempts at steamboat navigation continued by the Marquis de Jouffroy. Here again writers have cast some doubt on the achievements accomplished by this distinguished Frenchman, but if we turn to an interesting little book entitled “Une Découverte en Franche-Comté au XVIIIe siècle. Application de la vapeur à la navigation,” by Le Mis. Sylvestre de Jouffroy D’Abbans (Besançon, 1881), we shall find the facts verified. Briefly, the story is that in 1776 the Marquis, undismayed by Périer’s failure, obtained a Watt engine suitable for his boat, which was only 13 metres long, and in width 1 metre 91 centimetres, so that she was quite a small craft. She was propelled by steam, the revolving blades being 2 metres 60 centimetres in length and suspended on each side of the ship near the bows. The engine was placed in the middle of the boat and worked the revolving blades by means of chains. This experiment took place at Baume-les-Dames, though it does not appear to have contributed much to the ultimate success of steam navigation. But in 1781 this same François Dorothée, Comte de Jouffroy D’Abbans, made a much bolder essay and built a far larger steamboat, which measured 46 metres long, 5 metres wide, and had a draught of 1 metre. This steamship was tried at Lyons on the Saône on July 15, 1783, not 1781 nor 1782, as some writers have asserted. Her success was undoubted, for she went against the stream from Lyons to the Isle of Barbe several times, not in any secret manner, but in the presence of 10,000 witnesses. There is no possible doubt, for the interesting event was duly attested and, I believe, this declaration exists still in Paris. [The illustration here given] has been photographed from the pen-and-ink sketch which was copied in the year 1830 by Mr. R. Prosser from a French print that was published in 1816, and was alleged to represent this steamboat to which we are referring. But this illustration, from the fact that it was issued so many years after the occurrence, and also that it differs in some details as given by French writers, should be regarded with caution. It shows a boat whose paddle-wheels are turned by a single horizontal steam cylinder, the piston-rod engaging the shaft of the paddle-wheels by means of a ratchet arrangement which will be easily recognised. But it is also affirmed that Jouffroy’s vessel of 1783 had two cylinders, that the piston of each of these was connected with an iron flexible chain, and that these revolved the paddle-wheels. The latter were 14 feet in diameter and the paddle-boards themselves were 6 feet wide. The two cylinders were placed behind each other and communicated with each other by means of a wide tube. The French Revolution followed, in 1789, when the Marquis de Jouffroy, in order to save his life, had to go into exile for some time, and on his return, ere he was able to obtain a patent for his achievement, someone else had stepped in and forestalled him.

In the meantime, in England, something more practicable than Hulls’ efforts had brought about was to be witnessed. If the reader will examine the [illustration facing this page] he will see a model of a curious double-hulled ship, which was one of eight or more paddle-propelled vessels that were employed in the experiments carried out by Patrick Miller, a wealthy Edinburgh banker. This particular vessel was built at Leith in 1787, and it is amusing to see in her that old idea of physical propulsion brought forward once more. Between the two hulls sufficient space was left for the insertion of five paddle-wheels, 7 feet in diameter, immediately behind each other, which were driven by thirty men, heaving away at the capstan placed on deck. We find pretty much the same speed to be obtained as in the experiments which we have mentioned in connection with other craft thus propelled, for the best effort when all these hands were working to get her through the water appears to have been under 4½ knots per hour. In our illustration she is seen with masts and sails which she used when the paddle-wheels were lifted out of the water and placed on deck. It will be noticed that she was steered by a couple of rudders; her displacement was 255 tons. This probably represents the final development of Miller’s design using muscular power, but an earlier and smaller ship belonging to the previous year carried only two paddle-wheels, 6 feet in diameter and 4 feet wide, which were placed on each side of the middle hull, for this ship was not double- but triple-hulled.

PATRICK MILLER’S DOUBLE-HULLED PADDLE-BOAT.

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

SYMINGTON’S FIRST MARINE ENGINE.

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

After spending some time in making these experiments and realising the enormous amount of muscular power which was needed, it was suggested to Miller by James Taylor, who was tutor to his children and a personal friend of William Symington, of Wanlockhead, that it would be far preferable to employ steam power to drive the paddle-wheels; and the upshot was that Symington was commissioned to design a suitable engine, which in October of 1788 was placed on one deck of a double-hulled pleasure craft 25 feet long and 7 feet wide, whilst the boiler was placed on the other deck. Thus fitted, the strange little ship was tried on Dalswinton Loch, Dumfriesshire, when she exhibited a speed of five knots per hour, and afterwards seven knots. At the first attempt the boards of the paddle-wheels were broken by concussion. Symington’s engine, however, was really of the atmospheric pattern, with the addition of a separate condenser, and was an infringement of Watt’s patent. After but a few trials the experiments accordingly had to be abandoned, although Miller afterwards got into communication with Boulton and Watt, whom he endeavoured to interest in steam navigation, but they declined.

Miller next bought one of the boats used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and gave an order to the Carron Iron Works to make a steam engine in accordance with Symington’s plan. On December 26, 1789, this vessel towed a heavy load seven miles an hour, but was afterwards dismantled.

Symington’s first engine is shown in the [illustration facing page 42], which is taken from a model in the South Kensington Museum, the original being in the Andersonian Museum, Glasgow, and it will be useful for reference in case our description of Newcomen’s engine was lacking in clearness. As will be noticed, there are two cylinders, each being open at the top, and a piston working up and down inside. It will be seen, too, that there are two paddle-wheels; these were placed in the ship fore and aft between the two hulls, and not on either side as in our modern paddle-wheel steamers. There were eight floats in each wheel, which were not feathering, but fixed. Each piston was connected with a drum by means of chains, the latter turning the drums alternately in opposite directions, and power was obtained both from the upward and downward strokes. By means of a ratchet arrangement, alternately engaging with pawls, the paddle-wheel was made always to revolve in one direction. The engine was fitted with air pumps for the purpose of which we have already dealt. In many ways it will be seen that Symington’s engine and gear resembled the method proposed by Hulls.

But the same subject that was beginning to interest both Frenchmen and Englishmen was also being studied with zest in North America. In November of 1784, at Richmond, Virginia, James Rumsey had succeeded in making some interesting experiments with a model boat propelled by steam power, which boat was seen by George Washington. Rumsey afterwards came over to England, and it is not without interest to remark at this stage that one of the most frequent visitors to him in his new home was that famous Robert Fulton, of whom we shall speak presently. Mr. John H. Morrison, in his “History of American Steam Navigation” (New York, 1903), alludes to John Fitch as the pioneer of American steam navigation, but Fitch is known to have been very jealous of Rumsey, and accused him of “coming pottering around” his Virginian work-bench.

OUTLINE OF FITCH’S FIRST BOAT.

Fitch was the first man in America who successfully made a paddle steamboat to go ahead. The date of this was July 27, 1786, and the incident happened on the River Delaware. According to Fitch’s own description of his ship, which was written in the same year as the vessel’s trial, she was just a small skiff with paddles placed at the sides and revolved by cranks worked by a steam engine. This latter machine was similar to the recent improved European steam engines—that is to say, Watt’s—but the American engine was to some extent modified. It consisted of a horizontal cylinder, in which the steam worked with equal force at either end. Each vibration of the piston gave the axis forty revolutions, and each revolution of the axis caused the twelve oars or paddles to move perpendicularly, whose movements, to quote Fitch’s own words, “are represented by the stroke of the paddle of the canoe. As six of the paddles [i.e., three on each side], are raised from the water six more are entered.” In 1788, Fitch had another boat ready which was 60 feet long and 8 feet wide, her paddles being placed at the stern and driven by an engine which had a 12-inch cylinder. It was this vessel which steamed from Philadelphia to Burlington, a distance of twenty miles. He also had another craft built in the following year which was first tried in December of 1789 at Philadelphia. This was something more than a mere experiment, for the boat showed a speed of eight miles an hour; she afterwards ran regularly on the Delaware, and during the summer of 1790 covered an aggregate of two or three thousand miles. It is not to be wondered that Fitch was mightily disappointed at the lack of faith which his shareholders exhibited by retiring one by one, and finally he ended his days by suicide. It would seem, indeed, that in giving praise to Fulton, John Fitch has not always been credited with his full deserts. Of his predecessors it may be said generally that they had succeeded not so much as a whole, but in regard to overcoming certain obstacles, and continuous actions were being fought out in the American Courts for some years which engaged Fulton until the time of his death. It was not until the Supreme Court of the United States in 1824 decided adversely to Fulton’s associates on the question of exclusive right to steamboat navigation on the Hudson that this new industry received its impetus and a large number of steamships began to be built. But we are anticipating and must return to the thread of our story.

THE “CHARLOTTE DUNDAS.”

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

THE “CLERMONT” IN 1807.

From a Contemporary Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In Scotland, which has been not inaccurately called the cradle of the world’s steamship enterprise, another interesting experiment was to be witnessed early in 1802, where a vessel named the Charlotte Dundas (of which an interesting model, now in the South Kensington Museum, [is here illustrated]) was to cause some pleasant surprise. This vessel was 56 feet long and 18 feet wide; she had a depth of 8 feet. As will be seen from the illustration, she was fitted with a paddle-wheel placed inside the hull, but at the stern. Her horizontal engine was also by Symington, and since most of the mechanism was placed on deck, we are able to see from the model a good deal of its working. It will be noticed that the cylinder is placed abaft of the mast and that the piston-rod moved on guides which can be just discerned in the photograph. Attached to this is the connecting rod, which terminates at the crank on the paddle shaft, an entirely different means of obtaining rotary motion as compared with the “sun-and-planet” method which we saw adopted by Watt. As the steam entered the cylinder from the boiler it pushed the piston and its rod horizontally; and the connecting rod, being attached thereto at one end, and to the crank at the other, the paddle-wheel was made to revolve. Below the deck were the boiler, the condenser and the air-pump. The two rudders were controlled by means of the capstan-like wheel seen in the bows. As here seen the paddle-wheel is open in order to show its character, but as considerable spray would be cast up on deck when the wheel was revolving it was covered over by the semi-circular box, which is seen on the ground at the left of the picture. This engine which Symington supplied to the Charlotte Dundas was of a kind different from that which he had previously fitted to Miller’s double-hulled ship. For by his own patent Symington superseded the old beam engine, and obtained his rotary motion by coupling the piston-rod, by means of a connecting rod, with the crank.

This little craft is deserving of more than momentary interest, for she marked an important advance and considerably moulded the ideas of subsequent steamship inventors or adapters. Hers was the first horizontal direct-acting engine which was ever made, at any rate in this country, and in her simple mechanism may be easily recognised the nucleus of the engines in the modern paddle-wheel excursion steamer. She was built for Lord Dundas in 1801 as a steam tug-boat to ply on the Forth and Clyde Canal. The year after she was completed she towed for nearly twenty miles at a rate of 3¼ miles per hour two 70-ton vessels loaded, but just as bad luck had followed the efforts of Papin, de Jouffroy and other steamboat pioneers, so it was to be with the Charlotte Dundas. Although she had so splendidly demonstrated her usefulness, yet the wash from her paddle-wheel was such that the owners of the canal feared for the serious amount of injury which might be done to the canal-banks, and so the Charlotte Dundas was laid up in a creek of the canal, and rotted out her years until one day she was removed and buried in Grangemouth Harbour. But we may look upon her with great respect as being one of the parents of those two notable steamboats which were to follow and set the seal of success finally on the steamship proposition. I refer, of course, to the Clermont and the Comet.

And so we come to the name of Robert Fulton, whose praises have recently been sung so loudly by his appreciative fellow-countrymen. Born in the year 1765 at Little Britain, Pennsylvania, of Irish descent, he left America in 1786 and came to England, whence in 1797[A] he crossed over to France, where he devoted himself assiduously to the production of various inventions, which included, amongst others, a submarine craft called a “plunging boat.” Fulton’s “good fairy” was a fellow-countryman whom duties of office had also sent to settle in Paris. This Robert R. Livingston was born in New York City in the year 1746, and died in 1813. A distinguished American politician and statesman, he was appointed in 1801 as the United States Minister to France. It happened that in his private capacity Chancellor Livingston was keenly interested in mechanical matters, and the experiments of Fitch and Rumsey had attracted his attention to the question of steamboats. By an Act passed in 1798, Livingston had been granted the exclusive right of navigating all kinds of boats that were propelled by the force of fire or steam on all waters within the territory or jurisdiction of the State of New York, for a term of twenty years, on condition that within the ensuing twelve months he should produce such a boat as would go at a pace of not less than four miles per hour. Thereupon Livingston immediately had a 30-tonner built, but her performance was disappointing, for she failed to come up to the four-mile standard. It was soon after this that he crossed to France and there came into contact with young Fulton. To quote Livingston’s own words, which he used in describing the account of their business partnership, “they formed that friendship and connexion with each other, to which a similarity of pursuits generally gives birth.”

[A] Mr. G. Raymond Fulton, the inventor’s great grandson, however, gives the date as 1796.

The American Minister pointed out to Fulton the importance which steamboats might one day occupy, informed him of what had so far been accomplished in America, and advised him to turn his mind to the subject. As a result a legal form of agreement was drawn up between them, signed on October 10, 1802, and forthwith they embarked on their enterprise, Fulton being allowed a fairly free hand in the preliminary experiments which “would enable them to determine how far, in spite of former failures, the object was attainable.” Fulton had a considerable knowledge of mechanics, both theoretical and practical, and after trying various experiments on models of his own invention he believed that he had evolved the right principles on which the steamboat should be built. Some of these experiments were carried on in the house of another fellow-countryman, Joel Barlow, then sojourning in Paris. A model 4 feet long and 1 foot wide was used to ascertain the best method to be employed: whether by paddles, sculls, endless chains or water-wheels, the power being obtained temporarily by means of clockwork. Finally, he decided on having one wheel at either side, but in order to convince themselves that what was true of a small model might also be demonstrated in bigger craft, the two partners decided to build a boat 70 French feet long, 8 French feet wide, and 3 French feet deep. Fulton states that they hired from M. Périer a steam engine “of about 8 horses power.” There were two brothers of this name, and one of them had already made an essay in the sphere of steam navigation, as we have noted. Whether or not this borrowed engine was of the Watt type I am not able to say, but since Périer had already possessed one, and Fulton during the same summer in which his experiment on the Seine took place got into communication with Messrs. Boulton and Watt with a view of purchasing one of their engines, it is by no means improbable that this was of English make. On either side of the craft was placed a paddle- or, as Fulton described it, a “water-” wheel, having a diameter of about 12 feet. In an interesting article in The Century Magazine for September and October of 1909, Mrs. Sutcliffe, a great-granddaughter of Fulton, gathered together a number of facts which have hitherto remained hidden away from the eyes of the public, and published for the first time a complete description of her ancestor’s trial boat, taken from a document prepared by Fulton eight years after the vessel was ready for her experiment. In this statement Fulton strangely enough remarks that the power from the engine was communicated to the water-wheels “by mechanical combinations which I do not recollect,” but [the drawing shown on page 51] will clear up this point. The arrangement of the boiler, the cylinder, and the working parts sufficiently shows those “mechanical combinations” which had slipped from Fulton’s memory during the following eventful and industrious years. This boat which was used on the Seine was 70 feet long, 8 feet wide, and drew very little water.

FULTON’S DESIGN FOR A STEAMBOAT SUBMITTED TO THE COMMISSION APPOINTED BY NAPOLEON IN 1803.

From the Original Drawing in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Paris.

In January of 1803 Fulton, who had already been attracting some attention in his adopted country by his submarine experiments, decided to offer his steamboat to the French Government and a Commission was appointed to inquire into its merits. [The illustration on this page] is taken from Fulton’s own drawing of his projected steamboat submitted to this Commission appointed by Napoleon, the original of which is now preserved in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, in Paris. In his letter to the Commissioners, Fulton observes that his original object in making this experiment was rather with a view to the employment of steam tow-boats for use upon the rivers of America, “where there are no roads suitable for hauling,” and “the cost of navigation by the aid of steam would be put in comparison with the labour of men and not with that of horses as in France.” In fact, he suggests that if his experiment should prove successful, it would be infinitely less useful to France than to his native country, for he doubts very much if a steamboat, however perfect it might be, would be able to gain anything over horses for merchandise, “but for passengers it is possible to gain something because of the speed.” Ultimately Napoleon’s advisers counselled against the adoption of Fulton’s proposition.

However, by the spring of 1803, the boat was completed and lying on the Seine in readiness for her trial trip. Fulton spent a restless night, and we can well picture the feelings of the man who had wrestled with calculations, worked out theories, made little models, watched their behaviour in still water, spent hours and days discussing the subject with his friend Livingston, thought out every conceivable aspect, allowed for obstacles, and now, at length, after watching the child of his brain gradually take a concrete shape, waiting sleeplessly for the morrow in which he was to have the chance of living the great day of his life. Those of us who remember ever to have looked forward with zest and suppressed excitement to some new event in our lives likely to alter the trend of future years can well sympathise with the emotions of this clever young inventor, when, whilst eating his breakfast, a messenger burst in and dramatically exclaimed to his horror: “Please, sir, the boat has broken in two and gone to the bottom!”

It was suggested in our introduction that it is usually the case that an invention is no sooner born than it is compelled, while yet frail and infantile, to fight for its very existence: and it is curious that this should seem to be demanded not merely as against the opposition of human obstinacy but against sheer bad luck, which comes as a test of a man’s sincerity and of his faith in his own ideas. In the end, historically, this calamity had no ill-effects, for it only spurred the enthusiast to greater and more perfect accomplishment. But physically it cut short Fulton’s life of usefulness. As soon as the heart-breaking news was delivered to him, he rushed off to the Seine and found that the intelligence was all too true. For the next twenty-four hours he laboured assiduously, not stopping for food or rest, ignoring the chilly waters of the river, until his precious craft was raised from its watery bed. Fulton never recovered entirely from these physical trials following so suddenly on his years of mental work and worry, and his lungs were permanently affected for the rest of his life. But what he did recover—and that no doubt was to him more precious than his very life—were the machinery and main fragments of the hull. The gale of the night before had done more than wreck his ship: it had taught him to allow for one difficulty which he had overlooked, and it was well that it had happened thus instead of later on, when loss of life might have prejudiced the coming of the steamboat even longer still.

For Fulton soon realised that he had made his hull insufficiently strong for the weight of the machinery. This is the truth of the incident, and not that jealous enemies had maliciously sunk her, nor that Fulton had himself sent her to the bottom through the lack of appreciation which Napoleon’s Commissioners were exhibiting. This is confirmed by an eyewitness of the event, named Edward Church. But Fulton soon set to work to get his ship built more strongly, and by July of the same year she was ready for her trials. A contemporary account, in describing the strange sight which was witnessed on August 9, 1803, says that at six o’clock in the evening, “aided by only three persons,” the boat was set in motion, “with two other boats attached behind it, and for an hour and a half he [Fulton] produced the curious spectacle of a boat moved by wheels, like a chariot, these wheels being provided with paddles or flat plates, and being moved by a fire-engine.” The same account prophesies great things for the invention and that it will confer great benefits on French internal navigation: for, by this means, whereas it then required four months for barges to be towed from Nantes to Paris, the new method would cause them to do the distance in ten or fifteen days. Very quaintly this account speaks of the existence behind the paddle-wheels of “a kind of large stove with a pipe, as if there were some kind of a small fire-engine intended to operate the wheels of the boat!”

These experiments were made in the vicinity of the Chaillot Quay in the presence of many people, including Périer and some of the leading Parisian savants, and the boat was found to steam at a rate of 3¼ miles per hour. It is therefore both inaccurate and unjust to dismiss, as at least one writer has done, Fulton’s achievements on the Seine in one line by referring to them as unsuccessful and merely experimental. True, this vessel did not show that amount of speed which Fulton had hoped to get out of her, but she was very far from being a failure. Fulton had left nothing to chance, and the misfortune of the weakness of his first hull and the error in the speed actually obtained were the results rather of inexperience than of carelessness. It is difficult to-day, when we are in possession of so much valuable knowledge connected with naval architecture and marine propulsion, to realise that these early experimenters were feeling in the dark for an object they had never seen. At one time Fulton had estimated that a steamboat could be driven at a rate of sixteen to twenty-four miles an hour, but he found that so much power was lost in getting a purchase on the water that he altered his opinion and put forward the speed of five or six miles as the utmost limit which could be obtained by any boat using the best engines then in existence.

Fulton had advanced with almost meticulous caution. He had first collected together all the details that could be got about contemporary experiments; he had sifted the theories of others and made use of the residue. He had often talked with Rumsey while in England, and he had even accompanied Henry Bell to call on Symington, seen a trial trip of the Charlotte Dundas, and incidentally obtained some valuable information. Finally, after seeing what was good and what was bad he had proceeded independently, and, after a stroke of ill-luck, succeeded. He had knowledge of what others had attempted in America, in England and in France, and emphatically he was not the kind of man to deny his indebtedness to what others had done before him. The ship which he evolved was certainly in shape, proportions and general appearance not unlike the model of that earlier craft whose exploits on the Saône we considered on another page. The Marquis de Jouffroy had sent this model to Paris as far back as 1783, the year of his successful enterprise at Lyons, or twenty years before Fulton made his achievement, and it is most improbable that Fulton, who endeavoured to see everything which bore on his pet subject, living several years in Paris, should not have carefully studied this. Furthermore, Fulton’s boat was constructed in the workshop and under the very eyes of that Périer who had been associated with the Marquis in navigating the Seine by steamboat, and from this same Périer, as already stated, the engine was borrowed for Fulton’s boat. Fulton also personally considered the patent which Desblanc, forestalling Jouffroy, had obtained, and the American had described his impressions of Desblanc’s idea in no praiseworthy terms, for he saw that at least two-thirds of the latter’s steam power would be lost. Fulton worked his plans out to the minutest details: Desblanc had left his theory too scantily clothed with facts. He had not found the proportion which his paddles should bear to the bow of his boat, nor the velocity at which they should run in proportion to the velocity at which the boat was intended to go. Very scathing is the American’s denunciation of this haphazard method. “For this invention to be rendered useful,” wrote Fulton, “does not consist in putting oars, paddles, wheels or resisting chains in motion by a steam engine—but it consists in showing in a clear and distinct manner that it is desired to drive a boat precisely any given number of miles an hour—what must be the size of the cylinder and velocity of the piston? All these things being governed by the laws of Nature, the real Invention is to find them.”

Fulton believed that previous failures were due not so much to a defective steam engine, as to the wrong methods employed in applying the steam power thus generated. He criticised Rumsey’s method of propelling a ship by forcing water through the stern (in a manner similar to that which John Allen and Fitch had suggested) as the worst method of all. Ten years before his Seine success Fulton had been in communication with the Earl of Stanhope, who in 1790 had patented a means of propelling a ship in a strange way. This consisted in using a gigantic arrangement resembling a duck’s foot, placed on either side. These feet opened and shut like umbrellas and could send the ship along at three miles an hour. Fulton, then staying at Torquay, wrote to Lord Stanhope and proposed the use of paddle-wheels, but the noble earl would not listen to the suggestion. A similar freak idea was also put into practice in North America in 1792 by one Elijah Ormsbee.

FULTON’S FIRST PLANS FOR STEAM NAVIGATION

From the Drawings in possession of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Stanhope.

[The illustrations on this page] represent Fulton’s first plans for steam navigation. They were sent by him to Lord Stanhope in the year 1793 and are here reproduced from a copy, by kind permission of the present earl. In his letter descriptive of these ideas Fulton shows the upper part of this illustration, marked No. 1, to be an attempt to imitate the spring in the tail of a salmon. Amidships will be noticed an object resembling a bow such as one usually associates with arrows. This bow was to be wound up by the steam engine, and the collected force attached to the end of the paddle, shown in the stern of the boat, would urge the ship ahead. But the sketch of a ship in the lower part of the picture marked No. 2 represents the model at which he was then working. It will be noticed that she has something of the characteristic stern which was so marked a feature of the sailing ships of this period and had been inherited from the Dutch of the seventeenth century, and is still traceable in the design of the modern royal steam yachts in England, as will be seen by a comparison with[ the illustration of the Alexandra]. In referring to this No. 2, Fulton points out that he had found that three or six paddles answered better than any other number, since they do not counteract each other. By being hung a little above the water there is allowed a short space from the delivery of one paddle to the entrance of the other, and, also, the paddle enters the water more perpendicularly; the dotted lines show its situation when it enters and when it is covered. In the smaller illustration, No. 3, he emphasises the importance of arranging the paddle-blades still further. Thus the paddles A, B, C, and D strike the water almost flat and rise in the same situation, whilst that paddle marked E is the only one that pulls, the others acting against it. Whilst E is sending the ship ahead, “B.A. is pressing her into the water and C.D. is pulling her out, but remove all the paddles except E and she moves on in a direct line.” Finally, he concludes his letter with an explanation that the perpendicular triangular paddles are supposed to be placed in a cast-iron wheel “which should ever hang above the water” and would answer as a “fly and brace to the perpendicular oars”; and with regard to the design of the steamship, he says: “I have been of opinion that they should be long, narrow and flat at bottom, with a broad keel as a flat Vessel will not occupy so much space in the water: it consequently has not so much resistance.”

Desblanc had, like the Earl of Stanhope and Elijah Ormsbee, experimented with the duck’s foot idea, but had also met with failure. Fulton carefully went into the consideration of its merits before trying his Seine boat, but deemed it to be unsuitable. Whatever advantages this method might have possessed, the action of the duck’s foot caused far too great resistance, since after making the propelling stroke it returned through the water before being ready for the following stroke; whereas in the case of the revolving paddles or oars on wheels their return is made through air. Thus the resistance is considerably less.

But all this time Fulton had his native country in mind and not so much the advantages that might accrue to the land in which he had made his experiments. It was the Hudson, not the Seine, which he longed to conquer by steam, and the title-page of his note-book, dated more than a year prior to the events on the Seine, in which he drew a prophetical sketch of a steamboat travelling from New York to Albany in twelve hours, eminently confirms this. Therefore, we find him immediately writing to Messrs. Boulton and Watt from Paris, asking them to make for him “a cylinder of 24 horse-power double effect, the piston making a four-foot stroke”; also he wants them to manufacture a piston and piston-rod, valves, condenser, air-pump, and so on. It is perfectly clear that Fulton had but limited knowledge of the amount of power which an engine could develop. His ability consisted rather in knowing how best to apply that power. Thus he asks in his letter: “What must be the size of the boiler for such an engine? How much space for water and how much for the steam? How many pounds of coal will such an engine require per hour?” and so on. At first Boulton and Watt had to decline the order, since they were unable to obtain permission to get the engine into America. Finally, after paying £548 in purchase, it was not until March of 1805, or most of two years after receiving the order, that Boulton and Watt received permission to ship the engine to America. Fulton had crossed from France to England in 1803, and in the autumn of 1806 left by a Falmouth packet for his native land. Writing to-day, when the Mauretania and Lusitania are still making their wonderful records for fast voyages between the two countries, little more than a hundred years after Fulton had given the inspiration to marine engineering, it is no small contrast that the ship which carried him from England to America took no less than two months on the way. But the same winter he set to work immediately after his return to build that ever-famous Clermont, so called as a courteous acknowledgment of the hospitality he had enjoyed at Livingston’s country place of that name on the banks of the Hudson. From an agreement which had already been made in Paris, dated October 10, 1802, between Livingston and himself, Fulton had jointly contracted to make an attempt to build such a steamboat as would be able to navigate the Hudson between New York and Albany. She was to be of a length not exceeding 120 feet, width 8 feet, and was not to draw more than 15 inches of water. “Such a boat shall be calculated on the experiments already made, with a view to run 8 miles an hour in stagnate water and carry at least 60 passengers allowing 200 pounds weight to each passenger.” After the engine had at last arrived in New York it remained for six months at the New York Custom House, waiting, it is said, until Fulton was able to raise enough money to pay the duties. But as Mrs. Sutcliffe has pointed out in her article on Fulton to which reference has already been made, and to which also I am indebted for many interesting facts then for the first time made public, it is possible that the delay arose because the boat was not yet ready to receive her machinery. Fulton had rich friends who were interested in his work, so that I think the latter is the more probable reason for the delay.

And here, as we step from out of the realm of theories and suggestions into a realm of almost uninterrupted success, we may bring this chapter to a close. But before doing so let us not lose sight of that important fact on which I have already insisted—viz. that when steamboat success did eventually come, it was the happy fortune of no single individual, but an achievement in which many men, long since dead and gone, took part. It was the work of centuries and not of a year or two to bring about this marvellous means of transport. Hero, the ancient Romans, Blasco de Garray, Besson, Solomon de Caus, the Marquis of Worcester, Papin, Savery, Hulls, Watt, Périer, de Jouffroy, Miller, Symington, Taylor, Fitch, Stanhope, Desblanc, Livingston, Rumsey and others had all assisted in bringing this about, sometimes by their success, sometimes also by their failures. When next we step aboard even the most ill-found excursion steamer or the grimiest and most antiquated tug-boat, still more when we lie peacefully in the safety and luxury of a great modern liner, let us not forget that none of this would have been possible but for centuries of work and discovery, years of patient experiment and costly efforts, much disappointment, and considerable anxiety and abuse.

CHAPTER III
THE EARLY PASSENGER STEAMSHIPS

Robert Fulton was not the first to attempt steam navigation on the Hudson, and we have already given instances of the experiments made in the New World; but between the time of his success in Paris and his return to America, although others had failed before, experiments still went on. Thus, in the year 1804, John Stevens, whose interest in the steam propulsion of ships had been aroused by watching Fitch’s endeavours, decided to see what he could do. So by the month of May he had constructed a steamboat which succeeded in crossing the Hudson from Hoboken to New York, being propelled by a wheel placed at the stern, driven by a rotary engine. In the same month also Robert L. Stevens crossed from the Battery, New York, to Hoboken in a steamboat fitted with tubular boilers, which were the first of their kind ever to be made. The machinery was designed by Stevens himself in his own workshop, and it is important to add that this vessel was propelled not by a paddle-wheel but by a double screw, five feet in diameter, with four blades set at an angle of 35°.

Thus it was that three years before Fulton’s Clermont came on to the scene with her paddle-wheels, Stevens had already shown the way with screws. But this success was rather momentary than permanent: a mere flash, though startling in its brilliancy. Immediately after his return to America, Fulton had set to work to build the Clermont, having to endure in the meanwhile the scoffings and even threats of the incredulous, which necessitated the ship being protected night and day before she was quite ready for service. In addition to the main parts of the engines which had arrived from Boulton and Watt, there was much to be done before the combination of hull and parts could produce a steamboat. In the meantime funds had been drained somewhat extensively, and an offer was made to John Stevens, to whom we have just referred, to come in as a partner. The latter happened to be a brother-in-law of Livingston, Fulton’s patron, but the suggestion was declined. In the end the money, amounting to a thousand dollars, was found elsewhere, and the Clermont was completed. We know on Fulton’s own authority that she measured 150 feet in length, was 13 feet wide, and drew 2 feet of water, so that the original dimensions, as given in the agreement which we mentioned as having been made between Livingston and Fulton, were exceeded. She displaced 100 tons of water, her bottom being built of yellow pine 1½ inches thick, tongued and grooved, and set together with white lead. The floors at either end were of oak.

FULTON’S DESIGN OF ORIGINAL APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING THE RESISTANCE OF PADDLES FOR THE PROPULSION OF THE CLERMONT, DATED 1806.

From the Original in the possession of the New Jersey Historical Society.

Before leaving England in 1806, Fulton had already made a set of drawings embodying his ideas with regard to the forthcoming Clermont. And so zealous was he for their safety, that before leaving by the October Falmouth packet he had these carefully placed in a tin cylinder, sealed and left in the care of a General Lyman, with instructions that it was not to be opened unless he went down during the crossing of the Atlantic. But if he reached America safely these were to be sent across to him in one of the vessels leaving about the following April, “when the risk will be inconsiderable.” [The illustration on page 64] represents “Plate the First,” giving Fulton’s design of an apparatus for finding the resistance of paddles for the propulsion of the Clermont. In this he demonstrated the impropriety of making small paddles for a large boat. Briefly we may explain it by remarking that Fulton was proving that the paddles in the water should present, if possible, more surface than the bow of the boat, and that careful calculation must be reckoned so as to avoid wastage of power by not making due allowance for the resistance of the ship as she goes through the water. In Fulton’s time the relation of the water to the moving ship had not been accurately defined, and for that matter has not been finally settled to-day, although, thanks to the patient and valuable experiments of the late Scott Russell, W. Froude and of his son, Dr. Robert Edmund Froude, we have now considerable knowledge on the subject, which has borne practical fruit in the design of the hulls of modern ships. To-day experiments are still going on in specially-fitted tanks in different parts of England, America and Germany. At the moment of writing a special launch is being built at Marblehead, U.S.A., for purely experimental purposes under the direction of Professor Peabody, since the conditions which prevail in tanks using small models are not thought to be wholly trustworthy. The problems to be considered will embrace the number of propellers which give the best speed; they will be tried in all sorts of positions, and an endeavour will be made to ascertain the relation of the resistance of the boat to the force generated by the engines inside, and the effectiveness which the combination of hull and boat produce. Every motor-boat owner to-day knows very well that there is a good deal of difference sometimes between the calculations of the theorist in regard to the propeller and the knowledge which comes by actual use.

Many of the readers of this volume will no doubt have often been struck by the enormous rate of speed which a porpoise exhibits as he goes through the water. Those who spend their time crossing the ocean are familiar with the sight of these creatures saucily playing about the bows of a fast liner as she goes tearing through the water. It has been calculated that it would require no less than 15 horse-power to obtain the twenty miles an hour at which these animals can travel for long periods at a time. The explanation is that in their skins there is a wonderful system of glands, which exude oil and so minimise the influence of skin-friction. Remembering this, mechanical attempts have even been made quite recently to obtain a steel plate which would allow the oil to exude under pressure from the inside of the vessel’s bows.

Possibly, nowadays, every engineer has his own formula for determining the amount of horse-power essential for a given speed. All sorts of sliding scales and devices have been invented for this purpose, and the ideal shape of the modern propeller has still to be ascertained. It is a well-known fact that when a vessel moves through the sea she sets the water itself in motion, so that some of it actually travels with the ship; but Naval Constructor D. W. Taylor, of the United States Navy, found by experiment in 1908 that when a ship progresses the flow of the water is down forward, and then it passes under the ship, coming up again aft. Practically we can sum up the resistance which a ship has to encounter under three heads. First of all, there is the skin resistance already mentioned, which, of course, varies with the amount of wetted surface. Then after the ship has passed through the water there ensues an impeding eddy at the stern, as the reader must often have observed. Finally, there is the resistance caused by wave-making, which for vessels propelled at high speeds is an important consideration, but varies according to the design of the ship and her pace.

We have digressed somewhat from our immediate historical continuity, because not merely is it essential to appreciate some of the difficulties which the ship-man of to-day has to encounter, but in order to show that, though Fulton was very far from comprehending all the details of the relations between resistance and hull which recent experiments alone are determining, yet he was working on right lines, and with a certainty of aim that was positively unique for the beginning of the nineteenth century. Reverting, then, to the [illustration on page 64], he explains in his footnote that a nice calculation must be made on the velocities of the wheels which drive the paddle-wheels, whilst the same regard must also be had for the rate at which the paddle-wheels and the boat herself are to move. Thus, he says, supposing a boat is calculated to run at the rate of four miles an hour, the paddles and bow presenting equal surfaces in the water, then the circumference of the wheel must run eight miles an hour, of which four strike water back equal to the water divided by the boat, the other four miles, so to speak, overtaking the boat. But, he adds, if the paddles were made twice as large the engine would stand still. In the illustration, much of which has necessarily suffered through having to be reduced, we see an arrangement of pulleys and lines, and a weight. To the left of the diagram, A represents the boat which is to be propelled through the water, while B, shown at the extreme right of the illustration, is the paddle which is to send the ship along. Both present a flat front of four feet to the water. By the known resistance, Fulton argued, each would require twelve pounds to draw each one mile per hour, so that if the pulley and weight marked C weighed 24 pounds, and descended to where it is marked “No. 1,” then the boat A would be drawn to the point marked 2 (seen just to the right of it) and the paddle would be drawn to that spot marked 3, each moving through equal spaces in equal times, twelve of the 24 pounds being consumed by the boat and twelve by the paddles. Thus half of the power is actually consumed by the paddles. Next, he says, suppose that the flat front of the paddle is reduced to one foot while the boat still remains four. “The paddle being one-fourth the size of the boat must move 2 miles an hour to create a resistance for the boat to move one mile in the same time.” Finally, as we said, he concludes that the paddles acting in the water should, if possible, present more surface than the bow of the boat, and power will thus be saved.

Practically no part of the Clermont was an invention of Fulton: it was the manner of employing these parts scientifically that brought him his success. He was able, too, to distribute his weights so well that not only was the wooden hull able to sustain them, but the vessel floated on an even keel and was not inflicted with a list either one side or the other. To have done this in those early days of steamship building was rather more important an achievement than the average reader may imagine, but any naval architect and shipbuilder will readily grant it. The Clermont’s boiler was set in masonry, while her condenser stood in a large cold-water cistern. Fulton threw the whole of his enthusiasm into his work, and when, in the early part of the year 1807, he was invited by the President of the United States to examine the ground and report on the possibility of making a canal to join the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, the inventor, writing on the 20th of March, had to decline the invitation for, says he, “I have now Ship Builders, Blacksmiths and Carpenters occupied at New York in building and executing the machinery of my Steam Boat.”

THE RECONSTRUCTED “CLERMONT” AT THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATIONS, 1909.

Photographs: Topical.

PADDLE-WHEEL OF THE RECONSTRUCTED “CLERMONT.”

In May, 1909, four folios containing Fulton’s original drawings for his first Clermont—she was afterwards much altered—were discovered, and a well-known American naval architect was able to draw out the plans from which the replica of the Clermont was built for the Hudson-Fulton commemoration, which took place from September 25 to October 3, 1909. On August 9, 1807, exactly four years to the day since that memorable sight was witnessed on the Seine, the Clermont was first tried, and Fulton found that his ship was able to “beat all the sloops that were endeavouring to stem tide with the slight breeze which they had.” Eight days later she began her memorable voyage on the Hudson, one of the most historic incidents in the history of the steamship. At first the Clermont went ahead for a short distance and then stopped, but as soon as Fulton had been below and examined the machinery, and put right some slight maladjustment, she went ahead slowly. The [illustration facing page 46] is from a contemporary drawing in the South Kensington Museum, and should be compared with that [here facing], which is from a photograph taken in the autumn of 1909 of the reconstructed Clermont, built for the Hudson-Fulton celebrations. If we have the last-mentioned picture in our minds we can easily imagine that memorable day when, with about forty guests on board, she set forth. The realistic photograph here given shows about fifty or sixty people aboard, so that we can gain some idea as to what amount of deck space was available with so many persons crowding on her. But few believed that she would succeed in achieving what she did. The crews of passing vessels, as she went gaily up this gloriously fascinating river between its hilly banks, could not understand the monster belching forth sparks from its pine-wood fuel, advancing steadily without sails in spite of wind or tide. Some abandoned their ships and fled to the woods in terror, others knelt down and said their prayers that they might be delivered from so unholy a creature. As we look down on her decks we can see her under the charge of a paid skipper, with Fulton, handsome, but anxious both as to his success and the lives of his guests, on board. Some prophesied that she would blow up, and none thought she would ever reach her destination. Those who are familiar with the characteristics of the crews of the modern steamship will learn with a smile that, of course, her chief engineer was a Scotsman, the first of that long line of serious-faced men whom Kipling and others have commemorated in “McAndrew’s Hymn” and the like. Leaving New York on Monday at one o’clock, the ship arrived at Clermont, Livingston’s seat, exactly twenty-four hours later, having travelled 110 miles, which is about the distance that an ordinary sailing coaster nowadays covers in the same time on the sea. Among those on board was an Englishman, the then Dean of Ripon, though the sentimental may find perhaps a fitting sequel to the first stage of the voyage, when, before the ship had yet anchored off Clermont, an announcement was made that Fulton had become betrothed to another passenger, Miss Harriet Livingston, niece of that other Livingston with whom Fulton had been so closely associated in his first steamboat efforts. It was, in fact, this same statesman who, in making the announcement, also prophesied that before the close of the nineteenth century vessels having no other motive power than steam might be able even to make the voyage to Europe. The ensuing chapters of this book will show how speedily and with what quickly succeeding changes this possibility was to be realised.

We need not weary the reader with the details of this first voyage. It is sufficient to state that the Clermont proceeded to Albany, covering the remaining forty miles in eight hours, having made the whole trip of 150 miles in thirty-two hours, at an average of nearly five miles an hour. The return journey to New York was made in two hours less. If we look at these two pictures of the Clermont, [old] and [modern], we shall see that she was an odd, clumsy craft. Her machinery creaked and groaned as if protesting against the new service to which it was being subjected. She was fitted with a yard and square-sail on the fore-, and a spanker on her main-mast, but during the journey to Albany and back the wind was contrary. “I had a light breeze against me,” wrote Fulton, “the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of steam. I overtook many sloops and schooners, beating to the windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved.” The sails, however, were retained for use on future occasions when a favourable wind might accelerate the Clermont’s speed.

If the reader will look at the [illustration facing page 70], he will be able to obtain an excellent idea of the vessel’s paddle-wheels. Here is shown the port side of the replica of the Clermont. It will be noticed that the fly-wheels were hung outside the ship and just in front of the “water-wheels.” These “water-wheels” were always getting smashed, and on one occasion, when both of them had been carried away, the engineer made use of the fly-wheels by attaching small paddle-boards to the rims, and so the voyage was completed without much loss of time. Local skippers treated the Clermont in pretty much the same spirit as Papin’s poor ship had been welcomed by the local watermen, and the Hudson sailing-masters took a malicious delight in running foul of her whenever they thought they had the law on their side. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that Fulton, in writing to Captain Brink, whom he put in charge of her, commands him “run no risques of any kind when you meet or overtake vessels beating or crossing your way, always run under their stern if there be the least doubt that you cannot clear their head by 50 yards or more.” But it was no exceptional occurrence for the Clermont to come limping home with only one of her paddle-wheels working. The circumference of these was in each case an iron rim of about four inches, and a contemporary says they ran just clear of the water, as will be seen from the illustration, the wheels being supported, it will be noticed, by the shaft coming out through the hull. The boat was decked forward, and the stern was roughly fitted up for the accommodation of passengers, the entrance to which was from aft, just in front of the steersman, who worked a tiller. This was afterwards supplanted by a wheel, placed near the main-mast, which connected with the rudder by means of ropes. Steam hissed from every valve and crevice; there was no steam-whistle, but warning of the boat’s arrival at a wharf was given by sounding a horn. After her first voyage, when it was decided to put her into commission as a regular passenger craft, she was somewhat modified. Thus, her “boiler works,” which had been open, were decked over, each cabin was fitted with twelve berths, and many parts of the ship were strengthened with iron work. There was clearly a future for the steamboat commercially, not merely “because of the certainty and agreeable movements” of Fulton’s ship, but whereas the average passage of the sailing packet to Albany took forty-eight hours, the Clermont had done the distance in eighteen hours less. She ran so successfully that at the end of her first season she cleared 5 per cent. on the capital which had been expended on her.

It will be seen from the illustrations of the boat that the Clermont had no bowsprit, and, also, that in one her paddle-boxes are shown, whereas in the other two they do not appear. The explanation is that originally the wheels were uncovered, but as it was found that the wheels were likely to become entangled with ropes, and also to annoy passengers by splashing water on deck, they were covered in. It will also be noticed from the older illustration that Fulton had guards put round the paddles as a protection against the inimical sailing ships, and also to prevent damage when coming alongside a wharf. Steps from the stern end of these guards were added for convenience in discharging and embarking passengers from rowing boats. There is also existent a record by Fulton in which he even mentions that he had so placed the masts that the awning seen in the earlier illustration could be spread for the comfort of the passengers. He also claims that he was “the first who has so arranged the rudder of his Steamboat as that the pilot may stand near the centre of the boat and near the engineer to give him orders when to stop or put the engine in motion.”

With regard to the engines of the Clermont, Fulton claimed to have been the first to use triangular beams in the body of his boat “to communicate the power from the piston rod to the Water wheels,” and work his air-pump. But if the reader will turn back to [the illustration on page 51], he will find that the triangular beam was also employed in the engines of his first steamboat on the Seine. During the winter of 1807–8 the Clermont was altered very considerably, so that her name was changed to that of the North River. Writing to Livingston on November 20th, Fulton suggests that a new hull be built so as to become nearly twice as stiff as she was originally, that she should carry much more sail, have a new boiler installed, additional knees and timbers, new cabins and other improvements. Under her new name this re-built craft ran regularly to Albany and back at a single fare of seven dollars a head. On her forestay she carried a fore-sail, and besides her other courses on her fore-mast she even had stun’s’ls at times, a mizen with a gaff main-sail being stepped as before. There was a ladies’ cabin containing six upper and four lower berths. The engine was one of Boulton and Watt’s, having a cylinder whose piston was 2 feet in diameter. On the top of the piston was a cross-head made of iron which was slid up and down between guides on the “gallows-frames,” that reached from the bottom of the vessel to 12 feet above the deck. This will be clearly seen in the second illustration of the reconstructed Clermont [facing page 70]. The “gallows-frames” are just to the left of the funnel, and the cross-head can be discerned sliding up and down the iron guides. By comparing this with [the below diagram], a very fair idea will be obtainable of the working of this portion of her mechanism.

FULTON’S PRELIMINARY STUDY FOR THE ENGINE OF THE CLERMONT

From the Original in the possession of the New Jersey Historical Society.

The optimists had prophesied correctly: the steamboat had come to stay. So soon as Fulton had shown the way, and during the eight years which ensued between the completion of the Clermont in 1807 and Fulton’s death in 1815, no fewer than seventeen craft of various kinds were built by him, including the first steam frigate, and the first steam ferry-boats. Among the number of this fleet were the The Car of Neptune, launched in 1808, the Paragon in 1811, the Fire Fly of 1812, and the Richmond of 1814. Fulton had, from the first, as we saw when he wrote to Napoleon’s Commissioners, the idea of opening up the Mississippi and other North American rivers by means of steamships, and no sooner had he got the Clermont to work satisfactorily than he wrote: “Whatever may be the fate of steamboats for the Hudson, everything is completely proved for the Mississippi, and the object is immense.” When one considers that it was Fulton who introduced practical steam navigation, not only to the Hudson but to the other great rivers of North America, and that the Clermont was the historic embodiment of his thoughts, it seems a pity that no one has been able to trace the whereabouts of this epoch-making craft. She has vanished; and was either broken up or disguised beyond recognition.

We mentioned at an earlier stage the names of John and R. L. Stevens, who had interested themselves in steamboat experiments. Just about the time that the Clermont was ready for her life’s work these two men had built another steamship, called the Phœnix. Originally intended for the Hudson River, since now the Clermont’s success had obtained for Livingston and Fulton the monopoly of the steam navigation thereon, the two Stevenses decided to send their craft to the Delaware River. They therefore took her round to Philadelphia by sea in June, 1809, one of the owners being in command. She arrived quite safely, and for several years plied profitably on the Delaware. This is important as being the first occasion in history when the steamship took to the sea, for it was not until the James Watt achieved her distinction in 1811 that a British ship had shown her full confidence in steam. Impelled by the impetus which had been given by Fulton and Stevens, the North American continent, with its vast extent of waterways, quickly realised the possibilities of the steamboat, so that in the next decade this novel type of craft became familiar in many parts.

FULTON’S PLANS OF A LATER STEAMBOAT THAN THE CLERMONT-NORTH RIVER, SHOWING APPLICATION OF THE SQUARE SIDE-CONNECTING-ROD ENGINE.

From the Original in the possession of the New Jersey Historical Society.

THE “COMET.”

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

ENGINE OF THE “COMET.”

In the Victoria and Albert Museum.

No apology is needed to the reader for having taken up so much of his attention in witnessing the growth of the steamship both on the Seine and the Hudson, for the importance of these rivers in the history of our subject is anything but insignificant. But let us turn now to see what was being done in Great Britain, where a kind of slump, or rather inertia, had been prevalent in regard to the steamship ever since the Charlotte Dundas had been laid aside. We must cast our eyes in the direction of the Clyde, where Henry Bell had interested himself in the steamboat problem. Like others before him, he had begun his experiments at first with hand-driven paddle-wheels, but it was not long before the inevitable conclusion was thrust on him that the power ought to be derived not from human force, but from steam. It was he who had talked the matter over with Fulton, and had actually accompanied the latter when a visit was paid to Symington and the two men witnessed a trial trip of the Charlotte Dundas. Bell was a simple, uneducated man, the proprietor of an hotel at Helensburgh, on the Clyde, where he also conducted a bathing establishment, and at one time possessed an engine which was in use at his hotel for pumping up sea-water for the baths. His enterprising mind argued that it would be for the advantage of his hotel if he could inaugurate a steamboat service between Helensburgh and Glasgow, and so he had the Comet built in 1811, by Messrs. John Wood and Co., of Glasgow. Some interesting details have been collected of this early British boat by Captain James Williamson in his book on “The Clyde Passenger Steamer: its Rise and Progress during the Nineteenth Century” (Glasgow, 1904), and in Mr. James Napier’s “Life of Robert Napier” (Edinburgh, 1904). [The illustration opposite this page], which represents a model of the Comet now in the South Kensington Museum, will afford a good idea as to her appearance. As will be seen, she was a paddle-boat, and originally had two wheels on either side, but one pair was removed later, as the arrangement was found to be of too complicated a nature to work satisfactorily. She was far less of a ship than the Clermont, and much more of a river boat. She did not carry even a single mast, but, as will be noticed in the model, she utilised her thin, lofty smoke stack for this purpose and set a yard across it, as the Clermont had done on her fore-mast. On this yard she set the usual square-sail, while from the end of the stumpy bowsprit she also set a triangular jib. This model may be taken as authentic in its details, and it was to David Napier that Henry Bell entrusted the task of making the boiler and castings. The boat was of about twenty-five tons burthen, 42 feet long, 11 feet wide, and 5 feet 6 inches deep; was driven by a condensing steam engine developing four horse-power, and her greatest speed through the water was five miles an hour. Her cylinder was vertical, the piston-rod driving a pair of side levers. The crank shaft, on which was fixed a large, heavy fly-wheel, was worked from the levers by a connecting rod. A reference to the illustration—which is from a photograph of the identical engine used in this vessel, and presented to the museum by Messrs. R. and J. Napier—will reveal these details. Whereas the Clermont had employed the triangular beam or bell-crank for conveying the power from the piston-rod to the paddle-wheels, as we saw just now, the Comet had what was known as the “grasshopper” or half-beam type. The steam was generated from a boiler set in brickwork, and placed on one side of the engine. When originally she had her four paddle-wheels—two on either side—these were driven by means of an intermediate wheel, which engaged them both by means of spur gearing. The paddles were then, as will be noticed in the illustration, simply placed on detached arms, but when the alteration was made complete wheels were given to her. She was fitted with a fo’c’sle and after-cabin, of which the hatches will easily be recognised in the model. The engine-room took up the intervening space amidships.

Writing now in the year when everyone has been interested in the coming of Halley’s Comet, it is interesting to observe that Henry Bell’s ship was so called from the fact that a meteor had appeared in the heavens about that time. In August, 1812, she was advertised as being ready to ply up and down the Clyde “to sail by the power of air, wind, and steam,” the announcement also stating that “the elegance, safety, comfort, and speed of this vessel require only to be seen to meet the approbation of the public, and the proprietor is determined to do everything in his power to merit general support.” Apparently, however, the “general support” was not forthcoming, for commercially the Comet proved a failure. Historically she was a success, for her influence was undoubtedly for good, and Napier made some interesting observations, from which he was able to deduce important conclusions. Those who are familiar with the history of the sailing ship will be aware that at the beginning of the nineteenth century both the large ocean-going ships and the small coasters were distinguished by their remarkably heavy and clumsy proportions. Especially was the bow still made bluff and full, since the idea in the minds of the ship-designers was that their vessels should rather breast the waves than, cut clean through them, as the clipper-ships afterwards taught should be the manner. It was the still surviving Dutch influence of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which had caused this fashion in naval architecture to prevail for so long. In a sailing boat, where it was desired to carry sail well forward near the bows—as was essentially a Dutch custom—and where it was desired to keep the ship as dry as possible, there was some reason for the high, blunt bow. But with the advent of steam these conditions disappeared. It is obvious to every landsman that whatever seaworthy qualities the forward end of a boat thus designed may possess, the smashing blows which her obstinate form exchanges with the waves must be a great hindrance to progress over the water in comparison with the clean, knife-like movement of the more scientifically designed craft. And so, long before ever the clipper-ships appeared, the same idea struck David Napier. He spent some time in making passages from Scotland to Ireland in the Belfast sailing packets of that time, and came to the conclusion that the full bow was not suitable for easy propulsion. He followed up these observations by making further experiments with a model in a tank, and continually modified the former until he was satisfied. As long as ever she showed an increase of speed he kept on fining away her bow and thus diminishing her resistance to the water. What he had in mind, after seeing the achievements of the Comet, was the inauguration of a steam cross-channel service between Scotland and Ireland to compete with the sailing packets. At length, having brought his model to what he deemed was a state of perfection, he had a full-sized ship built after her by William Denny, the founder of the well-known shipbuilding firm. The result was the Rob Roy, a vessel of about ninety tons and thirty nominal horse-power. In 1818 she began running between Greenock and Belfast, after which she was bought by the French Government and kept up communication between Calais and Dover, though the first time the English Channel was crossed, from Brighton to Havre, by a steamship was in the year 1816 by the Majestic. Thus, the Comet, if not remunerative to her owner, was anything but a creation of no account.

Bell’s ship did not belie her name, for her life was literally meteoric. She had been taken “outside,” and on December 13th, 1820, whilst near Crinan, on the West Coast of Scotland, was unable to wrestle with the strong easterly wind and nasty tide-race and was wrecked, Bell himself being on board; happily no lives were lost. In the following year, Comet the second was built, but she also foundered in 1825, through collision. In the first days of the Comet, when engineers were working with insufficient data, it was generally believed that it would be impossible to make a steamship’s machinery of sufficient strength to withstand the shock of crashing into a heavy sea, and for some time no steamer went far outside. There is an interesting anecdote that James Watt, who, though largely responsible for the successful inauguration of the steamship in the hands of Fulton, was none the less never directly connected with the new industry, in his old age visited his native town of Greenock. This was in the year 1816, or four years after the Comet had commenced running. On this occasion he took a trip in one of these steam vessels to Rothesay and back, during which he entered into conversation with the engineer and pointed out to him the method of “backing” the engine, and endeavoured with a foot-rule to demonstrate his point. The engineer, however, was unable to grasp the inventor’s meaning, but eventually, throwing off his coat and putting his hand to the engine, Watt explained the idea of using a back-stroke; for, previously to this the back-stroke of the steamboat engine was not adopted, and the practice was to stop the engines some considerable time before coming up to moorings in order to allow of the diminution of the speed. The incident is related in Williamson’s “Memorials of James Watt,” and quoted in Chambers’s “The Book of Days.”

Not merely, then, in North America, but in Northern Europe the steamship had become a practical and interesting success. On the Clyde the impetus given by the Comet had caused the development of the steamboat to be more rapid. Vessels larger than Bell’s boat were being built and put into actual service, and in 1815 one of them was sent round to the Mersey and thus began the important river steamboat service which is now so significant a feature of the port of Liverpool. The River Thames, in like manner, was to yield to the coming of the steamboat. Although the London newspapers of 1801 refer to the fact that on July 1 of that year an experiment took place on the Thames for the purpose of working a barge or any other heavy craft against the tide “by means of a steam-engine of a very simple construction,” and go on to state that “the moment the engine was set to work, the barge was brought about, answering her helm quickly,” and that she made way against a strong current, at the rate of two miles and a half an hour, yet this was one more of those isolated incidents which came and went without leaving in their wake any practical result. At a later date a steamer which had been running between Bath and Bristol was brought to the London river by means of canal, and history repeated itself once more. Just as Papin and Fulton had suffered by the unwelcome attentions of the local watermen, so it was in this case. The men who earned their living on the waters of the Thames showed so strenuous an opposition that the boat had to be taken away.

However, in 1815, a steamboat called the Marjory, one of the products of the Clyde, came round to the Thames and commenced running daily between Wapping Stairs, near the present Tower Bridge, and Gravesend; and another boat, the Argyle, came from the Clyde also. Both vessels were, of course, of wood, and both were propelled by paddle-wheels. The latter was afterwards re-named the Thames, and was the inaugurator of those voyages now so dear to the Cockney between London and Margate. After an exciting voyage from the Clyde, she steamed up the Thames from Margate to Limehouse, a distance of seventy miles, at an average of ten miles an hour. Both of these vessels were of about seventy tons burthen.

We mentioned just now that James Watt always refrained from interesting himself financially in the steamboat, although it was his own improved form of engines which made the steamboat a success. But “like father” is not always “like son” in the race of progress, and in 1816 we find James Watt, Jun., purchasing a steamboat called the Caledonia, which had also come round from the Clyde to the Thames. After fitting her with new engines he took her from Margate to Rotterdam and so on to Coblenz: she was eventually sold to the King of Denmark. Other vessels of about eighty or ninety feet in length, sometimes with engines by Boulton and Watt of about twenty horse-power (nominal), were also presently witnessed on the pea-green waters of the Thames estuary. And before the second decade of the nineteenth century was ended steamer communication for cross-Channel services between England and France, and England and Ireland had already been instituted. But as I shall deal with this branch of steamship enterprise in a separate chapter, I need not make any further remark upon that subject now.

SS. “ELIZABETH” (1815).

RUSSIAN PASSENGER STEAMER (1817).

From Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In the history of the sailing ship the flow of progress was from east to west, from Babylon to North America, and then it ebbed back again, bearing in its stream improvements which newer nations had been able to effect to the sail-propelled ship. To an extent, something of the same kind happened in the case of the steamship. The latter’s physically-driven, paddle-wheel prototype began, if not in China, at least in the Mediterranean, and the first efforts of steam propulsion were made not many hundred miles north of this. Then, after the Fulda, the Saône, and the Seine, the movement was to the Hudson, and so back to Europe through Great Britain and on to Germany and Russia. Of the progress in steam navigation made in the two latter countries about this time [the illustrations facing page 84] are interesting instances, and we shall deal with them presently. But before we proceed to discuss them let us turn back for a moment to Robert Fulton. After he had at length established the steamboat as a thoroughly sound concern in America we find him not unnaturally sighing for other countries to conquer. Accordingly he set his mind on introducing the steamboat not merely on the chief rivers of North America, but even on the Ganges and the Neva. The year in which Bell’s Comet had come into service Fulton had actually entered into a contract with one Thomas Lane to introduce steamboats into India, and on April 12th of that year he wrote to a Russian gentleman, who was then staying in London, with reference to obtaining an exclusive contract for twenty years, for establishing a steamboat service between St. Petersburg and Cronstadt within three years after obtaining the grant. It is evident from Fulton’s correspondence that Imperial permission for this was obtained. Fulton, however, died in the year 1815, and at the time of his death the steamboat The Emperor of Russia was in course of construction previous to being transferred to Russian waters. This enterprise was postponed and subsequently taken up by other contractors. But the same year (1815) we find Charles Baird engaged in doing what Fulton would have carried out had he lived. [The upper illustration, then, which faces page 84] represents a drawing of the steamboat Elizabeth. Originally a barge, she was rebuilt and engined by Baird in 1815 at St. Petersburg for service on the Neva. The steering arrangement is not dissimilar to that of some of the Thames sailing barges of to-day, with the use of the tackle leading from the rudder through the ship’s quarter to the helm. The reader will doubtless be not a little amused to notice the brick chimney which stands up in the boat as if rising from a factory. The engine is hidden away underneath the deck, but it was of the side-lever type, of which we have already spoken, with a single cylinder and air-pump. The boiler will be seen placed aft. The weight of the paddle-wheels was partly supported by the rectangular frame-work which will be seen stretched across the hull. The paddle-wheels had each four floats, which were kept level by means of bevel gear. [The other illustration facing page 84] shows another steamer, which Baird built two years later for passenger traffic between St. Petersburg and Cronstadt. It will be noticed that, as in all these early steamboats, the paddle-wheels were placed far forward towards the bows. In this ship both paddle-wheels were fitted with six floats, which were driven at fifty revolutions per minute by means of a side-lever engine that had a large fly-wheel. The arrangement of this ship’s engines was similar rather to those of the Comet than of the Clermont. Looking at the lower drawing in this illustration we can easily see how she was propelled. Amidships is the boiler, from which steam is conveyed to the cylinder, through which appears the piston-rod, which in turn connects with the side-lever, that is placed as low as it can be in the boat. The connecting rod comes up from the forward end of the side-lever to the crank, which is attached to the shaft, and the latter, revolving, of course turns the paddle-wheels.

And here it may not be out of place to say something concerning the survival of the beam engine. I have already referred on an earlier page to its introduction and traced its development from Newcomen’s atmospheric engine. When, in the early days of the steam engine, its use had been limited to pumping out water from mines, one connecting rod was employed in pumping and the other was driven up by the steam in the cylinder. Then, when the engine was made, not for pumping, but for giving rotatory motion, the connecting rod which had been in use for pumping was used to give a rotatory motion, by means of either the sun-and-planet movement (as in Watt’s patent) or by means of a crank (as in the patent which his workman stole from him). In America Watt’s beam engines were imitated very closely, and to-day, as every visitor to New York is aware, the curious sight is seen of enormous ferry-boats, towering high above the water, with the beam and connecting rods showing up through the top of the ship. Now this idea is all very well where the steamer is concerned only with navigation on rivers and peaceful waters, but for ocean steaming, where the deck needs to be covered in from the attacks of the mighty seas, it is out of the question. Therefore, since it was advisable to retain the beam in some form, and it could not be allowed to protrude through the deck, the obvious expedient was adopted of placing it below, but as far down in the ship as possible. As a general statement we shall not get far wrong if we state that thus placed, at the bottom, with the rods working upwards instead of downwards, it was really a case of turning the engine upside down. Thus arranged it became known as the side-lever engine, and now, if the reader will look again at [the bottom illustration facing page 84], he will see our meaning. By turning the illustration round, so that the beam or side-lever is at the top, this resemblance to the old-fashioned beam engine becomes still more apparent. Later on we shall be able to show a more complicated form of the side-lever engine, but for the present this may suffice for the interest of the non-technical reader. For many years the side-lever was the recognised form of marine engine, and its advantages included that of being remarkably steady in its working because its parts were so nicely balanced. Moreover, it was easy to drive from the beam the various auxiliary parts, such as the air-pump. It was also very strong, though both heavy and costly, as it became in the course of time more complicated.

Although it is true that in Fulton’s Clermont the beam was placed below the piston-rod, yet that was entirely owing to English influence, as represented in Boulton and Watt, who had manufactured this engine, or at any rate a good many of its parts. It is now that the dividing line comes between the two types, English and American. “From this primitive form,” says Admiral Preble, in his volume already quoted, “the two nations diverged in opposite directions—the Americans navigating rivers, with speed the principal object, kept the cylinder upon deck and lengthened the stroke of the piston: the English, on the other hand, having the deep navigation of stormy seas as their more important object, shortened the cylinder in order that the piston-rod might work entirely under deck, while Fulton’s working (walking) beam was retained.” From the engine, in fact, which Boulton and Watt had constructed at Soho for Fulton, by far the majority of the engines for the earliest steamboats took their pattern. And if to the Americans belongs the credit of having so thoroughly and so quickly developed the steamboat navigation of large rivers, it is the British, as we shall see shortly, who have been the pioneers of ocean navigation in steamships.

[The upper illustration facing page 90], which has been taken from a contemporary engraving, is worthy of notice as being the first steamer actually built in Germany. She represents rather a retrogression than an advance in the story of the steamship, for she was following still on those lines which had been in mind when Miller’s double-hulled ship and the Charlotte Dundas were launched. This vessel, the Prinzessin Charlotte, was built by John Rubie at Pichelsdorf in 1816, for service on the Elbe, Havel and Spree. As will be seen from the illustration, her paddle-wheel was placed amidships and covered in. She was driven by an engine possessing 14 horse-power and made by J. B. Humphreys. Her long, lanky smoke-stack is supported by numerous stays, while her double-rudders, though still preserving the helms as used in contemporary sailing ships, are moved by means of a steering wheel. Clumsy and beamy, she is inferior in design to the Comet, and would no doubt have needed all the help of her twin-rudders to get her round some of the narrow reaches of the river. In the adoption and employment of the steering wheel neither the Prinzessin Charlotte nor the Clermont was the pioneer of this more modern method, its evolution having come about on this wise: as the tillers became heavier when the size of ships increased and the pull on them became greater, some sort of lanyard was first attached to them so as to get a purchase and divide the strain; otherwise the steersman would not have been able to control the ship. We see this as far back as the times of the Egyptian sailing ships. In medieval times and even in the seventeenth century the big, full-rigged ships were still steered by a helm in the stern, the pilot shouting down his orders to the steersmen placed under the poop. Then, in order to counteract the wild capers which some of these vessels had a tendency to perform in a breeze, it was an obvious expedient to fit up an arrangement of blocks and tackles to the tiller. From this came the transition to the employment of these in connection with a winch, such as had been used for hoisting up the anchor. This winch was driven by means of “hand-spikes,” a method that was not conducive to rapid alteration of the ship’s course. But in the eighteenth century, when ships were better designed, and many improvements were being introduced, the handspikes were discarded and the spoked wheel was connected with the barrel of the winch, placed not ’thwart-ship, but fore-and-aft, so that not merely could the direction of the ship’s head be altered more quickly, but a steadier helm could be kept, because it was less difficult to meet the swervings of the vessel from her proper course. As everyone knows, this steering-wheel has been improved by many minor alterations, and ropes have given way to chains and steel wire: but though steam-steering gear is now so prominent a feature of the modern steamship, the wheel itself is not yet superseded.

THE “PRINZESSIN CHARLOTTE” (1816).

From a Contemporary Print.

THE “SAVANNAH” (1819).

Already, then, the steamboat had shown herself capable of doing her work on inland waters, and even for short voyages across Channel, as well as for coasting within sight of land. Independent of calms, currents and tides, she was a being of a different kind as compared with the sailing ship and was carving out for herself an entirely novel career of usefulness. But the pessimists believed that here her sphere ended; the long ocean voyages could never be undertaken except in the sail-carrying ships. However, in the year 1819, the first attempt was made to conquer the North Atlantic by means of a ship fitted with a steam engine. [In the lower illustration facing page 90] will be seen the Savannah, a full-rigged ship of 350 tons burthen which was built in New York in 1818 as a sailing vessel pure and simple. That, it will be remembered, was eleven years after the launching of the Clermont, and during these eventful years there had been plenty of opportunity for those who wished to obtain proof of what steam could do for a ship. Whilst the Savannah was still on the stocks, one Moses Rogers, who had followed the efforts of both Stevens and Fulton, and had even commanded some of the early steamboats, suggested to Messrs. Scarborough and Isaacs, of Savannah, that they should purchase this ship; which eventually they did. Therefore, after being fitted with her engine, a steam trial trip was made in March, 1819, round New York Harbour, and a few days later she left for Savannah under sail. During this voyage of 207 hours she was practically nothing but a sailing ship, for her engine was only running for four and a half hours. On the 22nd of May she set forth from Charleston and steamed outside. It will be noticed on referring to the illustration that there were no paddle-boxes to cover her wheels, and a remarkable feature of the Savannah was her ability suddenly to transform her character as a steamship to a sailing vessel, and vice versa. Within twenty minutes she could take off her paddle-wheels, and away she could go without any hindrance to her speed.

So it was, then, after she had brought up outside Charleston. Unshipping her wheels she got under weigh early in the morning of May 24th, and arrived off the coast of Ireland at noon of June 17th, and three days later was off the bar at Liverpool. But this voyage proved little or nothing of the capabilities of the ocean steamship; for of the twenty-one days during which she was at sea the Savannah only used steam for eighty hours, and by the time she had arrived off Cork she had used up all her fuel. However, having now taken on board what she needed, she was able to steam up the Mersey with the aid of her engines alone. From Liverpool she went to the Baltic, using her engine for about a third of the passage. Thence she returned to America, having unshipped her paddle-wheels off Cronstadt, but, after crossing the Atlantic and arriving off the Savannah river, she adjusted her wheels once more and steamed home. Shortly afterwards her engines were taken out of her, and she ended her days as a sailing packet. Although her voyages did nothing to help forward the ocean steamer, yet she caused some amazement to the revenue cruiser Kite, which espied her off the coast of Ireland. Seeing volumes of smoke pouring out from this “three-sticker,” the Kite’s commander took her for a ship on fire and chased her for a whole day. The illustration gives a fairly accurate idea of the ship, though the bow has not been quite correctly given, and should show the old-fashioned and much modified beak which survived as a relic of medieval times. It will be noticed that the distance which separates the main and fore-mast was sufficiently great to allow of plenty of room for the engine and boiler.

In the meantime the steamship was slowly but surely coming into prominence and recognition, and the year 1821 was far from unimportant as showing the practical results which had been obtained. As proof of the faith which was now placed in steam, the first steamship company that was ever formed had already been inaugurated the year before, and in 1821 began running its trading steamers. This was the now well-known General Steam Navigation Company, Ltd., whose first steamer, the City of Edinburgh, was built on the Thames by Messrs. Wigram and Green, whose names will ever be associated with the fine clippers which in later years they were destined to turn out from their Blackwall yard. The steamship City of Edinburgh was launched in March, 1821, for the Edinburgh trade, and created so much attention that the future William IV. and Queen Adelaide paid her a visit, and expressed surprise at the magnificence of the passenger accommodation. The machinery (which was only of 100 horsepower) was described by the contemporary press as “extremely powerful.” In June of that year was also launched the James Watt, of which [an illustration is given] from an old water-colour. This vessel was built by Messrs. Wood and Co., of Port Glasgow, and was referred to by the newspapers of that time as “the largest vessel ever seen in Great Britain propelled by steam.” The James Watt, it will be seen, was rigged as a three-masted schooner, with the typical bow and square stern of the period. She was of 420 tons, and measured 141 feet 9 inches in length, 25½ feet wide, and 16½ feet deep. She had a paddle-wheel, 18 feet in diameter, on either side of the hull. These were driven by engines of the same horsepower as those of the City of Edinburgh, which had been made by Boulton and Watt. It was in this year also that the Lightning, a vessel of about 200 tons and 80 horse-power, gained further confidence for the newer type of vessel, for she was the first steamship ever used to carry mails.

Before the third decade of the nineteenth century was closed, a little vessel named the Falcon, of 176 tons, had made a voyage to India—of course, via the Cape—and the Enterprise, a somewhat larger craft of 470 tons, had also done the passage from England to Calcutta; but like the Savannah’s performance, these voyages were made partly under steam and partly under sail, so that these vessels may be regarded rather as auxiliary-engined than as steamships proper. At the same time, the Enterprise was singularly loyal to her name, for out of the 113 days which were taken on the voyage, she steamed for 103.

THE “JAMES WATT” (1821).

From a Water-Colour Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

SIDE-LEVER ENGINES OF THE “RUBY” (1836).

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Let us now pause for a moment to witness some of the changes which were going on in regard to the machinery for steamships. In the engines which were installed in [the Russian ship shown opposite page 84] we saw how the beam had become the side-lever, and why it had been placed in this position in the steamboat. This had become the customary type for steamships which were still propelled by paddle-wheels, and the perfected development had been due to Boulton and Watt, dating from about 1820. Until about 1860 this type was used most generally, until ocean-going steamers discarded the paddle-wheel for the screw. It is, therefore, essential that before proceeding farther we should get well-acquainted with it, and we shall find that following the lead which had been given them, especially by the famous Robert Napier, marine engineers began to build these types, as well for deep-sea ships as for river-going craft.[ The illustration here facing], which has been taken from a model in the South Kensington Museum, represents the regular side-lever type, the full-sized engines having been made by a Poplar firm in 1836 for the Ruby, which plied between London and Gravesend, a vessel of 170 tons, and the fastest Thames steamer of that time. On referring to our illustration, the side-lever will be immediately recognised in the fore-ground at the bottom. To the left of this are the two cylinders, side by side. The side-lever is seen to be pivoted at its centre, whilst at the reader’s left hand the end of this is joined by a connecting rod. Thus, as the piston-rod is moved upwards or downwards, so the left-hand half of the side-lever will move. At the opposite, right-hand, side of the latter the connecting rod will be observed to be attached to the side-lever, whilst the other end of the connecting rod drives the crank; the latter, in turn, driving the shaft on either end of which will be placed a paddle-wheel. In this engine before us there are two cranks, of which one is seen prominently at the very top of the picture. Each connecting rod is attached to two side-levers, one on either side of the cylinder, by means of a cross-head. Similarly at the piston-rod there is also a cross-head, with a connecting rod on either side, of which one only is visible. Later on a modified form of this type of engine was introduced in order to economise space, for one of the great drawbacks of the side-lever engine was that it took up an enormous amount of room, which could ill be spared from that to be devoted to the carrying of cargo or the accommodation of the passengers. In this modification the cylinders, instead of being placed side by side, or athwartships, were fore and aft, the one behind the other.

In 1831, there was built in Quebec, to run between there and Halifax, a steamer called the Royal William (not to be confused with a vessel of the same name to which we shall refer presently). The engines were made by Boulton and Watt, and dispatched across the Atlantic to Montreal, where they were installed. In 1833, after taking on board over three hundred tons of coal at Pictou, Nova Scotia, she started on her journey to the South of England, and arrived off Cowes, Isle of Wight, after seventeen days, having covered a distance of 2,500 miles. There is some doubt as to whether she steamed the whole way, or whether she used her sails for part of the time. At any rate, she measured 176 feet long, 43 feet 10 inches wide (including her paddle-boxes), and after calling at Portsmouth, proceeded to Gravesend, and was afterwards sold to the Spanish Government.

THE “SIRIUS” (1838).

From a Contemporary Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

THE “ROYAL WILLIAM” (1838).

By permission of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co.

We now come to the year 1838, in which a handful of steamers made history, and showed how uncalled-for had been the ridicule which the pessimists had cast at the steamship. With this year we reach the turning-point of the steamship, and from that date we may trace all those wonderful achievements which are still being added to year by year. Hitherto no vessel had crossed the Atlantic under steam power solely. Because of the large amount of fuel consumption which was a necessary failing of the early steamships, in proportion to the amount of steam developed, it was denied that it would ever be financially possible for steamers to run across oceans as the sailing packets were doing, even if they were capable of carrying sufficient fuel together with their passengers and cargo. But deeds were more eloquent than the expounding of theories, and the first surprise was quickly followed by another, far from inferior. The first of these epoch-making steamers was the Sirius. She was rigged as a brig, like many of the contemporary sailing ships which then carried mails, passengers, and cargo between the Old World and the New, whose unsavoury characters had earned for them the nickname of “coffin-brigs.” This Sirius was a comparatively small ship of 703 tons, and quite small enough to cross the Atlantic in the weather which is to be found thereon. She measured only 178 feet along the keel, was 25½ feet wide, her hold was 18¼ feet deep, and her engines developed 320 horsepower. Built for the service between London and Cork, she was specially chartered for this transatlantic trip by the British Queen Steam Navigation Company, whose own vessel, the British Queen (shown [opposite page 102]), was not yet ready, owing to the fact that one of her contractors had gone bankrupt. With ninety-four passengers on board, the Sirius steamed away from London and called at Queenstown, where she coaled. After clearing from the Irish port, she encountered head winds, and it was only with difficulty that her commander, Lieut. R. Roberts, R.N., was able to quell a mutiny among the crew, who had made up their minds that to try and get across the North Atlantic in such a craft was pure folly. Having been seventeen days out, the Sirius arrived off New York on April 22nd, and before the end of her journey had not merely consumed all her coal, at a daily average of 24 tons, but had even to burn some of her spars, so that she had got across just by the skin of her teeth. But it was her engines which had got her there and not her sails; the former were of the side-lever type to which we have just referred.

The next day came in the Great Western, a much larger craft, that had come out of Bristol three days after the Sirius had started; and in her we see the prototype of those enormous liners which go backwards and forwards across the Atlantic to-day with a regularity that is remarkable. Unlike the little Sirius, the Great Western had been specially designed for the Atlantic by that engineering genius, Brunel, who, like his ships and his other works of wonder, was one of the most remarkable products of the last century. She was built with the intention of becoming practically an extension of the Great Western Railway across the Atlantic, and in order to be able to withstand the terrible battering of the seas, which she would have to encounter, she was specially strengthened. Here was a vessel of 1,321 tons (gross), with a length of 236 feet over all, with about half her space taken up with her boilers and engines. Now the strain of so much dead-weight in so long a ship whose beam was only 35 feet 4 inches, or about one-seventh of her length, had to be thought out and guarded against with the greatest care. And let us not forget that at this time vessels were still built of wood, and that, except in a few instances, iron had not yet been introduced. She was given strong oak ribs, placed close together, while iron was also used to some extent in fastening them. The advantage of making an ocean-going vessel long is that she is less likely to pitch in a sea, and will not dip twice in the same hollow; and if she is proportionately narrow in comparison with her length, she will also roll less than a more beamy craft. But the difficulty, so long as wood was employed, was to get sufficient longitudinal strength to endure the strains of so long a span. We shall be able to get some idea of this when we consider the behaviour of a vessel in a sea. Waves consist, so to speak, of mountains and valleys. If the waves are short and the vessel is long, then she may stretch right over some of them; but if the contrary is the condition, then, while her ’midship portion is supported by the water, her fore and aft ends are inclined to droop, so that in a very extreme case she would break in two. At any rate, the tendency is for the centre of the ship to bend upwards and the unsupported ends to droop. This is technically called “hogging.” In the reverse circumstance, when the ends are supported on the tops of two mountains of waves, whilst the centre of the ship spans, unsupported, the intervening valley, the tendency is to “sag.” Now this has to be allowed for in the construction of the ship, and, as already pointed out in my “Sailing Ships and Their Story,” this was understood as far back as the times of the Egyptians, who counteracted such strains as these by means of a longitudinal cable stretched tightly from one end of the ship to the other. But with the coming of steamships there was another problem to be taken into consideration. Engines, boilers, fresh water for the boilers, coal and so on are serious weights to be placed in one part of the ship. (In the case of the Great Western, the first three alone weighed 480 tons, although the gross tonnage of the whole ship was only 1,321.)

Throughout the length of the ship, then, she is subjected not merely to irregular strains by the peaks and valleys of the waves, but by the distribution of weights. Her structure has to undergo the severest possible stresses, and these are different when the ship is loaded and when she is “light.” If you divide a ship into sections transversely, as is actually done by the designer, you will find that some parts are less buoyant than others, no matter whether your ship is made of wood, iron, or steel. Those sections, for instance, which contain a steamer’s machinery will have much inferior buoyancy, and, indeed, were you to sever them from the ship and seal them up so as to be perfectly water-tight, they would in many cases sink. Therefore, this irregularity of buoyancy has to be met by making the more-buoyant sections help to support the less-buoyant. In actual shipbuilding practice it is customary to regard the greatest stress to a ship as occurring when she is poised on the crest of a wave, and it is usual to suppose, in order to safeguard her manner of construction, that she is poised upon the crest of a wave whose length from trough to trough is equal to the length of the ship, and the height of the wave from trough to crest to be one-twentieth of its length when 300 feet long and below, and one twenty-fifth when exceeding that length.

We have digressed a little from our immediate subject in order to put into the mind of the general reader some conception of the difficulties which Brunel had to encounter when he set to work to produce such a vessel as the Great Western. That she was built on sound lines is proved by the service which she rendered to her owners before she was finally broken up in 1847. On her first return voyage from New York she took fifteen days, and the Sirius seventeen. The Great Western had no such trouble with her “coal-endurance” on her maiden voyage as the Sirius had suffered, for she had reached New York with one quarter of her coals still unconsumed, and the obvious conclusion which came to any reasoning mind was that it certainly paid to build a vessel big enough to carry plenty of fuel. But the Great Western “paid” in more senses than this; and at the end of her first year, her directors were able to announce a dividend of 9 per cent. Thirty-five guineas was the fare in those days, and the largest number of passengers carried on any one of her journeys was 152.

THE “GREAT WESTERN” (1838).

By permission of Messrs. Henry Castle & Sons.

PADDLE-WHEEL OF THE “GREAT WESTERN.”

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Like her contemporaries, the Great Western was fitted with side-lever engines, built by Maudslay. Steam was generated from four boilers, and conducted into two cylinders, her daily consumption of coal being about 33 tons. A model of one of her paddle-wheels, which were 28 feet 9 inches in diameter, [is here illustrated]. This type is known as the “cycloidal” wheel, in which each float, instead of being made of one solid piece of material, is composed of several horizontal widths arranged after the manner of steps in a cycloidal curve, as will be seen by looking at the right-hand of the wheel. It will be noticed that through the space left between each “step” the water could penetrate when the wheel was in the sea, but when revolving out of it, the resistance to the air was diminished because the latter was allowed to get through. As the paddle came in contact with the sea, the concussion was lessened, and thus there was not so much strain on the engines. The Great Western employed the type introduced by Joshua Field in 1833, but this form was brought in again by Elijah Galloway two years later.

So far we have seen steamers running from London and from Bristol to New York. Now we shall see the first steam-vessel crossing from Liverpool to New York. [Facing page 96] is the other Royal William, which was built in 1838 for the Irish passenger trade between Liverpool and Kingstown, and owned by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, by whose courtesy this picture is now reproduced. The Royal William was 3 feet shorter than the Sirius, but 2 feet wider, and with a hold just 6 inches shallower. In July of that same memorable year, the Royal William made her maiden trip from Liverpool to New York, having been built and engined at the former port. In was no doubt a great temptation to emulate what the Sirius had been the first to perform, especially as the two ships were so similar in many respects. Outward bound, the Royal William did the trip in about the same time as the Sirius, though her return journey occupied about a day and a half less than that of the other vessel. But these vessels were not big enough, nor seaworthy enough, for the toil of the Atlantic, and both were soon taken off from this route. [The illustration reproduced] is from an engraving after a sketch made of the Royal William, as seen in the Atlantic on July 14th, 1838, when in latitude 47.30 N., longitude 30.0 W., on her first voyage to New York, and the landsman in looking at the waves which the artist has depicted may find some assistance in reading our previous remarks on “hogging” and “sagging” in this connection.

THE “BRITISH QUEEN” (1839).

By permission of James Napier, Esq.

THE “BRITANNIA,” THE FIRST ATLANTIC LINER (1840).

From a Model. By permission of the Cunard Steamship Co.

Finally, we come to the British Queen, which was yet another vessel to steam across the broad Atlantic, and to show once more that it was neither good fortune nor the powers of any single vessel that had conquered the ocean, but the building of the right kind of ship, engined with suitable machinery. Built in London, and installed with engines by Robert Napier (by the courtesy of whose kinsman, Mr. James Napier, [the illustration is here given]), the British Queen was considered a wonder in her day, and even exceeded the dimensions of the famous Great Western, costing as much as £60,000 to build. As will be seen, she is neither brig- nor ship-rigged, but is a barque. In spite of the hideous old stern of those times and the old-fashioned square ports, and the medieval custom of stowing one of her anchors abreast of the fore-mast—a practice which survived until well into the nineteenth century—her appearance shows that she was an advance on what had gone before. She had about seven beams to her length, and her bow gives evidence that the old Dutch influence was at last being forsaken: it is, in fact, the transition stage before the clippers modified it still more. The same long space which we noted in an earlier ship, extending between the fore- and main-mast to afford room for the engines, will here be recognised, and the paddle-wheels, unlike those of the early river craft, are placed about amidships. In designing her with about 40 feet greater length than the Great Western had possessed, the aim was no doubt to attain not merely sufficient space for passengers, cargo, engines and ample fuel, but also to be able to wrestle with the long Atlantic waves, whose average length has been computed at about 200 feet. Seventy years ago this British Queen was designed to be 275 feet over all; to-day, the Lusitania is 760 feet thus measured, and it is this appreciation of the value of length which has a good deal to do with the evolution of the modern liner from being a moderate-sized vessel to one of enormous proportions. In her first voyage from Portsmouth to New York, the British Queen kept up an average speed for one day of over ten knots, whereas the Great Western had on her maiden voyage outward-bound averaged about two knots less. Leaving Portsmouth on April 2nd, 1839, the British Queen arrived in New York on April 16th, or three days quicker than the first Royal William had done the journey in the opposite direction under sail and steam. The British Queen consumed about 613 tons of coal on the way.

Thus we have seen the steamship arrive at a stage very far from being merely experimental. We have watched her gradually grow from her infancy, when she was good only as a tug or river craft, until now she has shown in the enthusiasm of her youth that she can stride across the Atlantic. It will be our duty in the following chapter to indicate how she came to be treated with entire confidence, and to take her part in the regular routine of the world’s work.

CHAPTER IV
THE INAUGURATION OF THE LINER

It was not to be thought that the achievements which we chronicled at the end of the preceding chapter would remain without their immediate results. If such small vessels as the Sirius, propelled by steam, could cross the Atlantic and return safe and sound; if still more easily the Great Western had been able to perform the feat and to show a substantial return on the capital laid out, surely there was an assured future for steamship enterprise. “What man has done, man can do,” is an old proverb, the application of which has led to the founding of those mighty, excellently equipped fleets which have transformed the trackless, desolate North Atlantic into a busy thoroughfare, along whose fixed routes every day of the year are carried thousands of passengers and tons of merchandise from one continent to the other. Although nowadays there is scarcely a corner of the world to which a regular line of steamships does not run, yet it is the North Atlantic that has always been the scene of the greatest enterprise in steamship development. We could find plenty of reasons for this if we cared to inquire into the matter. It was not until the advent of the transatlantic steamship that all the possibilities of the Tudor voyages and discoveries began to be appreciated fully. A continent, like a single country, flourishes not merely by its produce of wealth, but by its exchange thereof. So long as it is separated by thousands of miles, every fathom of which is fraught with danger and has to be traversed by sailing ships whose arrival may be weeks or months late, which may, in fact, never arrive at all, a tight restriction is kept on the exchange of wealth; stagnation ensues, people travel as little as possible, and remain ignorant in their own narrow provincialism. Whereas, to-day, they take every possible advantage of travel, of voyaging the world over, not merely to exchange wealth but to exchange ideas, to add to their knowledge, to wipe out their provincialism.

For this we must thank the coming of the liner.

It was that memorable year of 1838 that set all this going. Impressed by the obvious advantages which the steamship now showed for speed and reliability, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to whose care was then entrusted the arrangement of postal contracts, saw that those ancient “coffin brigs” were doomed. Their lordships forthwith issued circulars inviting tenders for the carrying of the American mails by steamers. It happened that one of these circulars fell into the hands of Samuel Cunard, a prominent merchant of Halifax, Nova Scotia. He had been anything but disconnected with shipping, for he was the owner of a number of sailing ships trading between Boston, Newfoundland and Bermuda, and was agent at Halifax for the East India Company, who in their time owned some of the very finest sailing fleets that ever put to sea. And this Samuel Cunard had been one of the shareholders of that first Royal William which crossed in 1833 from Pictou, Nova Scotia, to the Isle of Wight. A man of energy and enterprise, he had already realised that a line of steamers connecting the two continents ought to become something real, and he had sufficient foresight to see that this was an opportunity which does not occur many times in a generation.

Having made up his mind, after reading this circular, the next thing was to find the money. In Halifax it was not possible to raise the required capital, so he crossed forthwith to London. But London is not always ahead of the provinces, and the wealthy merchants declined to show their financial interest in the scheme. Therefore, armed with a letter of introduction from the secretary of the East India Company, Mr. Cunard travelled north to Glasgow, to Mr. Robert Napier, whose name we have already mentioned as a great Clyde shipbuilder and engineer. Napier promised to give him all the assistance possible, and introduced him to Mr. George Burns, and the latter, in turn, to Mr. David MacIver. Both had an expert knowledge of the shipping business, and to a Scotch shrewdness united wide experience and ability to look ahead. As a result, within a few days the necessary capital of £270,000 had been subscribed, and an offer was made to the Admiralty for the conveyance of Her Majesty’s mails once a fortnight between Liverpool and Halifax and Boston. But the owners of the Great Western, with a ship all ready for the work, were not going to let so fine a chance slip by without an effort. They, too, competed for the privilege, though eventually the organisation with which Cunard was connected was considered to have made the more favourable tender. This was accepted by the Government, and a contract for seven years was signed. The three enterprisers went to their posts—Cunard to London, Burns to Glasgow, and MacIver to Liverpool, but before matters had taken a final shape the Government required that the service was to be carried on by four ships instead of three, that fixed dates of sailings should be adhered to, and in consideration of all this a subsidy was eventually granted to the steamship owners of the sum of £81,000 per year. The corporation which we now know as the Cunard Company was then called the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, and they proceeded to get in hand the building of those first four steamers of which the Mauretania and Lusitania to-day are the lineal descendants. These four, then, were respectively the Britannia, the Acadia, the Caledonia, and the Columbia. They were all built of wood, all propelled by paddle-wheels, specially adapted for the transport of troops and stores in the event of war, with an indicated horse-power of 740, accommodation for 115 cabin passengers, a cargo capacity of 225 tons, while their dimensions and tonnage differed but slightly the one ship from the other. Their speed averaged 8½ knots per hour on a coal consumption of thirty-eight tons a day, the engines in each case being not unnaturally made by that Robert Napier who had by his introduction done so much to bring the formation of this company to a practical conclusion. These vessels were built on the Clyde by four different builders in the year 1840, but the Britannia was the first that was ready for service, her measurements being 207 feet long, 34 feet 4 inches wide, and 22 feet 6 inches deep, with a tonnage of 1,154.

Before we go on to outline the marvellous growth which has been seen under the Cunard Company’s flag, whose history is practically a history of the Atlantic liner, varied here and there by the happenings which other rival companies have brought about, it is both curious and amusing to append the following letter, which has only quite recently been made public, and which will surprise many of those who here read it. It is evidence of the remarkable speed at which events may happen, and men’s minds adapt themselves to newer conditions. Although Samuel Cunard was part owner of the first Royal William in 1833, and already three years earlier had thought over the idea of starting a line of Atlantic steamers, yet it will be seen that towards the end of 1829 he was not favourably inclined to the project. Having in mind all that the Cunard Company has done towards the inauguration of the liner, her continuous improvements, her safety and her efficiency, it is instructive to read the reply which was sent at this time to Messrs. Ross and Primrose, of Pictou, Nova Scotia, who had written to Cunard and Company in regard to steamship establishment:—

“Dear Sirs,—We have received your letter of the 22nd inst. We are entirely unacquainted with the cost of a steamboat, and would not like to embark in a business of which we are quite ignorant. Must, therefore, decline taking any part in the one you propose getting up.—We remain, yours, etc.

S. Cunard and Company.

“Halifax, October 28th, 1829.”

The above letter is now in the possession of Mr. John M. Ross, of Pictou.

But to return to the first sailing of the new company: the Britannia started the mail service in no conventional manner. Not merely was she to throw time-honoured custom to the winds by carrying the mails by the help of steam, but she dealt another blow to sailor-conservatism by setting forth on her maiden voyage on a Friday, which also happened to be the fourth of July, a day commemorative of another kind of Independence. Of course, the old-fashioned prophesied that so flagrant a disregard for superstition would spell disaster; but somehow the Britannia managed to arrive quite safely at Boston, on July 18th, 1840, after a voyage of just eight hours beyond a fortnight, though she had touched at Halifax after eleven days, four hours. The citizens of Boston celebrated the event with banqueting and wild enthusiasm as the forging—shall we not say?—of the first of those stronger links which were to bind the two countries more closely and more securely together. Four years later, one bitter February, when this same Britannia was hemmed in, icebound in Boston harbour, the same enthusiasts liberated her by cutting a canal seven miles long and a hundred feet wide through the ice, and this entirely at their own expense.

[Facing page 102] will be seen an illustration of a model of this Britannia. Old paintings show her rigged as a barque, with a couple of ship’s boats in davits on either side, and another hung over the stern in a manner that will be familiar to those readers who have seen the American sailing schooners, and some of the Norwegian craft. The space for boilers and engines still causes that long gap between the fore- and main-mast that we mentioned earlier. The square stern, the old-fashioned bows, and her lines generally, show that this first Atlantic liner was hardly a thing of beauty, if even she is to be remembered for ever as the first of a new series. Her paddle-wheels were 28 feet in diameter, and had 21 floats, which measured 8 feet by 2.8 feet. The mean draught of this little ship was 16.8 feet. Her engines were of the side-lever type, of course, the making of which Napier understood so well. Steam was generated in four boilers with twelve furnaces, and there were two cylinders. As we have already dealt with the working of these engines we need do little more than ask the reader to turn to [the next page], where he will find a sectional model of an engine very similar to that which was installed in these first four Cunard liners. The non-technical reader will find this some considerable help in following our previous references to engines of this type, and the section of the cylinder at the extreme left-hand of the picture will be found illustrative of the working of the piston inside the cylinder. As we are writing the story of the steamship, and not a history of engineering, we need not digress from our historical continuity, and we can now pass on to two other steamers built in 1841, for the Royal Mail Company. In the illustration [facing this page] will be seen the Teviot and Clyde respectively, the former being of 1,793 tons, the latter of 1,371 tons.

We have already spoken of the founding of the General Steam Navigation Company, and shall speak presently of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. Following the precedent set by the Cunard Company, the Royal Mail Line, on March 20th, 1840, entered into an agreement with the British Government by which the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company were “to provide, maintain, and keep seaworthy, and in complete repair and readiness, for the purpose of conveying all Her Majesty’s mails, a sufficient number (not less than fourteen) of good, substantial, and efficient steam vessels, of such construction and strength as to be fit and able to carry guns of the largest calibre now used on board of Her Majesty’s steam vessels of war, each of such vessels to be always supplied with first-rate appropriate steam engines of not less than 400 collective horse-power, and also a sufficient number—not less than four—of good, substantial, and efficient sailing vessels, of at least 100 tons burthen each.” Previous to this agreement, the Government had conveyed the mails to the West India Islands in gun-brigs, and in those days we must not forget that the seas were not the free highways that they are now.

THE “TEVIOT” AND “CLYDE” (1841).

From a Painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

SIDE-LEVER ENGINE.

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The contract was for ten years, and to take effect from December 1st, 1841. The fourteen ships were all named after British rivers, and many readers will be aware that this custom of the company has continued ever since, although in some cases the names of foreign rivers have also been thus employed. Some of these vessels were built at Northfleet on the Thames, others (including the Teviot and Clyde) were built at Greenock, others at Dumbarton, Leith, and Cowes. The Lords of the Admiralty stipulated that the vessels should be built under their supervision, and a naval officer was put in charge of the mails on each steamer, and carried out a sort of supervision of the ship’s affairs, a boat’s crew being always at his service when the mails were being taken aboard or disembarked. [The illustration facing page 112] shows the launch of the Forth at Leith in 1841. This picture, which is taken from a contemporary painting, is worthy of perusal, as showing the close resemblance between the mercantile marine and naval architecture of the period. Strength rather than slim beauty, massiveness rather than fineness, formed the keynote both in the steam and sailing ships of that time. In the same year had already been launched the Thames from Northfleet, and in the following year that vessel inaugurated this new service, setting forth, like the older packets, from Falmouth. The voyage from there to the West Indies took about eighteen days, but exceptional runs were done in seventeen days.

This new steamship departure was an undoubted success, and the Admiralty admitted that even the Government, with all its naval resources, could not have succeeded so well as this private company in getting together and ready for sea in so short a time so many large and well-equipped new steamers. Financially this meant a very large outlay, and there was not much less than a million of money expended on this first fleet. It should be stated, however, that the Government subsidised the concern by a grant of £240,000 per annum. Presently Falmouth gave way to Southampton as the headquarters of the Royal Mail fleet. To-day there are so many big liners calling at the Hampshire port, and there is at all times of the day so continuous a procession of all kinds of large steamships, that it is difficult to realise that in those days this was comparatively a small port.

It was only natural that, as soon as ever the West Indian service should have proved itself successful, a branch should be extended to the South American Continent. In 1846, therefore, the company organised a means of transit by mules and canoes across the Isthmus of Panama, which were in 1855 superseded by the Panama Railroad. Although we are departing from our historical sequence in the development of the steamship, it is convenient here to sketch very rapidly the progress of the Royal Mail Line farther still, for the evolution of a steamship company is not necessarily that of the steamship. A small company may be famous for having one or two ships that are always the last word in modern ship-building and marine engineering; a large company may possess a considerable aggregate of tonnage, but its ships may be behind the lead of others in improvements. For the moment we are considering the enterprise which enabled the early steamships to penetrate to distant, over-sea territories where the Elizabethan sailors had gone in their slow-going ships scarcely three centuries before.

LAUNCH OF THE “FORTH” (1841).

By Permission of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co.

THE “WILLIAM FAWCETT” AND H.M.S. “QUEEN” (1829).

From the Painting by Frank Murray in the possession of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

In 1851 the Royal Mail Line service to South America began, and about 1869 those steamers which had stopped short at Brazil, and served the Argentine by transfer, continued their voyage to Buenos Ayres. In the course of time it was only to be expected that the heavy subsidy should be reduced. It dwindled down to £85,000 a year, and was finally allowed to vanish altogether as recently as June, 1905. Since then the Royal Mail Company has extended its West Indian service to New York via Jamaica. During the Crimean War some of the vessels of this line did good service as transports, and even more recently still during the South African War. It was on one of the vessels of this line that, during the American Civil War, an incident occurred which was of international importance. The ship which was brought so prominently into notice was the Trent, that had been launched at Northfleet. Some readers will doubtless remember that Messrs. Slidell and Mason were forcibly taken from this vessel by a Federal man-of-war, and that Lord Palmerston, by his action in the matter, set forth that valuable doctrine, still recognised, that an individual on board a British ship is as safe from foreign interference as if he were on British soil.

It was in 1840, also, that the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was granted its charter, and its history is, so to speak, a complement of that of the Royal Mail Company.[B] After the latter had extended its service to the Isthmus of Panama, and established a means of transit across to the western coast, it was evident that the Pacific littoral was ready for the steamship, and this the Pacific Steam Navigation Company now supplied. In the olden days the sailing ship had been the only means of doing this, but that meant braving the terrors of Cape Horn, as many of the surviving sailing ships do to this day. But the enterprise of the Royal Mail Line on the one side of the narrow neck separating North from South America, and the co-operation of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company on the other, together with the intervening land-journey, brought the inhabitants of the Southern Pacific much nearer to Europe. The Panama Canal, which is promised for opening in 1915, was thus foreshadowed. Sending round its two steamers, the Chile and Peru, to the west coast, the Pacific Company opened up a new sphere of commerce, and these two steamships were the very first steam-propelled craft that ever passed through the Straits of Magellan.

[B] The Royal Mail Co. has now absorbed the Pacific Steam Navigation Co.

The foundation of the Peninsular Company dates back as far as 1837. Even a year or two before then its ships had commenced running to the Peninsula, but at the time mentioned a regular service of mail packets from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar was instituted. Here again we find the existence of a contract between the Admiralty and a steamship company for the carrying of the mails, but it was not until 1840 that the line was extended to Malta and Alexandria, and was incorporated by Royal Charter under the now well-known title of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with a view to carrying on operations in the Far East. [The lower illustration facing page 112] shows the first steamship owned by the Peninsular Company, a little paddle vessel of only 209 tons. This was the William Fawcett, which was built in the year 1829. She measured 74 feet long, only 16 feet wide, developed 60 horse-power, and was engaged in the trade between England, Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But the first steamer which the newly incorporated company dispatched to India, via the Cape of Good Hope, was the Hindostan, a vessel of 1,800 tons, and 500 horse-power. She began her voyage from England in September, 1842, and her departure was a memorable event when we consider all that was destined to follow therefrom, and how certainly it meant the ending of the careers of those fine East India sailing ships which had been brought to such a high state of perfection ere steam had appeared on the sea. The Hindostan was a three-masted vessel with a long bowsprit, “steeved” at a big angle, setting yards on her fore-mast for fore-sail, topsail and t’gallant, while her main and mizen were fore-and-aft rigged. She is interesting as having not one but two funnels, the first being placed very far forward, just abaft the fore-mast, whilst the other was immediately in front of the main-mast. The distance between the two funnels was great, for the purpose already indicated. The Hindostan was followed by other steamers, and in 1844 the P. and O. Company undertook a mail service between England and Alexandria, and so from Suez to Ceylon, Calcutta, and China.

Of course, as yet, there was no Suez Canal, so that, in a manner similar to that across the Isthmus of Panama, an overland route had to be instituted for passengers, cargo, and mails across the Isthmus of Suez. The P. and O. Company had, then, to land their passengers at Alexandria, and just as canoes and mules had to be employed in America, so boats and camels were requisitioned in Africa. But it was a complicated journey, for this “overland” route was mostly an over-water route. By means of the Mahmoudieh Canal the passengers and goods were sent from Alexandria to the Nile, whence they proceeded by steamer to Cairo. From there they travelled through the desert to Suez. Three thousand camels had to be employed for transporting a single steamer’s loading; every package had to be subjected to three separate transfers, and the inconvenience was indeed considerable. But for nearly twenty years this system continued.

Steam communication was inaugurated by the company with Australia in 1852, by means of a branch line from Singapore, and two years later the service between Suez and Bombay was absorbed by the P. and O. Company. This had been retained hitherto by the East India Company in order to keep alive their navy. In 1869, came the opening of the Suez Canal, and it was essentially the steamship and not the sailing ship which brought this about, although the Suez Railway preceded the canal by ten years. It is not generally known, perhaps, that a continuous waterway had already existed long years before. In the times of the early Egyptians there had been a canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea, so that ships could circumnavigate Africa and, returning by the Mediterranean, could come out through the Nile into the Red Sea again. But the Suez Canal had not been demanded so long as the steamship remained undeveloped, and even for some time after the traffic to Australia and New Zealand was principally carried on in those handsome clipper-ships which were representative of the finest examples of the sailing ship. It is only by means of the steamship that it is possible to bring across so many thousands of miles the great quantities of frozen meat and other perishable foods which now reach this country, and the Suez Canal certainly assisted to make this possible. Not merely did the steamship indirectly bring about the Canal, but the latter increased the steamship’s sphere of usefulness.

About the time when the Suez Canal was opened the practical adoption of the compound engine was taking place in the mercantile marine. This idea had been introduced about 1856 by Messrs. Randolph Elder and Company, and had been installed in the ships of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. In explanation of this system we may say at once that its great advantage lay in the fact that it reduced the coal consumption to just about half of what it had been hitherto in the most economical engines. The principle is based on the fact that steam possesses elastic properties which can be put to excellent use. Put simply, the compound engine allows the steam to enter one cylinder at high pressure, and, after it has moved the piston, escapes into one (or more) cylinders of larger size, where it does its work by direct expansion, and so much more work is done at little expense. The expression “triple expansion,” which frequently confronts the reader interesting himself in steamships, simply means that the steam is expanded one stage further. Quadruple expansion is the same idea pushed still another stage. When about twenty years ago the triple expansion system was brought in, the steam pressures were increased from 125 lb. to 160 lb. per square inch, and so the coal consumption was reduced also. But the triple expansion had been preceded by the compound and the low pressure engine, just as it was followed by the quadruple.

The opening of the Suez Canal was not devoid of side issues, for it took away that monopoly which the P. and O. had enjoyed, since the world’s steamships now poured in and began to go eastward and back again. There was difficulty with the Post Office, who refused to allow the Canal route for the conveyance of mails, on the ground that it was not so suitable as the Egyptian Railway, and it was not until 1888, when the charge for carrying the mails had been reduced by nearly £100,000 a year, that the accelerated mails sent via Brindisi were transferred to the Canal route, although the heavy mails had already been carried by it. But the P. and O. were unlucky in another way. The Mooltan, their first ship to be installed with the compound engine, in 1860, had proved such a success that several other steamers of the line were thus fitted, but the result was disappointing. Although it was quite clear that this type of engine made for economy, yet it was found unreliable, and in some cases had to be replaced by less complex machinery.

We have now been able to see steamship lines established and sending their fleets regularly with passengers, cargoes, and mails to the uttermost ends of the earth, and we have been able to look ahead a little so that we shall be free to concentrate our attention very shortly on that centre of steamship activity the North Atlantic. Between 1840 and 1860 the Cunard Company had practically a monopoly of the Atlantic trade. For a time the American clippers hung on, but as they had ousted the old brigs, even the fastest sailing vessels were replaced by the steamship. From 1850 to 1858 there was, indeed, some opposition from a steamship company called the Collins Line, which had been subsidised by the American Government. This competition was very keen, for both lines were compelled to put forth the best steamers they could, but in the end the Collins Line withdrew from the contest.

DESIGNS FOR SCREW PROPELLERS PRIOR TO 1850.

From the Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

But there was now another force coming in, which was to entirely alter the character of the liner. Let us trace the evolution of the screw propeller, which has completely banished the old-fashioned paddle-wheel from its place in the ocean-going ship, and is rapidly having the same effect in cross-Channel steamers. We saw that away back in 1804 John Stevens had crossed the Hudson in a little ship that was driven along by a screw propeller, but it was not until the year 1836 that the screw was re-introduced. In this year John Ericsson, a Swedish engineer, obtained a patent for his invention which consisted of two drums, on whose exteriors were seven helical blades, the interior of each drum having the three blades which formed the radii of the circle. Both these drums worked on one axis, and were placed behind the rudder, and not in front of it as is the modern propeller. If the reader will turn to [the plate facing page 118], he will see this at the beginning of the second line to the left. The drums were made to work in opposite directions, the object being to avoid loss due to the rotary motion already remaining in the water discharged by a single screw.

Ericsson applied this invention to the Francis B. Ogden, which was built in 1837. She was 45 feet long, and was driven by a two-cylinder steam engine with a boiler pressure of 50 lb. The result of the experiment showed that she could tow a vessel of 630 tons burthen at 4½ knots against the tide. The following year a larger vessel, the Robert F. Stockton, was built by Laird Brothers, and attained a speed of thirteen knots on the Thames, with the tide in her favour. Afterwards she crossed the Atlantic, but under canvas, and was turned into a tug as the New Jersey, for work in New York waters. [The illustration facing page 120], which has been lent by Messrs. Cammell, Laird and Company, Limited, of Birkenhead, shows her rigged as a topsail schooner under sail and steam. Her measurements were 63.4 feet long, 10 feet beam, 7 feet deep, with a register of 33 tons, and engines of 30 horsepower. Although she was the first screw steamer to cross the Atlantic, yet her voyage is interesting rather as a fairly daring trip of a small sailing ship than as proving the reliability of the screw propeller.

But at the same time that Ericsson was working at his idea, Francis Smith, an Englishman, who was afterwards knighted, was also engaged at the same problem, though his method of solution was of a different nature, as will be seen by a reference to the last illustration on the first line of [the plate facing page 118]. His patent was granted in the same year as Ericsson’s, and was tried with success the year after on the Paddington Canal. Smith was a farmer at Hendon, and had already experimented with a model driven by clockwork on a farm pond, just as Fulton had carried out his early experiments with a clockwork model in a tank. The next step was to repeat the experiment on a six-ton boat which was driven by a steam engine, the propeller being, like those of the modern aeroplanes, of wood. It was while thus experimenting that an interesting accident happened, for about one-half of the screw thus shown in the illustration was broken off, and to everyone’s surprise the boat instantly began to leap forward at a quicker speed. Later the boat was fitted with a screw having one turn instead of two, and made of metal instead of wood, and in this small craft Smith cruised as far as Folkestone. Her speed was 5½ knots.

THE “ROBERT F. STOCKTON” (1838).

Photograph supplied by Messrs. Cammell, Laird & Co., Limited, Birkenhead.

THE “ARCHIMEDES” (1839).

From a Contemporary Print.

From these satisfactory results made by the six-tonner Francis Smith, sufficient interest was aroused to form a syndicate to test the proposition commercially, and to purchase Smith’s patents. The result was that the Archimedes, of 240 tons, was launched from Limehouse in November, 1838, and fitted with Smith’s screw. It must be recollected that the same old obstinacy was still very much alive that had hindered other inventions connected with the ship, and it was not until the Archimedes had toured round Great Britain, and steamed across the Bay of Biscay and back without mishap, that people began to believe in this new method of propulsion. To-day everyone knows how entirely dominated by the screw the steamship now is, and that the paddle-wheel belongs almost exclusively to the excursion passenger steamer.

Of course, Smith’s propeller was very different in expression from the shape in use to-day, but the last word as to the ideal shape and size of the screw has even yet to be said. It would be interesting to detail all the attempts which have been made by different inventors to deal with the screw, but their name is legion, and our space will not permit. An idea, however, can be obtained of the various forms of screw propellers patented in England before 1850 from [the plate facing page 118], to which we have already called attention.

[The lower illustration facing page 120], which is taken from a contemporary aquatint, shows the Archimedes on her voyage from London to Portsmouth in the year 1839, when she attained a speed of eight knots against both wind and tide. [Facing page 122] is reproduced a model of her stern framing before being planked up. As a further test of this screw idea Wimshurst, who had built the Archimedes, launched the Novelty in 1839, a much larger vessel than her predecessor. The Novelty will be seen in [the next illustration], and in her we see the “screw” vanishing and becoming more assimilated to the modern propeller. Originally the corkscrew shape entitled it to be called a screw; but the evolution of time and experience has now considerably altered this. It will be noticed that in the Archimedes the screw is a little distance away from the stern-post, but as seen in the Novelty the propeller is put right close up against it. This Novelty was the first cargo steamer fitted with a screw, and made her inaugural trading voyage from London to Constantinople and back with entire success. She is interesting also as having been the first ship to be fitted with an iron mast. This material was employed for the mizen, the other masts were of wood; her rig was that of a barque. For some years after the introduction of the screw, and so long as sails were still retained as auxiliaries, there had to be some means of overcoming the resistance of the screw when not in use and the ship was proceeding under sail power. This was done either by fixing the blades so that they caused the minimum drag, or by lifting the screw into a well. The Novelty lifted hers on deck over the quarter by means of davits. This arrangement will also be seen in the illustration. This idea is now obsolete, since sails are but rarely employed as auxiliaries.

STERN OF THE “ARCHIMEDES.”

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

THE “NOVELTY” (1839).

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Now the introduction of the propeller was not so simple an event as the reader might imagine. Ordinarily, one is tempted to argue that it was merely a case of putting the power aft instead of at either side, as in the use of the paddle-wheels. But, in fact, the introduction of the screw opened up a new set of problems connected with ship design. In the early days the design of a ship’s stern, both in the sailing ship and the steamer, was badly neglected. Later on the improved lines of the clipper sailing ships certainly did much to improve matters. I referred at the beginning of the previous chapter to the manner in which a vessel going ahead moves the water in which she floats, and how the eddies round the stern impede her advance. Now when a propeller revolves, much of its power is, even nowadays, wasted by what is called “slip”—that is to say, by the yielding of the water so that the screw does not progress to the full extent of its “pitch.” (The “pitch” of a propeller is the amount of distance which is represented by one whole turn of the thread. We could measure, for instance, the “pitch” of a corkscrew by the distance which it would penetrate in a cork.) Even after years of experiments and improvements the wake at the end of a steamship tends to reduce the speed of the water past the propeller, but when first the screw experiments were conducted the design of the afterbody of a ship’s hull was so carelessly considered that the “slip” of the propeller was considerable. There is also to be taken into account the fact that by the rounding in of the “stream lines” at the stern the vessel receives a pressure which helps her forward. When, however, a propeller is added to a ship and set in motion it disturbs this helping-forward movement, and in a ship fitted with only a single screw this disturbance is even greater than in a twin-screw steamer, because the latter has her propellers placed well out, away from the hull. We need not here pursue the subject further; it is enough now to show that every improvement in the steamship began a new chapter of problems, introduced difficulties that could never have been anticipated, which time and patience alone can solve satisfactorily.

And so we come to the construction of the Great Britain, of which the model is illustrated [opposite page 126]. Let us recollect that it was only in 1836 that the little six-ton launch Francis Smith had been built, and that it was only three years later that the Archimedes showed by her successful voyages that the screw method of propulsion was no fanciful, impracticable theory. In this same year, 1839, there began to be built a still more wonderful screw steamer. The Great Western Steamship Company had already been so satisfied with the Great Western that they believed that a far larger ship would be even still more profitable. Therefore, Brunel was again consulted, and he reported that already the furthest limit of long ships built of wood was reached. There was no alternative but to construct her of iron, for the reasons that I explained some time since. Iron had already been used in ship-building for barges and also for steamboats, but on no large scale. Aaron Manby, in conjunction with Charles Napier, had built the first iron steamboat as far back as 1821. This ship had been conveyed in sections from Horseley, where she was made, to the Surrey Canal Dock, and there put together. After being tried on the Thames on May 9th, 1822, she steamed away the next month with Napier in command, and Manby as engineer, arriving in Paris on the eleventh of the same month. She was thus not merely the first iron steamship, but the first iron ship that ever put to sea. For the next twenty years she continued to ply on the Seine. Napier was the financier of the attempt to promote iron steamers on the French river, but by 1827 the slump in the steamboat had taken an acute form, and he was left a comparatively poor man. But in 1832 the Lady Lansdowne was built by John Laird of Birkenhead for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, and she was the first iron steamer constructed with the intention of performing sea-service. She was a paddle-boat, and measured 133 feet long, 17 feet wide, with a tonnage of 148 and a nominal horse-power of 90. Later still the Robert F. Stockton, to which we have alluded, was also of iron.

But the Great Britain was to be 322 feet long, with a beam of 50½ feet, and a displacement of 3,618 tons, with a cargo capacity of 1,200 tons, able to carry also 1,000 tons of coal, and 260 passengers. To build such a big lump of a boat as this was to be a very grave undertaking indeed. In fact, no contractor could be found who would undertake the construction of the ship or her engines. She was something out of the unknown; there were no data upon which to base calculations. Brunel, therefore, made out the designs and the Great Western Company with great daring proceeded to lay down plans for building her themselves at Bristol. This was in 1839. It was intended to give her the usual paddle-wheel engines, but the Archimedes arrived at this port, and the success of her screw propulsion caused Brunel to modify his designs so that the Great Britain should become not only the largest iron ship ever built, but the largest screw steamer.

It was originally intended to name her the Mammoth, but she had better been called the White Elephant, for all the use she was afterwards to her owners. Her rig was like nothing afloat, and the vocabulary of nautical terms contains no adequate description. [From our illustration] it will be seen that she had six masts. On all except the second she carried fore-and-aft canvas, but this second mast carried two yards and square sails. Forward she had a bowsprit and triangular headsails. In sail area alone she carried 1,700 yards of canvas, and in length the hull was 100 feet in excess of the largest line-of-battleship afloat. She was actually floated on July 19th, 1843, but it was not until December of the following year that she was able to enter the river, owing to the delay in the alteration of the dock. In the meantime her engines had been put aboard, and on July 26th, 1845, after trips to London and Liverpool, she left the latter port with sixty passengers, and 600 tons of cargo for the Atlantic run. She arrived in New York after a fifteen days’ passage, with an average speed of 9¼ knots. On the homeward voyage her best day’s run was 287 miles. [The illustration facing page 126] is from a model of her six-bladed propeller, with which originally she was fitted; but on one of her voyages she had the misfortune to break this and proceeded to Liverpool under her canvas. A new propeller was then fitted which had but four blades, but later on she again resorted to the original number. She continued her Atlantic voyages until 1846, when she ran ashore off the Irish coast in Dundrum Bay during the month of September, and remained for eleven months exposed to the terrible wintry weather; but Brunel had a wooden breakwater, loaded with stones, constructed round her, and she was eventually re-floated and taken to Liverpool, and though her bottom was naturally considerably damaged, yet the mere fact that she had been able to survive at all showed that confidence might be placed in iron as a material for ship-building. But by this time her owners had had enough of her, and she was sold for less than one quarter of the £100,000 she had cost. After alterations to her rig and her engines, she was employed in the Australian trade. She was next relieved of her engines, and turned into a sailing vessel, and then used as a coal-hulk off the Falkland Islands. Finally she was broken up at Barrow.

THE “GREAT BRITAIN” (1843).

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

PROPELLER OF THE “GREAT BRITAIN.”

From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

But apart from her size, the Great Britain possessed other novel features which are worthy of notice. We have already remarked that as the length of ships increased, so did the longitudinal strain, and new methods had to be devised in order to overcome this. The Great Britain was specially strengthened longitudinally, and furthermore she was divided into five water-tight compartments. The original purpose of transverse bulkheads was that if a vessel were holed by collision or grounding, or—in the case of naval vessels—pierced by shell, she might yet remain afloat. Nowadays they do more than this, for, when carried up to the strong deck, they add to the longitudinal strength of the ship. The Great Britain also possessed another novelty, in bilge keels, which extended for about one-third of her length. The object of these, which are so well-known a feature of modern steamships, was to lessen rolling. Her bulwarks consisted of iron rails with netting running round the ship. Here, again, was a new departure. In the older ships the heavy wooden bulwarks were a relic of the days when the guns were sheltered behind them; but from the view of seaworthiness they were really a false safety. If a heavy sea were shipped, the water was held in and not allowed to get away easily; in the case of the Great Britain the water could escape just as quickly as it came aboard.

[Facing page 128] will be seen a reproduction of a model of the Great Britain’s engines, as originally placed in her before she ran ashore. Steam was generated in a double-ended boiler. The nominal horse-power was 1,000, but twice that amount could be obtained, and a speed of over 12 knots. There were four direct-acting cylinders—of which two will be seen in the foreground of the illustration—placed as low down in the ship as possible. The early engines which were used for the screw did not drive the latter directly, and on reference to the illustration it will be seen that in the centre of the crank shaft was a drum, which was connected with another drum just below it on the propeller shaft by means of four chains.

When referring to the side-lever engines in a former chapter, I drew attention to the fact that in spite of their virtues they had the great drawback of taking up a great deal of space. [The second illustration facing page 128] represents an attempt to overcome this disadvantage. As will be seen on examining the lower part of the engines, the lever has now become very small in size. It will be noticed that there are two inverted cylinders, whose piston-rods are connected by a cross-head, the latter being guided by lever parallel movement, and from it the power was conveyed by means of a connecting rod to the crank on the paddle-wheel shaft. The connecting rod can be seen between the two cylinders in the illustration. These engines were made in 1843 for the Helen McGregor, a paddle-steamer engaged in the Hull-Hamburg trade. She was of 573 tons, and was one of the largest ships of her class.