First Practical Steamboat – 2

When the properties of Watt’s double-acting engine became known to the public an immediate attempt was made to apply it to navigation.

Continuing First Practical Steamboat,
our selection from James Renwick. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in First Practical Steamboat.

Time: 1807
Place: Hudson River

When the properties of Watt’s double-acting engine became known to the public an immediate attempt was made to apply it to navigation. This was done by Miller, of Dalswinton, who employed Symington as his engineer. Miller seems to have been its real author; for, as early as 1787, he published his belief that boats might be propelled by employing a steam-engine to turn the paddle-wheels. It was not until 1791 that Symington completed a model for him, of a size sufficient for a satisfactory experiment. If we may credit the evidence which has since been adduced, the experiment was as successful as the first attempts of Fulton; but it did not give to the inventor that degree of confidence which was necessary to induce him to embark his fortune in the enterprise. The experiment of Miller was therefore ranked by the public among unsuccessful enterprises and was rather calculated to deter from imitation than to encourage others to pursue the same path.

Symington, at a subsequent period, resumed the plans of Miller, and by the aid of funds furnished by Lord Dundas, put a boat in motion on the Forth and Clyde canal in 1801.

There can be little doubt that Symington was a mechanic of great practical skill and considerable ingenuity; but he can have no claim to be considered as an original inventor; for he was, in the first instance, no more than the workman who carried into effect the ideas of Miller, and his second boat was a mere copy of the first. It is with pain, too, that we are compelled to notice a most disingenuous attempt on his part to defraud the memory of Fulton of its due honor.

In a narrative which he drew up, after Fulton’s death, he states that, while his first boat was in existence, probably in 1802, he received a visit from Fulton, and, at his request, put the boat in motion. Now it appea1s to be established, beyond all question, that Fulton was not in Great Britain between 1796 and 1804, when he returned to that country on the invitation of Mr. Pitt, who held out hopes that his torpedoes would be experimented upon by that Government. At all events, we know that Fulton could not have made the copious notes which Symington says he took, and we have reason to believe that he had never seen the boat of that artisan, for the author of this memoir, long after the successful enterprise of Fulton, actually furnished him, for the purpose of reference, with a work containing a draft of Symington’s boat, of which he could have had no need had the assertions of the latter been true.

The experiments of Fitch and Rumsey in the United States, although generally considered as unsuccessful, did not deter others from similar attempts. The great rivers and arms of the sea, which intersect the Atlantic coast, and still more the innu merable navigable arms of the “Father of Waters,” appeared to call upon the ingenious machinist to contrive means for their more convenient navigation.

The improvement of the engine by Watt was now familiarly known, and it was evident that it possessed sufficient powers for the purpose. The only difficulty which existed was in the mode of applying it. The first person who entered into the inquiry was John Stevens, of Hoboken, who commenced his researches in 1791. In these he was steadily engaged for nine years, when he became the associate of Chancellor Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt. Among the persons employed by this association was Brunel, who has since become distinguished in Europe as the inventor of the block machinery used in the British navy-yards and as the engineer of the tunnel beneath the Thames.

Even with the aid of such talent the efforts of this association were unsuccessful, as we now know, from no error in principle, but from defects in the boat to which it was applied. The appointment of Livingston as ambassador to France broke up this joint effort; and, like all previous schemes, it was considered as abortive, and contributed to throw discredit upon all undertakings of the kind. A grant of exclusive privileges on the waters of the State of New York was made to this association without any difficulty, it being believed that the scheme was little short of madness.

Livingston, on his arrival in France, found Fulton domiciliated with Joel Barlow. The conformity in their pursuits led to intimacy, and Fulton speedily communicated to Livingston the scheme which he had laid before Earl Stanhope in 1793. Livingston was so well pleased with it that he at once offered to pro vide the funds necessary for an experiment, and to enter into a contract for Fulton’s aid in introducing the method into the United States, provided the experiment were successful.

Fulton had in his early discussion with Lord Stanhope repudiated the idea of an apparatus acting on the principle of the foot of an aquatic bird, and had proposed paddle-wheels in its stead. On resuming his inquiries after his arrangement with Livingston it occurred to him to compose wheels with a set of paddles revolving upon an endless chain, extending from the stem to the stern of the boat. It is probable that the apparent want of success which had attended the experiments of Symington led him to doubt the correctness of his own original views.

That such doubt should be entirely removed he had recourse to a series of experiments upon a small scale. These were per formed at Plombieres, a French watering-place, where he spent the summer of 1802. In these experiments, the superiority of the paddle-wheel over every other method of propulsion that had yet been proposed was fully established. His original impressions being thus confirmed he proceeded, late in the year of 1803, to construct a working model of his intended boat, which model was deposited with a commission of French savants. He at the same time commenced building a vessel sixty-six feet in length and eight feet in width. To this an engine was adapted; and the experiment made with it was so satisfactory as to leave little doubt of final success.

Continued.

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