between Bordentown and Philadelphia, but it was soon laid aside.*

In 1787, Mr Patrick Miller of Dalswinton published a pamphlet, with a description and print of a triple vessel, propelled by paddle wheels, moved by cranks, originally intended to be worked by He states, that "he had reason to believe that the power of the steam-engine may be applied to work the wheels, so as to give them a quicker motion, and consequently to increase that of the ship." This, certainly, was a great step.

men.

In 1788, Mr Miller employed Mr William Symington, along with Mr James Taylor, the tutor of his sons, who was quite an amateur of the steamengine, to superintend the construction and placing of a small one in his pleasure-boat upon a piece of water near his house. Its success encouraged him to an experiment upon a larger scale; and Mr Symington was employed to construct, at Carron, a steam-engine of greater power, which he was to erect in one of Mr Miller's double boats, upon the Forth and Clyde Canal. This vessel was put in motion at the end of the year 1789, and though found to answer in point of speed, was liable to objections which rendered it expedient to discontinue the use of it, and the machinery was taken out of the vessel.

* Colden's Life of Fulton, p. 132. New York, 1817.

In 1801, Mr Symington was again employed, by Lord Dundas, to construct a steam-towing vessel on the Forth and Clyde Canal, with more powerful machinery. This, he states, was completed upon an improved plan after many expensive experiments, and was tried in the spring of 1802, with two loaded vessels in tow, which it drew at the rate of about 2 miles an hour, against a head wind. Soon after this trial, however, this boat was also laid aside, on account, as alleged, of its washing and injuring the banks of the Canal. Mr Symington took out a patent for steam-boats in the same year, and he has the undoubted merit of being the first person who applied the power of the steam-engine to produce motion in vessels.

Mr Robert Fulton, a native of Pennsylvania, and an engineer of the United States, whose attention had been for some time directed to the subject, inspected the vessel of Lord Dundas before it was laid up. He also made a trip in it with Mr Symington in 1802, along part of the canal, and, with the acuteness and forethought by which he was so much distinguished, was very particular in his examination of all its parts. Upon this occasion, the steam-boat went over 8 miles in one hour and twenty minutes.

In 1803, when Mr Fulton was at Paris with Chancellor Livingston, he constructed, in company

with that gentleman, a steam-boat upon the Seine, which, after some mishaps, was tried and found to have very little velocity, owing to the defects of the apparatus. Mr Fulton perceived the cause of this failure, and, with his usual sagacity, at once devised the remedy, by addressing himself to Messrs Boulton and Watt, first by letter, and afterwards in person. This was in 1804. He requested them to make for him a steam-engine to be applied to the propelling of a vessel by paddle wheels on the sides, which was to be used in the United States; stating his conviction, that all former attempts had failed chiefly from the badness of the machinery, though he considered the confined waters in which the trials had been made to be also unfavourable. Against the difficulties arising from bad machinery, he expected to be secured by directing his арplication to such skilful workmen ; and he judged, with equal knowledge of the subject, that the wide rivers of America presented a field quite unobjectionable for the action of steam-boats.

The principal parts of the engine were made, accordingly, and forwarded early in 1805; the planning and execution of the subordinate parts, as well as of the connecting and paddle machinery, having been undertaken by Mr Fulton himself. He built a vessel from his designs at New York, called the Clermont, and having erected the en

gine on board of her, the first trial was made in the spring of 1807, and being eminently successful, the vessel was soon afterwards established as a regular steam-packet between New York and Albany. The admiration which this grand experiment excited, and which is so graphically described by Mr Fulton's accomplished biographer, Mr Colden, led to the construction of various other steam vessels upon the different waters of the United States and in Canada.*

There can be no doubt, therefore, that Fulton is entitled to the unqualified praise of having been the first man to bring steam navigation into real use. His predecessors, Mr Symington and others, paved the way, it is true; but so did Newcomen in the case of Watt, whose merit, as the inventor of the modern steam-engine, no one denies. That of Fulton, as the contriver of the present steamboat, rests nearly on the same grounds.

Steam-boat navigation has made rapid strides in America since the period alluded to, chiefly on the great rivers. The rise and progress of

the invention, as applied to sea-going vessels, is not uninteresting. Mr Henry Bell of Glasgowwho had seen the steam vessel upon the Clyde in 1802-became acquainted with Mr Fulton, with

Life of Fulton, by his Friend Cadwallader D. Colden, p. 168. New York, 1817.

whom he subsequently corresponded. In 1811, he built a steam-boat upon the Clyde, called the Comet. In this boat, which he fitted up with a steam-engine and paddle wheels of his own manufactory, he began to ply between Glasgow and Greenock in January, 1812.

This was speedily followed by other steam vessels upon the Clyde. In 1813, a boat, called the Prince of Orange, was fitted with two steam-engines by Messrs Boulton and Watt, with the cranks working at right angles to each other, by which the power was equalised throughout the stroke, according to an original idea of Mr Watt when he first devised their application to rotative purposes. This construction, which, it may be observed, is attended with the additional advantage of giving a double security, has often proved of eminent utility in sea-going vessels.

Two steam-boats proceeded from the Clyde to the Thames in 1815; one through the Forth and Clyde Canal to Leith, and thence along the east coast, the other round the Land's end, under the direction of the late Mr George Dodds. These, I believe, may be considered the first successful attempts at sea navigation by steam.