TABLE, No. 1.

TRACING THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF STEAM NAVIGATION IN THE CHIEF CAPITALS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND PLANTATIONS; FROM THE FIRST VESSEL PROPELLED BY STEAM, ON BRITISh waters, oF 4 TONS AND 1-HORSE POWER, BUILT BY SYMINGTON, IN 1788, TO THE BRITISH QUEEN," OF 2016 TONS AND 500-HORSE POWER, BUILT IN 1838, FOR THE

AMERICAN STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.

BRITISH AND

No Steamers have been built at the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Man. The tonnage is exclusive of the space occupied by the engines.

COMMENTARY ON THE PRECEDING TABLE, WITH REFERENCE TO AMERICA.

1788-9. Both built by Symington, and the first boats propelled by steam on British waters. The second was of 9-horse power.

1795. Lord Stanhope propelled a vessel by steam in Greenland Dock. Power and tonnage unknown.

1798. The American Legislature passed an act, vesting in Mr. Livingstone the exclusive right of navigating all the waters in New York, with steam boats, for twenty years, on condition of his producing a steamer, within a twelvemonth, whose rate should not be less than four miles an hour. Mr. Livingstone, however, was unable to accomplish it, and, in a paper drawn up by him, inserted in the American Medical and Philosophical Register, honestly admits all his experiments had been unsuccessful; in consequence of which, he subsequently joined Fulton in his efforts. The following is a not uncommon instance of that extreme ridicule with which many a valuable invention has been met by those who, confining their knowledge only to one, and that, perhaps, a narrow department, despise what they have not investigated, and will not investigate what they despise. It is, besides, curious at this time of universal extension of Steam Navigation, and shows, that he who first proved its practicability, could have been no ordinary man. Upon Mr. Livingstone's bill being brought before the House of Assembly, Dr. Michell, who introduced it, says, "The wags and the lawyers in the House, were generally opposed to my bill. I had to encounter all their jokes, and the whole of their logic. One main ground of their objection was,

that it was an idle and whimsical project, unworthy
of legislative attention.
It was a

standing subject of ridicule throughout the session; and,
whenever there was a disposition to indulge in a little
levity, they would call up the steam boat bill, to divert
themselves, at the expense of the project and its advo-
cates."

1802. Steam Navigation first attracted the notice of a scientific body. It is observed, in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, of this date:-"Several attempts have been made to apply the force of steam to the purpose of propelling boats on canals, and there seems to be no reason to think the undertaking by any means liable to insuperable difficulties. Mr. Symington appears to have had considerable success, and the method that he has employed for making a communication between the piston and the water wheels is attended with many advantages."

1803. The "Charlotte Dundas," of 20-horse power, the first steamer christened in Great Britain, and the first that took a vessel in tow, built by Symington. The practicability of Steam Navigation in America, first attracted, in this year, the notice of a scientific body in the new world, the American Philosophical Society. In the sixth volume of their Transactions, Part I., p. 96, is a Report read by Mr. B. H. Latrobe, to whom the subject had been referred, which is curious at this day. "A sort of mania," the Report tells us, " began to prevail, which, indeed, has not yet entirely subsided, for impelling boats by steam engines. Dr. Franklin proposed to force forward the boat by the immediate action of the steam upon the water." Even that eminent philosopher was derided. The following was the dictum of these venerable vegetables, who could expand nowhere

but in their own soil; the question having been at the time set at rest by Symington's "Charlotte Dundas." It does not give a very high notion of scientific bodies of that day, the first, generally, to ridicule what had not been proved practicable. "There are, indeed, general objections to the use of the steam engine for impelling boats, from which no particular mode of application can be free." I have not, therefore, inserted in their order here, the futile experiments made on the Delaware, by Fitch, in 1783, and by Rumsay, also an American, on the Thames; for the last certainly applied the steam to work a vertical pump, to propel the boat by the reaction of the discharge of the water, and not to move paddles. Had their experiments been worth notice, they would have found a place in such a paper, in the same way that Symington's found in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, before extracted. Their plans were unquestionably original, but they lose much of their merit by being impracticable.

1807. The "North River," built by Fulton, the first steamer that ever plied as a passage boat. She was employed on the Hudson, and performed the distance from New York to Albany, 150 miles, in 32 hours. No circumstance can prove more clearly that the world is indebted to Symington's successful efforts in steam navigation, than the fact, that Fulton, who, there is undoubted evidence, witnessed Symington's experiment, and took drawings of his steam boat, introduced the first steamer used anywhere for useful purposes. And before Bell's "Comet," there were also three other steamers running in the United States.

1812. The "Comet," of 25 tons and 4-horse power, built by Bell; and the "Elizabeth," of 40 tons and 9-horse power, built by Thomson; the former plying between Glasgow