well as Bushnel's revolving oars, and the horse tow-vessel employed to take out ships from Chatham in adverse winds, as far back as 1682. Besides all of which, there are the galleys of Valturius and the Liburnæ mentioned by Pancirollus in his "History of many Memorable Things lost which were in use among the Antients," where he says, "I have seen representations of some ships called Liburnæ, which had three wheels on both sides without, touching the water, each consisting of eight boards jutting out from the wheels about an hand'sbreadth, and turned by six oxen within, which by turning on a gin stirred the wheels, whose fellies driving the water backward, moved the Liburnæ with such a force, that no trireme galley was able to match them." And besides these, we might have derived some entertainment from examining the mechanism of the pastor of Berne, who piously regarded the works of nature as the fittest patterns of art, and has been proposed as a candidate for the honour of inventing the art of steam navigation, because at an early period he had proposed to suspend to either side of a ship two gigantic duck's feet to be propelled by a steam-engine, and by opening and shutting like huge umbrellas on each side of the hull to propel the vessel through the water—a project again revived by another candidate for the honour, the late indefatigable Stanhope. And to these we might have added the piston and rack of Papin; or, had time still further served, we might have followed, through its multifarious phases, the scheme for propelling by reaction, and first of these, the experiment of propulsion by firing a huge cannon backwards from the stern of the vessel, whereby it was ascertained that thirty barrels of

gunpowder forwarded the boat ten miles in twenty-four hours; a plan improved by Dr Allan in his proposition. to form a tunnel or pipe open at the stern, or hinder part of the vessel, and by means of a pump driven by a steamengine to force water or air through it into the sea, so that by the reaction this would occasion the ship to be driven forward, "thereby imitating very accurately what the Author of Nature has shown us in the swimming of fishes, who proceed by protrusion with their tails,"-or indeed the thousand-and-one inventions of each and all of those, and similar schemes, produced and reproduced over and over again. But these and all such schemes, alternately ingenious or preposterous, plausible or absurd, we are compelled to pass over, and to bring our readers at once to the invention of steam navigation as it now exists.

It has been very usual to attribute the invention of the modern art of steam navigation to Patrick Miller, Esq. of Dalswinton, in Dumfries-shire, in Scotland. Two competitors have contested his claim. We shall soon see that to no one of the three can the palm be awarded. The creation of the steam-ship appears to have been an achievement too gigantic for any single man. It was produced by one of those happy combinations in which individuals are but tools working out each his part in a great system, of the whole of which no single one may have comprehended all the workings. The individuals who have contested the title of inventors of steam navigation, are PATRICK MILLER, JAMES TAYLOR, WILLIAM SYMINGTON.

After long and patient examination into the claims of these parties after having gone over the papers, pub

lished and unpublished, of the parties advocating the claims of each candidate-after having examined all the individuals whose personal testimony to the facts of the case we have been able to obtain—after weighing the circumstances in which the evidence has been obtained and the testimony given, we have to present to our readers, as the result of the whole, this conclusion, that the art of steam navigation was the joint invention of these three, Patrick Miller, James Taylor, and William Symington; that to their efforts the world owes its present advantages.

The following history of this remarkable combination is that which, among much conflicting evidence, appears to contain such facts as are of undoubted authenticity

MR MILLER was a man much addicted to mechanical pursuits. He followed out such experiments as he conceived likely to advance the public welfare, with energy and without much regard to expense. That species of gun, now universally known as the carronade, was his invention, and the result of a long and expensive course of experiments in artillery. At the time when the history of steam navigation commences, he had been engaged in attempts to improve naval architecture. For this purpose he commenced by building ships of a much greater length proportionally to their breadth, than formerly in use. Το render these long narrow vessels capable of carrying sail, they were to be united in pairs, to form what is called the twin-boat, and even in groups of three laid side by side, to form a triple boat, one of which he presented to the King of Sweden. Mr Miller was also engaged at the same time in a series of experiments on the efficiency of different methods of propelling vessels by other powers

than the force of wind. For this purpose he conceived a wheel, now commonly called a paddle wheel, to be the most effective, having the arms of the wheel immersed in the water, and flat boards placed on the spokes, at right angles to the direction of motion; it was only necessary to apply the strength of men to the crank handle of the wheels, and turn them round in order to propel the vessel forward by means of the resistance of the water to the floats of the wheel. By this means Mr Miller proposed to propel vessels in calms, or off a lee shore.*

In 1787 Mr Miller published an account of his naval experiments in a small volume which he printed at Edinburgh, in the French and English languages, and illustrated with plates and descriptions; and copies of it were presented to every sovereign in Europe, to the American States, and the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh,

This work is the more interesting, on account of containing the first announcement of the great experiment

*We do not find that Mr Miller any where claims absolute property in the invention of paddle wheels. We find the ROMAN soldiers were conveyed to Sicily in wheel boats, driven by oxen.

It is also said that there exist some ancient paintings on EGYPTIAN tombs which represent paddle boats propelled by oxen.

With the use of wheel boats for purposes of war, it appears that the CHINESE have long been well acquainted. In the "Memoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les arts, &c. des Chinois," by the Jesuit missionaries at Pe-Kin, there is, at page 343, the following passage:-" Fig. 94, pourroit donner lieu à quelque invention utile pour faire avancer nos vaisseaux en tems de calme." On turning to the figure, we find the following very respectable war junk with two paddle wheels on each side, and this description -“Barque à roues "-forty-two feet long, thirteen feet wide. The wheels are in a recess, a foot wide, enclosed by strong planks ; from the centre of the wheels there project oars, forming as it were teeth to the wheels, which project into the water to a foot in depth. The wheels are turned by men inside the boats.

on steam navigation. The following passages from the book itself will enable the reader to judge of Mr Miller's merit, and may perhaps serve to throw some light on the character of the man :

"Inventions which have a tendency to promote the happiness or to increase the comforts of mankind in general, should, as soon as they have been brought to any kind of maturity, and can be described with tolerable precision, be communicated to the world at large. Impressed with this sentiment, I have caused to be engraved a plan and views of a triple vessel, constructed on a new principle, and also a plan and view of a wheel to give her motion through the water.

"The years I have applied myself to this subject, and the many experiments I have made with vessels which I caused to be built for the sole purpose of improving naval architecture, have given rise to the invention which I now communicate.

"The first and principal property of vessels constructed upon the plan here communicated, is derived from the wheels, the mechanism of which is simple and obvious. To work them, seamanship is not requisite; for

Tigers' heads are represented on moveable pannels, covered with brass, five feet high, and two feet wide, for the purpose of covering the soldiers in the boat from the enemy, and they are removed when it is intended to leave the vessel."

Wheel boats seem to have been one of Mr Savary's favourite projects before he invented his steam-engine. Indeed, from the fifteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, they seem to have been taken up incessantly by one projector after another, as an excellent mode of propelling.

In this country, horses were used for turning round paddles, and propelling a boat, at the end of the seventeenth century; and it is not long since they were so used in America in common ferry-boats.