The extent and importance which steam navigation has attained in a definite region have been indicated in the preceding paragraphs; but an attempt to show by illustration and description the several characteristic forms the steam-ship has now assumed in these lacustrine waters would carry us far beyond our allotted limits. The steam vessels now on the lakes are almost exclusively actuated by screw-propellers, whether they are passenger or freight boats. The boilers and engines are near the stern, and the hulls are usually of great length; in fact, some of these steamboats will compare in dimensions with the Persia, which was the transatlantic marvel about the year 1857. (See p. 137.) Such is the Mariposa, launched in 1892, which is 350 feet long and 45 feet broad, carrying 3,800 net tons, with a draught of only 15½ feet. There are others, 380 feet long, with engines of 7,000 horse-power, steaming at 20 miles an hour, and providing ample accommodation for 600 passengers. The newest and most novel type of steam-ship on the lakes is the “whaleback.” The celerity with which ships of this kind have been constructed on occasion is perfectly marvellous. One of them, named the Christopher Columbus, designed to carry passengers to and from the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893, was launched in fifty-six days after the keel had been laid, yet it was a ship intended to carry 5,000 passengers, having a length over all of 362 feet, breadth 42 feet, depth 24 feet. The “whaleback” steamers are designed to give the greatest carrying capacity with a given draught of water, and all the structures usually fitted to the upper deck of a steamer are in them replaced by the plain curved and closed deck, over which, when the vessel is in a storm, waves may sweep harmlessly, thus avoiding the shocks received by ships with high sides.

The river steam-boat was, as we have seen, nearly coeval with the nineteenth century, and although its practicability was first demonstrated in British waters, regular steam navigation was not established until a few years afterwards, when, in 1807, Robert Fulton placed on the River Hudson its first steam-boat. To this others were soon added, so that in 1813 there were six steam-boats regularly plying on the Hudson before a single one ran for hire on the Thames. An article by Mr. Samuel Ward Stanton, in a recent number of The Engineering Magazine, gives a very full account of the Hudson River steam-boats from the beginning down to 1894, and to this article we are mainly indebted for the details we are about to give.

The Hudson River washes the western shore of Manhattan Island, on which stands by far the greater part of the city of New York, with its vast population. The river is here straight, and has a nearly uniform width of one mile; at New York it is commonly called the North River, because of the direction of its course, for it descends from almost the due north. It is not one of the great rivers of the United States as regards length or extent of navigation; not, e.g., like the Mississippi and the Missouri, which are ascended by steam-boats to thousands of miles above their mouths; but it has one of the world’s great capitals on its shores, and at the quays, which occupy both its banks to the number of eighty or more, may be seen in multitudes some of the finest ocean-going steamships, trading to every considerable port in the world. The North River separates New York from what are practically the populous suburbs of Jersey City and Hoboken, though these are controlled by their own municipalities.

It was on the River Hudson that steam navigation was inaugurated by Fulton with a vessel which was 133 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 7 feet deep, and was named the Clermont. The speed attained was but five miles an hour. The first trip was made on the 7th August, 1807, to Albany, 150 miles up the river from New York, with twenty-four passengers on board, and the new kind of locomotion was so well patronised that during the following winter, when the Hudson navigation had to be suspended on account of the ice, it was considered expedient to enlarge the capacity of the boat by adding both to her length and width; at the same time her name was changed to The North River, and she plied regularly for several seasons afterwards. Her speed down the river with the current was evidently greater than that of the first trip up the river, for on 9th November, 1809, the New York Evening Post announced that “The North River steam-boat arrived this afternoon in twenty-seven and a half hours from Albany, with sixty passengers.”

The paddle-wheels were of a primitive form, and as they were unprovided with paddle-boxes, the arrangement had the appearance of a great undershot mill-wheel on each side of the boat, above the deck of which was placed the steam-engine, a position it has retained in all these river-boats, in which a huge, rhombus-shaped beam, oscillating high above the deck, is a conspicuous feature. Another boat of much larger dimensions was built the following year, having a tonnage of nearly 300, and from that time there has been a more or less regular increase in the sizes of the vessels, until in 1866 a tonnage of nearly 3,000 was reached. In 1817 a vessel called the Livingstone was launched, which was able to go up to Albany in eighteen hours. In 1823 was launched the James Kent, a novel feature in which vessel was the boiler made of copper, and weighing upwards of 30 tons. It was so planned that if it happened to burst, the hot water would be carried through the bottom of the vessel by tubes or hollow pillars. From this it appears that considerable apprehension existed as to the liability of the boilers exploding. We are told that the cost of the copper boiler was in this case nearly one-third of that of the whole vessel. The cabins are described as having been very handsomely fitted up, and the speed was such that fourteen hours sufficed for the trip up river to Albany. Many fine boats were placed on the river during the twenty following years, and these were marked by various improvements, as when, in 1840, anthracite coal was for the first time substituted for wood as the fuel for the furnaces, with the effect of reducing the cost of this item to one-half. Then, in 1844, iron began to be used for constructing the hulls, and a few years afterwards, steamers having a speed of twenty miles an hour and over, became quite common. In 1865, and again in the eighties, some four screw-propeller boats were built; but this type does not appear to have found much favour on the Hudson, for the large paddle-wheels and the single or double beam, working high above the deck, have continued the almost universal form of construction. A very popular and famous boat was placed on the Hudson in 1861. This was the Mary Powell, called the “Queen of the Hudson,” which, although a boat of moderate tonnage (983), was able on occasion to steam at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. This vessel was placed on the line between New York and Rondont, and was still running in 1894.

One of the most modern and most elegant boats on the Hudson is the New York, launched in 1887, and declared by Mr. Stanton to be one of the finest river steam-boats in the world, well arranged, and beautifully finished and furnished. She is built on fine lines, is 311 feet long, 40 feet broad, and with a tonnage of 1,552, draws only 12¼ feet of water. She can steam at twenty miles an hour, and is placed on one of the New York and Albany lines. Throughout the summer there are both day and night boats for Albany, and the latter especially are of great size, three stories high, and provided with saloons, state-rooms, and, in fact, all the accommodation of a luxurious first-class hotel. The vessels named in this notice include but a few of the splendid boats that ply on the River Hudson, and, in respect of their numbers, speed, and comfort, it may safely be asserted that they cannot be equalled on any other river in the world.