When the prehistoric man was returning home from his day’s fishing or hunting, and the evening breeze had died away to a flat calm so that the primitive sail became for the time a hindrance rather than a saving of labour, and the tired navigator was compelled reluctantly to resort to his paddles once more—it was, no doubt, then that our ancestry was first inoculated with the germ for desiring some mechanical form of propulsion, and the fever went on developing until it broke out in full infection when the possibilities of steam were beginning to be weighed.

The earliest records of the employment of some artificial means for sending the ship along are not preserved to us, although it is certain that repeated attempts were made in many ages to do without oars and sails. When slave labour was cheap and plentiful, and this could easily be turned into propelling power, perhaps it was hardly likely that there would be much incentive for discovering or rediscovering such forces as steam to do the work of physical energy. It seems to me to be a curious and interesting fact that it was not until the freedom of the individual from some sort of slavery and servitude—whether belonging to ancient times or the Middle Ages—began to be asserted that there was any real progress made in labour-saving devices. The dignity of man, and his superiority as a being possessed of intelligence and discernment, and, consequently, his right to be considered as something more than a drawer of water, a hewer of wood, and the motive force for any method of transport, had fully to be recognised and appreciated before means were earnestly sought to save human labour. The cry of the last few years and the tendency exhibited by many world movements have been all for asserting the right of the individual. The French Revolution, the American War of Independence, the rise of Socialism of some sort or another in most civilised countries, have happened collaterally with the progress of machinery, and the development of power independent of physical force, necessitating less and less the expenditure of human energy. Never in the history of the world has so much been accomplished for obtaining mechanical energy as within the last hundred and fifty years, and never perhaps has the individual been able to possess himself of so much freedom.

But even in those days when slaves could be made to work to the limits of their endurance, it is fairly evident that man believed that there was a future for the mechanical propulsion of ships, and the usual form which this took was of applying paddle-wheels to the side of the ship, and revolving these by means of a capstan turned either by slaves or by oxen. The Chinese, it is scarcely to be wondered at, adopted this means, and so also did the Romans. In 264 B.C., when Appius Claudius Caudex one dark night crossed the Straits of Messina to Sicily, he transported the troops in boats propelled by paddle-wheels through the medium of capstans revolved by oxen, and there is in existence an ancient bas-relief which shows a galley with three wheels on either side to be used for this purpose. Over and over again this same idea was exploited, and even as recently as 1829 Charles Napier, a British naval officer, when he was in command of the frigate Galatea, was by special permission of the Admiralty allowed to fit her with paddles, which were worked by winches on the main deck. He found that in a calm he could thus get his ship along at three knots an hour, and tow a line-o’-battle ship at one and a half knots. But it was noticed then, what experimenters of this nature always found in every age, that, firstly, this method of capstan-plus-paddle-wheels was good only for a short distance; and, secondly, that so great an expenditure of physical force could be more advantageously applied by using the old-fashioned method of rowing.

Many a student and philosopher pictured in his mind some novel method for doing away with sails and oars, among whom we might mention Roger Bacon; but most of these theories seem not to have gone farther than the walls of the study. In 1543 another attempt was made by one Blasco de Garray, on June 17. Himself a native of Biscay, he proceeded to Barcelona, and experimented first with a vessel of 109 tons, and later with one of about twice the size. For many years it was commonly, but erroneously, stated that this was the first steamship. Apart altogether from the unlikeliness of this being the case at so early a date, it has now been proved to be little better than a fable based on insufficient evidence. Even to this present day this inaccuracy is still repeated, and it is not out of place to emphasise the fact yet again that de Garray’s was not a steamship. Special research has been undertaken in the Royal archives of Simancas by able and discriminating students, and the result is that, while it was found that two separate experiments were made with two different vessels, and that one ship had a paddle-wheel on either side worked by twenty-five men, and the other ship by forty men, and that a speed equal to three and a half English miles per hour was obtained, yet there was discovered among these manuscripts no mention whatsoever of the use of steam. The vessels were found to steer well, but the same conclusion was again arrived at—viz. that for a passage of any length it was far easier to use oars.

The idea, however, was not dead, and we find it coming up again in the time of Elizabeth. During her reign there were numbers of little books issued to make the seamen more efficient, and these, of course, deal with the sailing ship. One of the most entertaining that I know of is that entitled “Inventions or Devises Very necessary for all Generalles and Captaines, or Leaders of men, as well by Sea as by Land: Written by William Bourne.” It was published in London in 1578, and is full of fascinating matter for preventing the enemy from boarding ships, and useful tips for sinking him even when he is superior in strength and size to the ship he is attacking. Bourne mentions the following “devise” on page 15:—“And furthermore you may make a Boate to goe without oares or Sayle, by the placing of certaine wheels on the outside of the Boate, in that sort, that the armes of the wheeles may goe into the water, and so turning the wheeles by some provision, and so the wheeles shall make the Boate to goe.” And the next “devise” refers to the fact that “also, they make a water Mill in a Boate, for when that it rideth at an Anker, the tyde or streame will turne the wheeles with great force, and these Milles are used in France.”

In another interesting sixteenth century book, full of curious and wonderful machines, entitled “Theatrum Instrumentorum et Machinarum Jacobi Bessoni, Mathematici ingeniosissimi,” published in 1582, there are detailed illustrations and descriptions of a curious ship which is in shape something like a heart, the bow being the apex, so to speak; the stern has two ends, between which is fitted a species of paddle-wheel of unusual kind. It consists of a cigar-shaped object of wood, not unlike a modern torpedo, but broader. Through this is an axle which allowed the wheel to revolve freely, and on the axle at either end rests a vertical spar, which is fastened to another spar at the top parallel with the wheel. From the centre of this spar an enormous kind of mast or sprit rose high up into the air, which was worked by means of a tackle and ropes leading down to a winch, turned by two men. Thus, if the reader will imagine an object resembling one of those rollers employed in the preservation of a cricket pitch, but made of wood instead of metal, he will get something of the shape of this curious machine. Besson evidently thought a great deal of this invention and speaks of it as “inventum vix credibile,” but it was a clumsy method and cannot really have had many virtues to commend it.

Seven years after Besson’s publication there appeared another book which throws light on the prevailing passion for mechanical propulsion, though it refers back to the time of the ancient galley. In “The History of Many Memorable Things Lost, which were in use among the Ancients ... written originally in Latin by Guido Pancirollus, and now done into English Vol. i.,” published in London in 1715, but first issued in 1589, the following statement is made on page 120:—“I saw also the pictures of some ships, called Liburnæ which had three wheels on both sides, without, touching the water, each consisting of eight spokes, jetting out from the wheel about an hand’s breadth, and six oxen within, which by turning an engine stirr’d the wheels, whose Fellys [spokes], driving the water backwards, moved the Liburnians with such force that no three-oar’d gally was able to resist them.” This would seem to confirm the statement that the ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean certainly employed the paddle-wheel.

But a year before Pancirolli published his book there appeared another interesting work, which shows yet again that the employment of paddle-wheeled craft was far from non-existent. There is a scarce book in the British Museum, published in 1588, entitled “Le Diverse et Artificiose Machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli,” which is illustrated with some highly informative plates. Fig. CLII. shows a kind of pontoon, to be employed by the enemy in attacking a town from the other side of a stream or river. A horse brings a rectangular shaped construction down to the water’s edge, where it is launched and floats. Everywhere this kind of built-up dray is covered in, but in the bows a man is seen firing his harquebus from his protected shelter, while on either side of this craft a paddle-wheel is seen revolving with its six blades, that are not straight, as in the modern wheels, but curved inwards like a scythe. The illustration shows these wheels being turned by a man standing up inside; the wheels are quite open, without paddle-boxes. An oar projecting at the stern enables the craft to be steered.

We see, then, that that earliest form of ship propulsion by mechanical means, the paddle-wheel, was thoroughly grafted into man’s mind long before he had brought about the steamboat. We cannot give here every theory and suggestion which the seventeenth century put forward, but we can state that during this period various patents were being taken out for making boats to go against wind and tide, some of which were conspicuously distinguished by their display of ingenuity to overcome the forces of Nature. We come across all sorts of ideas for “to make boats, shippes, and barges to go against strong wind and tide,” “to draw or haul ships, boates, etc., up river against the stream,” “to make boates for the carryage of burthens and passengers upon the water as swifte in calms and more saft [sic] in stormes than boates full sayled in greater wynes.” The Marquis of Worcester, in 1663, published a little book entitled “A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Inventions,” and he himself patented an invention for sending a boat against the stream by using the actual force of the wind and stream in a reverse manner. But the fact to be borne in mind for our present purpose is that from all these ingenious propositions nothing practical ever evolved that was found to be of any service to man, or the transportation of his commerce. At any rate, there is no record of this.

Now that we have traced in outline the vain attempts at physical propulsion, let us turn to take a view of the evolution of that other invention whose advent alone delayed the practical utility of the paddle-wheel to boats. Who shall say how it was that steam came first to be regarded as a means of giving power? In certain parts of the world, where geysers and boiling springs existed, man must naturally have been struck by the elastic force which steam possessed. An intellect which had any leaning to the side of practical economy must have reasoned that here was a valuable force running to waste, which might have been employed in the service of mankind, just as the swift-running rivers could be made to turn the water-wheels. But, as we said just now, steam was not wanted yet, for human labour was too cheap to bother about it; and we might remark incidentally that it was owing to this same cheapness that the galley, or rowing craft, was encouraged for many centuries in the Mediterranean, to the partial exclusion and great discouragement of the big sailing ship. Indeed, slavery, or abundance of cheap, compulsory labour, has been the means of holding back the progress of the world. Had the big sailing ships come at an earlier date the far-off countries would have been discovered much sooner, and the study of the properties of steam—or some other means as the equivalent of physical power—would have been regarded with a greater enthusiasm. Perhaps it would be more accurate to speak of the re-discovery of steam than of its invention: for as early as 130 B.C. Hero, of Alexandria, had written a treatise on “Pneumatics,” and described a light ball supported by a jet of steam which came out of a pipe into a cup, much as one sees in the rural fairs of to-day the same idea used when the force of water raises a light ball for the bucolic rifleman to shoot at. Hero also referred to the “aeolipile,” which was a hollow ball mounted on its axis between two pivots, one of which was hollow and acted as a steam pipe. Two nozzles formed part of the ball and were fitted at right angles to the pivots on which the ball revolved, and owing to the reaction caused by the escape of the steam from the jets touching the ball the latter was made to revolve. This is well illustrated in the plate facing page 18.

From the time of Hero to the seventeenth century ensues a wide hiatus, although in the meantime there were not wanting some who now and again added slightly to the body of knowledge which the world possessed on the subject. Of these we might mention such names as Archimedes in the second century B.C., and Mathesius in the sixteenth century A.D. But Solomon de Caus, or Carrs, in the first half of the seventeenth century showed that the steam given off by boiling water could be used for raising water, and Giovanni Branca, about the same time, brought about what is really the progenitor of the modern turbine. In this seventeenth century, also, another ingenious Italian, Evangelista Torricelli, proved that the atmosphere in which we live possessed weight, and to-day everyone is aware that this is so, and that the pressure of the air is 15 lb. per square inch. The working of the mercurial barometer is the simplest proof of this. We shall see presently how an isolated fact unearthed in one age becomes the foundation of the mighty success of a later inventor, and thus the assertion which we made on an earlier page, that the credit of inventing the steamboat belongs neither to one man nor to one age, is not devoid of truth.

Otto von Guericke, about the middle of the same century, showed the practical utility of producing a vacuum, of which the syringe and the common suction pump are such excellent examples. But we are not writing a history of inventions, nor of steam, but of the steamship, and we shall pass on presently to see how each of these separate important discoveries eventually blended to form the subject of our present study. In 1663 Edward Somerset, the second Marquis of Worcester, to whom we have already referred, also published his description of “An Admirable and most Forcible Way to drive up Water by Fire,” and in this year he obtained protection by Act of Parliament for his “water commanding engine.” When he had interested himself so much in the problem of sending a craft against a current, and simultaneously was obtaining success in the development of steam power, it certainly seems a little strange that the Marquis did not advance just that one step farther which was necessary to complete the syllogism, and apply steam for the purpose of solving the problem of going against the tide or stream. That, however, was reserved for another inventor, and of a different nationality.

And so we come to one whose name is deserving of especial mention in the history of the steamship, for it was he who was the first to do what myriads of others have since done. Many writers have asserted wrongly that this man or the other was the first to succeed: they have gone back as far as de Garray and as short a distance as Fulton. Some have stated timidly and with reserve that Denis Papin is said to have been associated with this honour. But there can be no manner of doubt that to Papin certainly belongs the high distinction of having caused the steamboat to be an actual fact and not merely a figment of imagination. Papin was a French engineer, who, being a Calvinist was, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, obliged to go into exile. For that reason, therefore, he betook himself to the Court of the Landgrave of Hesse, where he found refuge. In 1690 he published a suggestion for obtaining power by means of steam. His idea was to have a cylinder made of thin metal; water was to be placed therein and heated. In the cylinder were to be also a piston and rod on which was a latch, and when the water had been heated sufficiently so that enough steam had been generated, the piston would be moved upwards and be kept there by means of the latch. Thereupon the fire was to be taken away, and, the steam then condensing, as soon as the latch was loosed the piston was bound to drop to the bottom of the cylinder; and if a rope and pulley were attached to the rod, then the descent of the piston would be able to raise a weight at the end of the rope. This was practically what was afterwards known as the atmospherical engine, and Papin was of the opinion that it could be employed for draining rivers, throwing bombs and other purposes. But it is especially notable for our purpose that he firmly believed that it could be employed for rowing a craft against the wind, and indeed would be preferable to the working of galley slaves for getting quickly over the sea; for men, he explained, occupied too much space, consumed too much food, and his tubes and pumps would make a far less cumbersome arrangement. It is worth while noting that the idea of these early inventors of the steamboat was not so much to propel the ship as to row her mechanically by oars or paddles. We still call them paddle-wheels rather than propelling wheels, and the early wheels used for the steamboat were practically paddles placed crosswise, with a blade at the end of each spar. When fitted to an axle, of course, they moved in a circular fashion. The French “roue à aubes,” which is the expression that these French inventors made use of in describing their creations, conveys precisely the same idea.

Papin, casting about for some method of bringing about the steamboat, suggests the use of these rotatory oars, and mentions having seen them fixed to an axle in a boat belonging to Prince Robert of Hesse. This latter was one more of those attempts to propel a craft by physical means, for these revolving oars were turned by horses. Papin, in considering the matter, thought that instead of horses the wheels might be made to go round by steam force, and in 1707 he actually constructed the first steamboat, which he successfully navigated on the River Fulda, in Hanover. He even did so well that he set off in her to steam down to the sea and cross to London; but, of course, the old, conservative prejudice of the local boatmen was bound to make its appearance as soon as so historical a craft had shown her ability. And so, arriving at Münden, the watermen, either through fear that this new self-propelling craft would take away their livelihood through inaugurating a fresh era, or, being envious of a success which no man had ever before obtained, they attacked this steamboat, smashed it to pieces, and Papin himself barely escaped with his life. Thus, a craft and its engines, which to-day would be welcomed by any museum in the world, was annihilated by the men who had the privilege of witnessing the first steamship. Papin never got over the grief caused by so cruel a reception of his brilliant labours, and it is deplorable to think that such scant encouragement was possible. Besides being the successful originator of the steamboat, he was also the inventor of the safety valve.

The publication of Papin’s correspondence with Leibnitz puts the case beyond all possibility of doubt, and the reader who cares to pursue the subject will find the facts he requires in “Leibnizens und Huygens’ Briefwechsel mit Papin,” by Dr. Ernst Gerland. From this we see that Papin had already published a treatise dealing with the application of heat and water. In a letter, dated March 13, 1704, he wrote to Leibnitz of his intention to build a boat which could carry about four thousand pounds in weight, and expressed the opinion that two men would be able to make this craft easily and quickly to ascend the current of a river by means of a wheel which he had adjusted for utilising the oars. That Papin made no aimless plunge, but went into the matter scientifically, is quite clear. He studied carefully the important fact of the resistance which is offered to a vessel passing through the water, and thus found what he believed to be the correct lines on which his ship was to be built. He shows that he had been hard at work expanding his theories, and was longing to have the opportunity to put them to a practical test. On July 7, 1707, he writes to say that he has many enemies at Cassel (where he was then sojourning) and contemplates going to England; and in asking permission so to do he brings forward the plea that it is important that the new type of ship should have a chance of proving its worth in a seaport such as London. He does not conceal the great faith which he reposes in this novel craft: “qui, par le moien du feu, rendra un ou deux hommes capables de faire plus d’effect que plusieurs centaines des rameurs.” Then, writing again to Leibnitz, also from Cassel, under date of September 15 of the same year, relating the result of his experiment of this first steamboat, he remarks: “Je Vous diray que l’experience de mon batteau a êté faitte et qu’elle a reussi de la manière que Je l’esperois: la force du courant de la riviere ètoit si peu de chose en comparaison de la force de mes rames qu’on avoit de la peine à reconnoitre qu’il allât plus vite en dêcendant qu’en montant.”

With such statements as these before us, we can no longer be in any doubt as to the first author of the steamboat.

Papin had discovered a method of producing a vacuum by the condensation of steam, but Thomas Savery is one of the many instances of the case where two men in different countries were working separately and unknown to each other at a common problem. The latter had patented an apparatus for raising water by the impellent force of fire so far back as the year 1698, or nine years before Papin’s steamboat made her appearance; but he had also independently discovered a method of producing a vacuum by the condensation of steam just as had Papin. And this same Savery had shown that the same problem which Papin had succeeded in solving was also interesting himself: for he had gone so far as to ask for a patent for an invention for moving a paddle-wheel on either side of a ship by means of a capstan, which capstan was to be revolved by men. Eventually it occurred to him, as it had not occurred to the Marquis of Worcester, that steam might be employed as helpful to ships. Nevertheless, Savery did not carry this idea to any practical test.

We come now to Thomas Newcomen, who, notwithstanding the fact that his home was at Dartmouth, where in the Elizabethan years so much had been done in connection with ship-building and the sending forth of so many naval expeditions across the seas, does not seem ever to have done anything directly for the development of the steamboat. But indirectly Newcomen did much, and the machine which he introduced, and with which his name is inseparably connected, was practically an English equivalent of Papin’s atmospheric engine, to which we have already referred. Newcomen’s engine is important to us, inasmuch as it embodied in a practical manner the main characteristics of what eventually became the familiar reciprocating steam engine; and had it not been for this, Watt might not have evolved his historic engine, and consequently Fulton not succeeded as he did. I shall endeavour not to weary the non-technical reader, but I must pause a moment here to give some idea of the nature of Newcomen’s engine, because of the close relation which it bears to the subsequent development of the steam engine as fitted in ships and boats. It consisted, then, of a vertical cylinder, which, unlike our modern cylinders, was open at the top. It was provided with a piston to which were attached chains that connected with one end of a beam, the centre of the beam being so fixed as to allow it to oscillate. Steam was generated in a boiler, on the top of which was a primitive cylinder, and by opening a valve, steam was admitted into the cylinder and so pushed up the piston. When the piston had reached the top of the cylinder the valve was closed so that the steam was shut off. Then cold water from a cistern was allowed to enter the bottom of the cylinder, and by this means the steam was condensed, so causing a vacuum; by the pressure of the air—which, as already mentioned, is 15 pounds to the square inch—the piston was forced down again. We get here, then, the essential features of that steam engine which is so familiar to all who travel by land or by sea. But these early atmospheric engines were not invented for the purpose of transport: it was for the pumping of water from mines that they were principally contrived, and in the case of the Newcomen engine, the other end of the beam opposite to that which was worked upwards by steam pressure (and downwards by atmospheric pressure) was attached to pump-rods that worked in connection with the buckets for pumping out the water. Thus, like the movement of the see-saw, when the piston-rod was down at the bottom of the cylinder the pump-rods were correspondingly elevated, and vice versa. As soon as the piston descended to the base of the cylinder through the cessation of the vacuum the spray of cold water was stopped, and steam was again admitted into the cylinder to cause another upward stroke. At the same time it was necessary to discharge the hot water which had accumulated at the bottom of the cylinder, and this was done through a pipe fitted with a valve which would not allow of its return; any air admitted with the steam and the cooling water was blown out through a snifting valve (so-called because of the noise it makes) as the powerful steam came in. But, the reader may ask, what about the open top of the cylinder? How can it be any good to use an uncovered cylinder in conjunction with steam? The answer is, that since the top of the piston was always kept flooded with water, all air was excluded.

We have thus seen the steam engine in its most elementary form; how that it employs boiling water until it becomes steam which is then admitted to a cylinder and by its own force moves a tight-fitting disc or piston up and down. We have also seen that by attaching a rod to this disc, and, further, by connecting this rod to a beam, we can make the latter go up (by means of the steam pressure) or come down (through the pressure of the air). In order to effect the latter we have remarked the fact that a vacuum had to be made by condensing the steam through spraying cold water.

With this explanation in the mind of the general reader, to whom engineering matters do not usually appeal, we may proceed with the progress of our story, and pass on to the year 1730, when a method differing entirely from any that we have yet mentioned was brought forward. Strictly speaking it had nothing to do with steam, but, as we shall see when we come to consider the subject of steam lifeboats, it embodied an idea which could only be satisfactorily employed by the adoption of steam. In the year mentioned there was published a little book under the title “Specimina Ichnographica: or a Brief Narrative of several New Inventions and Experiments: particularly, The Navigating a Ship in a Calm, etc.,” by John Allen, M.D. The author’s idea was to propel a ship by forcing water, or some other fluid, through the stern by means of a proper engine. To this end he experimented with a tin boat 11 inches long, 5 inches broad and 6 inches deep. Placing this little ship into stagnant water, he loaded it until it sank in the water to a depth of 3¾ inches. Into the boat he also placed a cylindrical-shaped object 6 inches high and about 3 inches in diameter and filled it with water. At the bottom of the cylinder was a small pipe, a quarter of an inch square, and this led through the stern of the craft at a distance of an inch and a half below the surface of the water in which the boat was floating. As soon as Allen removed his finger from the outlet of the pipe in the stern the water, of course, ran out from the cylinder, and this action caused the boat to travel, the speed being reckoned, in the case of the model, at about one-fifth of a mile per hour. Although nothing actually came of this theory at the time, it is none the less perfectly workable, with some adaptations, and some of the steam lifeboats, in order to avoid using propellers, which are liable to get foul of wreckage when going alongside a ship in distress, have an elaboration of this principle. They are propelled by engines which work a pump that drives a stream of water through pipes placed below the water-line in much the same manner as in Allen’s model. Allen at first contemplated working the pumps by men, and then causing them to be driven by an atmospheric steam engine. A similar device was employed in Virginia, U.S.A., by James Rumsey in 1787. In his boat water was sucked in at the bow and ejected at the stern. It was found that as long as the vessel travelled at all she went at the rate of four miles an hour, but as she only covered less than a mile and then stopped, it cannot be said that this experiment was conclusive. In 1788, the following year, however, another boat was made actually to go a distance of four miles in one hour, and the device was patented in that country during the year 1791, but Allen had already patented his invention in England thirty years earlier.

It is when we come to Jonathan Hulls or Hull that we encounter the first Englishman to apply steam to ships. Hulls was a native of Gloucestershire, who, in 1736, patented a method of propelling vessels by steam, and in the following year issued a booklet on the subject of his invention which was subsequently reprinted. The title reads thus: “A Description and Draught of a New-Invented Machine for Carrying Vessels or ships out of or into any harbour, port or river, against wind and tide or in a calm ... by Jonathan Hulls.” His idea was to provide a steam tug so that it should be able to render beneficial service to those sailing ships accepting it. His preference for placing the “machine,” or engines, into a separate ship, and thus using her as a tug-boat, instead of installing the engines on board each vessel was because he believed the “machine” might be thought cumbersome and take up too much room in a vessel laden with cargo. But besides the advantage of having a tow-boat always in readiness in any port, he suggested that an old ship which was not able to go far abroad could well be adapted for receiving this “machine.”

“In some convenient part of the Tow-Boat,” he explains, “there is placed a Vessel about two-thirds full of Water, with the Top close shut. This Vessel being kept boiling, rarefies the Water into a Steam: this Steam being convey’d thro’ a large Pipe into a Cylindrical Vessel and there condens’d, makes a Vacuum, which causes the weight of the Atmosphere to press on this Vessel, and so presses down a Piston that is fitted into this Cylindrical Vessel in the same manner as in Mr. Newcomen’s Engine, with which he raises Water by Fire.”

It will thus be seen that Hulls was an adapter of Newcomen’s atmospherical engine to marine purposes rather than an actual inventor of something new and unheard of. But Hulls seems to have anticipated this criticism, for he adds: “if it should be said that this is not a New Invention, because I make use of the same Power to drive my Machine that others have made use of to Drive theirs for other Purposes, I Answer, The Application of this Power is no more than the Application of any common and known Instrument used in Mechanism for new-invented Purposes.”

We have already noticed that the most which Newcomen could get out of his engine was an up-and-down movement, which was all very well for the purpose for which it was intended, namely, pumping up water, but before it was applicable for propelling a ship the power had to be adapted to give a rotary motion. The accompanying illustration, which is taken from Hulls’ specification for his patent, and reproduced in the booklet mentioned above, will afford some idea of his proposal. In the lower half of the picture the “tow-boat” is seen in imagination hauling an eighteenth century full-rigged ship, a performance which in actual truth she never achieved. There is, in fact, some doubt as to whether Hulls ever did put the idea to a practical test. Admiral Preble, a distinguished American Naval officer, in his “Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation,” published in Philadelphia in 1883, a volume which contains a vast amount of interesting detail up to that date, says that Hulls did not produce a satisfactory experiment. Scott Russell, one of the greatest authorities on such matters in the nineteenth century, affirmed that Hulls did carry out his theory in definite shape, and the recent “Dictionary of National Biography” also states that at any rate he experimented with a vessel on the River Avon in the neighbourhood of Evesham in 1737. One thing is certain, that whatever merits the proposition might have had in certain respects, it was, commercially, a complete failure. On the other hand, in enunciating a method of converting the rectilineal motion of the piston-rod into a rotary movement Hulls undoubtedly showed the direction in which others were to follow.

In the upper half of the illustration of Hulls’ drawing, beginning at the bottom right-hand corner, we see the details of his “machine.” P is the pipe which comes from the furnace and brings the steam to Q, the cylinder in which the steam was also condensed. (This last remark is important to bear in mind, as we shall see later to what extent this feature was modified.) The point marked R is the valve which enables the steam to be cut off from entering the cylinder whilst that amount of steam which has already been allowed to go in is being condensed. The other small pipe S conveys the cooling water which condenses the steam in the cylinder, and T is the cock which lets in the condensing water after the cylinder is full of steam and the valve is shut. U is the rope which is fixed to the piston that slides up and down the cylinder, and this is the same rope that goes round the wheel D in the machine shown in the larger illustration.

In this latter picture, too, wherein the tow-boat is seen steaming along, A denotes, of course, the chimney “coming from the furnace,” while B is the tow-boat and CC are the two pieces of timber which are framed to support the machine. It will be noticed that inboard are three wheels marked respectively Da, D, and Db. These are on one axis and receive the ropes as shown. Ha and Hb are two wheels also on the same axis projecting beyond the stern, and the six fans or paddles are marked I, which move alternately in such a manner that when the wheels Da, D, and Db move backwards or forwards they keep the fans or paddles in a direct motion. When these three wheels Da, D, and Db move forward then the rope Fb must move the wheel Hb forward, and so cause the paddles to revolve in the same direction. So also the rope Fa connects the wheel Ha to Da, and when the latter and its two sister wheels revolve the wheel Da, then the wheel Ha draws the rope F and raises the weight G (barely decipherable in the sketch to the left of Da), at the same time as the wheel Hb brings the paddles forward.

Furthermore, when the weight G is raised while the wheels Da, D and Db are moving backwards, the rope Fa gives way and the power of the weight G brings the wheel Ha forward and the paddles with it: so that the latter always keep going forward, notwithstanding that the three wheels Da, D, and Db move backwards and forwards as the piston moves up and down in the cylinder. LL—scarcely recognisable owing to the reduction of the sketch—indicate the teeth for a catch to drop in from the axis, and are so contrived that they catch in an alternate manner to cause the paddles to move always forward, for the wheel Ha, by the power of the weight G, is performing its work while the other wheel Hb goes back in order to fetch another stroke. Hulls explains that the weight G must contain but half the weight of the pillar of air pressure on the piston, because the weight G is raised at the same time as the wheel Hb is doing its duty, so that in effect there are really two machines acting alternately by the weight of one pillar of air of such a diameter as is the diameter of the cylinder.

Hulls expressed another crude idea for when the ship was navigating “up in-land Rivers” and the bottom could be reached. The paddles were then to be removed and “cranks placed at the hindmost Axis to strike a Shaft to the bottom of the River, which will drive the Vessel forward with greater Force.”

Daniel Bernoulli, in the year 1753, proved on paper that it was mathematically possible to use a steam engine for propelling ships, the medium being also wheels with vanes attached. There were not wanting other theories and experiments also in the eighteenth century which attained little or no success, their defects arising sometimes through lack of sufficient power to go against a stream, or through some erroneous principle. Of these we might mention especially the experiment made in France by Périer, who, after devoting careful consideration to the problem of the amount of power required, and, after reckoning the necessary force likely to be essential, by the number of horses which were required for drawing along a boat from the towing-path, set to work in his own manner. It happened that in the year 1775, to which we are now referring, there was on view in Paris a unique engine which the now famous and ever memorable James Watt had made. This aroused so much interest that it was decided to hire a boat on the Seine and place therein a Watt machine of one horse-power. Périer carried out his experiment, though owing to the force of the current of the Seine, and the too limited horse-power which the engine was capable of producing, the result was a failure. But one of Périer’s associates, the Marquis de Jouffroy, had also been excited by the advent of this English engine which was an improvement on anything that the world had yet seen, and he resolved to try for himself to find some means of making a ship to go against swift-running rivers independent of horse-towage. In spite of the prejudice which was likely to be aroused in case he should prove successful (for the owners of the monopoly of the more primitive form of inland water transport would not quietly consent to see their living taken away from them), he set forth with considerable courage and an heroic determination. Since it is doubtful whether these interesting experiments would ever have been made had it not been for the happy coincidence of Watt’s engine becoming known when it did, it is only right that we should first see something of the circumstances which combined to bring the Englishman’s work into such prominence, and then return to follow de Jouffroy in his efforts.

To James Watt, notwithstanding that his work and ingenuity were expended for the purpose of land engines, belongs the honour of having removed the most harassing obstacles which were delaying the full and entire possibility of the marine steam engine. In the chain of discoveries which leads back into early times, without whose cumulative effect he himself would not have done what he did, James Watt comes immediately next to Thomas Newcomen. Despised in his weak, delicate boyhood by his companions, his is another instance of the stone which the builders rejected becoming the head corner-stone. Or, to put the proposition in another way, Watt absorbed all the existing good that there was in the latest engineering knowledge, and advanced that several steps further until it reached the goal of practicability.

In the Newcomen engine there were several notable defects which marred its usefulness, and it was not until these could be improved upon that there could possibly be a future for the steamboat. This type of “machine” was not closely enough related to the work which it was called upon to perform. Its pre-eminent fault lay in the fact that the condensation took place in the cylinder. This meant a considerable waste, for after the latter had been made cool by the admission of the cold water for condensing the steam, the cylinder had to be heated again before every upward stroke. Heat, in fact, was literally thrown away. It was in the year 1764 that Watt, while endeavouring to repair a model of one of these Newcomen engines and to remedy its poor performance, was struck by the inadequacy of its mechanism and realised that some means should be found to ensure a greater economy of steam. From his ingenious brain, therefore, came an improvement. He provided for the condensation to take place not in the cylinder but in a separate condenser, in which a jet of water was to spray, and finally the condensed steam, the injected water, and the air which had also found its way in, were to be drawn off by means of an air-pump. After a delay of several years Watt was introduced to Matthew Boulton, founder of the Soho Engineering Works, near Birmingham, and in 1769 Watt’s invention, embodying the principle of the separate condenser, was patented. Although he had worked out his idea as far back as the year 1765, it was not till four years after that he had the means to secure its protection. In the specification for his patent Watt enunciated what is appreciated as an essential doctrine to-day, that the walls of the cylinder should be maintained at the same heat as the steam which was about to enter into the cylinder. And he proposed to bring about this improvement by adding an external casing to the cylinder, leaving a space between the casing and the outside of the cylinder itself and keeping always in this space steam so as to preserve a high temperature.

But, as was mentioned on a previous page, the steam engine at this date was not developed with a view to transport, but for the convenience of pumping up water from mines. As a result of Watt’s success a considerable demand arose among Cornish mine-owners for these engines made by Boulton and Watt, who were now working in partnership together. For the work of pumping, these machines continued to serve admirably, so long as a vertical up-and-down motion was required. At length Watt turned his mind to some method of obtaining rotary movement from his engine, but in a manner different from that in which Hulls had attempted to attain his end. Watt had covered in the top of his cylinder to keep out the cooling effect of the air, and his well-known beam pumping engine was an improvement on Newcomen’s, owing to the simple fact that in economising steam it halved the cost of fuel, and not even to-day are these old-fashioned engines in disuse. As we shall see later on, the beam engine is very much in evidence in some of the river steamships of the United States, apart altogether from those beam engines which are still worked for pumping in some parts of our own country.

With such satisfactory results to encourage him it was inevitable that sooner or later so brilliant a schemer would think out some means for rotary movement, and Watt’s first intention was to cause the beam (which was pushed up by the rod joining the piston) to drive a fly-wheel by introducing a crank in something of the same manner in which nowadays the crank of a bicycle drives round the cog-wheel, the cyclist’s leg being, so to speak, the connecting rod which joins the beam. But before Watt had a chance of getting legal protection for this method his secret was stolen by one of his workmen, named Pickard, who revealed it to a Bristol man of the name of Wasbrough, who was also in search of some method of obtaining rotary motion. The latter, therefore, having in 1780 obtained his patent by stealth, Watt was compelled to cast about for some other means of attaining the same end: but his fertile mind soon gave forth what was required, and in the following year he patented what is known as the “sun-and-planet” gear, which converted the vertical movement into a rotary. Put in a few words, the working of the engine was as follows: At the top was the straight beam of wood; from one side of this there hung vertically a rod which connected with the piston in the cylinder, and was thus made to go up and down as in the Newcomen engine. It will be remembered that in Newcomen’s machine, at the opposite end of the beam was the other rod for pumping the water. Now in Watt’s rotary engine the piston-rod was moved up and down as before, but the opposite rod, at the other end of the beam, was connected with a spur-wheel having cogs in it. There was also a large fly-wheel which had a similar cog-wheel on its shaft, and thus, as the piston rod pushed up its end of the beam the opposite end of the beam was lowered and its rod also. But through the arrangement of the two cog-wheels the connecting rod caused the fly-wheel to revolve, and at twice the rate at which it would have gone round had Watt’s original rod and crank idea been employed, for the “planet” cog-wheel goes round in a circle but does not revolve on its own axis. Some of his engines of this type were so arranged that the speed of the fly-wheel shaft was not so much greater than in the case where a crank was employed.

Thus, in this important adaptation of the vertical to the rotary movement, we get the nucleus of the future steamboat engine, which was to turn the paddle-wheels round. But Watt did not stop there. We have seen that whilst it was the steam which pushed the piston and its rod upwards, it was yet the pressure of the air and the weight of the parts which caused the piston and rod to descend. Now, as we have seen, Watt had already resolved to cover in the top of the cylinder in order to keep out the air from cooling the latter. It was, then, but a natural transition to utilise the steam not merely for pushing the piston upwards, but also for sending the same down after its ascent had been made. We thus get what is the well-known double-action of the modern reciprocating engine, in which steam is employed from either side of the piston alternatively, so that each stroke becomes a working stroke and the power of the engine is doubled. It was Watt who, as early as the year 1782, discovered the advantages which were possessed by the expanditure of steam, but as this does not enter into practical application just yet, we can postpone the subject to a later chapter. We need only emphasise the fact that the fly-wheel which is so familiar to all of us was the invention of Watt, and it is perhaps scarcely necessary to explain that the reason for the existence of this wheel is in order that it may, at the beginning of the stroke, when the engine is at its strongest, store up the surplus energy and give it back towards the end of the stroke. It thus maintains an equal motion throughout the whole stroke given forth by the piston and its rod.

The earliest marine steam engines were very much on these lines, then, and were really a slightly modified form of land engine. But, as we shall soon come to refer to the more complicated type of engine, and to make use of other terms, it may not be out of place here to deal at once with the expression “horse-power,” which is used for the purpose of indicating the force which an engine is capable of developing. The origin of this expression is not without interest, and Sir Frederick Bramwell, Bart., F.R.S., D.C.L., in his entertaining article on the life of Watt in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” points out that Savery, to whom we have referred, was accustomed to calculate that where any machinery had to be driven by means of a single horse, it would entail a stock of three of these animals being kept, so that one should be able always to be at work. Thus supposing that the power exerted by six horses was necessary to drive a pump, and Savery made an engine capable of doing the same work by mechanical means, he would call it not a six horse-power engine, but an eighteen horse-power. Watt, however, did not credit his engine with the idle horses. He satisfied himself that an average horse could continue working for several hours when exerting himself so as to raise one hundredweight to a height of 196 feet in one minute, which is about equal to lifting 22,000 pounds one foot high in the same time, as the reader will find by simple arithmetic. But in order that no purchaser of his engines should have any ground for complaint, Watt went one step better, and determined that each horse-power of his engine should be capable of raising to a height of one foot, in one minute, not 22,000 pounds, but 33,000 pounds, or half as much again. And so to-day when we speak of an engine possessing such and such horse-power we still mean that it is equivalent to such a power as would raise 33,000 foot-pounds per minute. I make no apology for dwelling to such an extent on this point, but since at least one writer on steamships has seen fit to refer to this assessment of horse-power as being entirely arbitrary, and to admit in the same paragraph that he was altogether ignorant as to what power a horse was actually capable of producing, I have thought it not inappropriate to make the point clear in the mind of the reader.