interior, furnishing safe channels for the transportation of its products. These are some of the most important commercial arteries of this vast empire the field upon which the steam navigation of the country is destined to act!

The expansive power of steam was early ascertained. Hero, of Alexandria, an individual who, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, was distinguished for his scientific attainments, describes, in a work entitled Spiritalia, a machine which he had invented long before the Christian era, for the purpose of ejecting boiling water from a globe through a pipe, by this power. That instrument, however, appears not to have been applied to any beneficial purpose, but was used for mere amusing experiments, and it is a somewhat remarkable fact, that the philosopher attributes to the agency of steam the mysterious music which is said to have broken forth every day from the statue of Memnon, at the rising of the sun. In the royal archives of the city of Salamanca, a record is alleged to have been lately discovered, purporting to be an account of a vessel which was propelled by steam in the port of Barcelona, during the year 1543, under the auspices of Blasco de Garay, an officer in the service of the Emperor Charles. We are informed that the engine consisted of a large tank of boiling water, acting upon moveable wheels on each side of the vessel, and that its action was witnessed by a large concourse of spectators, but that the obtuseness of that age gave no encouragement to the invention, and the machine was broken up. A statement founded upon an unauthenticated record should, we conceive, be received with scrupulous distrust; but if its truth is established, it exhibits the first recorded account of navigation by steam. Cardan and Mathesius, two mechanical philosophers, who flourished about the year 1571, appear also to have been acquainted with the power of steam. The former has given us ample evidence that he possessed a shadowy conviction that this agent might be applied to a machine somewhat similar to a modern steam-engine, while the latter has shown to us that he was acquainted with the fact that its condensation would produce a vacuum. At this early period the turnspit dog, which is known to have been formerly employed in the culinary department of our own country, had been invented, and it was at that time proposed to substitute for its use the whirling eolipile, an instrument formed for the purpose of exciting the force of combustion. Baptista Porta, a Neapolitan, who attracted some attention at the close of the sixteenth century, and De Causas, devoted their attention to the same object, and invented instruments for the raising of boiling water by steam, which were well known in their own day.

Thus far the power of steam was exclusively employed for the purpose of lifting water, and continued so to be used until the time of Brancas. This man, an Italian by birth, first proposed to direct the blast issuing from the pipe of the eolipile upon the leaves of a wheel, which might produce a rotary motion, and thus move machinery; and in this suggestion we discern the germ of that locomotive power which is now producing such important revolutions in mind and matter. The suggestion of Brancas was, however, improved by Bishop Wilkins, and Kircher, who proposed to apply two eolipiles to the same design; and we are now led to a consideration of the mechanical labors of the Marquis of Worcester. The English claim for that nobleman the merit of having first applied the power of steam to useful purposes, and allege that all the plans afterwards

successively adopted for the practical application of this agent to beneficial objects, were derived from his inventive genius. That Worcester, endowed with a distinguished genius for mechanical philosophy, did make valuable experiments with this agent in its direction to hydraulic purposes, and actually formed in his mind the airy outline of a steam-engine, if he did not construct the machine, it is difficult to deny. In a manuscript journal of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosmo de Medicis, who, in 1656, journeyed through a part of England, the following remarks may be found:-"His highness," says the duke, "that he might not use the day uselessly, went again after dinner to the other side of the city, extending his excursions as far as Vauxhall, beyond the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to see an hydraulic machine, invented by my Lord Somerset, the Marquis of Worcester. It raises water more than forty geometrical feet, by the power of one man only, and in a very short space of time will draw up four vessels of water through a tube or channel not more than a span in width." A project for the construction of some sort of a steam-engine appears to have been struggling in his mind long before his death, although the particular form of the machine cannot now be clearly ascertained. Alluding to this machine, he says, "By this I can make a vessel of as great burden as the river can bear, to go against the stream, and this engine is applicable to any vessel or boat whatsoever, without being therefore made on purpose, and worketh these effects. It roweth, it draweth, it driveth, if need be, to pass London Bridge against the stream, at low water."

Although Denys Papin, a French protestant, had invented the safety valve as early as 1680, the power of steam was not applied to any very advantageous result until the time of Savary. Early employed in the mines of Cornwall, and aware of the great expense required to keep them free from water, this person, chancing to be at a tavern in London, and throwing into the fire a Florence flask containing a small quantity of wine, perceived the wine to boil, and vapor issuing from the neck, while the interior became transparent. Seizing the flask, and plunging the end into a basin of water, a vacuum having been formed by the condensation of the steam, the water rushed in to occupy the vacant space.* The principle discovered by this experiment was immediately applied to the raising of water from the mines; and the labor of animals was thus superseded. The inventor, it appears, even proposed to apply the water used in his vessel to the turning of the water-wheel. We pass over the improvements made in the application of the steam power by Newcomen and Cawley, and the gradual and solid labors of James Watt, who brought the steamengine to great perfection, producing in it, as he first did, a sufficient power for the navigation of a ship. Nor is it designed here to describe the labors of Genevoix and the Comte de Auxiron, who made several attempts, the former in 1759, and the latter in 1774, to apply the power of steam to vessels without success. These enterprises were succeeded, in 1775, by similar efforts of the elder Perrier, who was afterwards instrumental in introducing steam-engines into France.

A claim has been set up in England to support the patent of Jonathan Hull for the application of steam to navigation, on the ground of a patent which was granted to him in 1736. This claim is found to be entirely

* See Hodge, on the steam-engine, a new work, now in the press of D. Appleton & Co

without foundation, the steam-engine at that period not having arrived to sufficient perfection to be used as a motive power. A steamboat is said also to have been constructed upon the Thames, by Prince Rupert, the action of which, we are informed, was probably witnessed by Papin, Savary, and Worcester; and as early as 1781 a steam-vessel, one hundred and fifty feet long, was launched upon the Saone, preparatory experiments having been made during the three years previous at Baume les Dames. The performance of that boat was, however, so successful, that it received a favorable report from the French Academy of Sciences. Down to this period the application of steam to vessels was merely experimental, no signal success having been obtained; and from that time we are to look to this country for the full development of that mighty power.

Down to the year 1783, the steam-engine, gradually improved by the inventive genius of successive machinists, had been applied with success to other objects than navigation, but was not used as a locomotive power with any considerable advantage. During that year Mr. James Rumsey, of Berkeley county, Virginia, and John Fitch, a watchmaker, of Philadel phia, directed their efforts to the application of steam to the purposes of navigation. These efforts were successful in enabling them to construct steamboats, patents of which were exhibited during the succeeding year to General Washington. Mr. Rumsey first perfected his plan to a condition for exhibition, while Fitch was successful in applying his power to practical purposes, by first launching a steamboat upon the waters of the Delaware. The boat employed by Mr. Fitch was propelled through the water by a system of paddles at the rate of about four miles an hour, and he soon adopted the precaution to send to Watt and Bolton a plan of his apparatus, for the purpose of obtaining an English patent from London. Rumsey, who in 1786 was successful in floating his boat upon the Potomac, used a pump that drew in water at the bow and forced it out at the stern; a system of propulsion which at any time must have failed. Nor were the public unwilling to discountenance the genius and enterprise of Fitch; for, on the 19th of March, 1787, an act was passed by the legis lature of New York, granting to John Fitch the sole and exclusive right of making and using every kind of boat or vessel impelled by steam, in all creeks, rivers, bays, and waters, within the territory and jurisdiction of New York, for fourteen years. While such efforts were made in this country, a portion of the scientific genius of Europe was devoted to the same subject. Miller, of Dalswinton, in Scotland, having substituted for paddles a triple vessel impelled by wheels, soon found that the application of human labor to turn the crank was insufficient for the propulsion of his vehicle; and profiting by the suggestion of a friend, he applied the steamengine to that purpose, and was successful in propelling a boat at considerable speed upon the Forth and Clyde canal. Symington, a former engineer of Miller of Dalswinton, directed his talents to the same object, not only upon the rivers, but the sea, and made successful experiments upon the Forth and Clyde canals, with a similar boat. Nor would we pass over the claims of Oliver Evans, early an apprentice to a wheelwright. In 1786, this individual petitioned the legislature of Pennsylvania to grant him the exclusive right to use "steam-wagons" in that state, and in the succeeding year obtained from the legislature of Maryland a patent, giv ing to him the right of making and using steam-wagons for the period of fourteen years. Nor would we abate from him any portion of the just

fame that is his due, for having, in the year 1801, constructed a dredging machine for the corporation of Philadelphia, weighing forty-two thousand pounds, which was conveyed the distance of a mile and a half to the river by the power of a steam-engine, launched and propelled by its own paddlewheel in the stern, driven down the Schuylkill to the Delaware, and up the Delaware to the city of Philadelphia, and back, in the presence of a crowd of witnesses. Steam navigation, as afterwards applied, had not as yet been discovered. Contemporaneous efforts, as we have seen, had been made in this country and Europe, directed to the same subject.

Meanwhile other efforts were in progress, within the country, for the advancement of navigation by steam. Mr. John Stevens, of Hoboken, a gentleman whose name stands conspicuous in the history of steam navigation, and to whom, with his son, we are indebted for the most beautiful models that float upon our waters, had as early as 1791 commenced his experiments in the cause, quietly toiling, through his agents, in his workshops, situated upon his patrimonial estate at Hoboken, and had also struck out new light upon the subject which was the engrossing topic of thought among the prominent mechanical philosophers of that day. Associated with Mr. Robert R. Livingston, a former eminent chancellor of the state of New York, Nesbitt, a native of England, and Brunel, now well known as the engineer of the tunnel upon the Thames, they had applied their powers to this project with great zeal, and in furtherance of their plan succeeded, in 1797, in constructing a boat upon the Hudson. Impressed with the conviction that navigation by steam was practicable, and would be successfully introduced upon the waters of this country, and in order to enable those who were advancing in the labor to reap the benefit if their experiment was successful, Mr. Livingston procured to be passed, by the legislature of New York, an act, bearing date the 27th of March, 1798, on the suggestion that John Fitch, the original patentee, was dead, or had withdrawn from the state; which act, on the statement made by him that he possessed a mode of applying the steam-engine to propel a boat upon new and advantageous principles, gave him the right of the exclusive navigation of the waters of New York by steam for twenty years, on the condition that he should produce a boat, within the period of one year, that could be propelled at the rate of three miles per hour; but this he failed in doing, and the grant was accordingly made of no effect. Two years afterwards, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Stevens, aided by Mr. Roosevelt, entered upon renewed efforts to effectuate the same object; the instrument of propulsion being a system of paddles that were set in motion like a horizontal chain-pump. Their experiments were, however, attended with but poor success; their joint efforts being soon determined by the appointment of Chancellor Livingston to represent our government at the court of France. Yet neither Mr. Livingston or his coadjutor were discouraged. They both still toiled on, the one in Paris and the other in Hoboken, to advance the great work.

During this period, there arose upon the horizon a name that will be forever identified with the progress of steam navigation throughout the world. Born in the interior of the state of Pennsylvania, when that portion of the state was a silent wilderness, humble in his origin, if lowliness is the part of obscurity and indigence, with a genius for drawing and painting early developed, by the exercise of which he had procured for himself, in the city of Philadelphia, the means of subsistence, purchased a

farm and settled upon it with filial affection his aged mother, before he had attained his majority, we find Robert Fulton, in the year 1786, embarked for England, and living in the family of Benjamin West, the painter; under whose auspices he practised his favorite art, and at the same time engaged in a correspondence with the Earl of Stanhope. Dividing his time between the labors of the pencil and projects directed to the purposes of internal improvement, upon which subject he published a treatise in the city of London, we find Mr. Fulton, inspired by ambition, casting about for chances to display his undoubted talents. From the house of Mr. West, Fulton removed to that of Joel Barlow, and pursued the studies seemingly the best fitted to his views, under the auspices of that distinguished man. At this period his mind appears to have been especially directed to the subject of steam navigation; and having succeeded in performing several ingenious experiments, the principal of which was the invention of a submarine boat and bombs, afterwards named torpedoes, by which, in 1801, he blew into fragments a small shallop which was anchored in the harbor of Brest, in the presence of a commission ordered by Napoleon, he fortunately here met Mr. Livingston, the American minister.

The communion of minds so congenial soon ripened into friendship. Being both interested in the same object, the one distinguished for his science and accomplishments, and the other for his practical and experimental sense, they were soon determined to co-operate in advancing the progress of the cause which was so deeply moving the minds of men. By mutual counsel and joint effort, a steamboat was launched upon the Seine during the spring of 1803, in the presence of numerous spectators, and performed so well that they were encouraged to persevere. It had long been the opinion of Mr. Fulton, an opinion based upon a series of philosophical inductions, and originally expressed to the Earl of Stanhope, that wheels with paddles, or floats, were the proper instruments for the propulsion of steamships, and that opinion was confirmed by the experiment that had then been successfully performed on the Seine. More vigorous measures were soon adopted, both by Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton, for the prosecution of their joint plan, and it was determined to transfer the field of their experiments from France to the United States. An engine was accordingly procured to be made from the workshops of Messrs. Watt & Bolton, near Birmingham. By the influence of Mr. Livingston, a new act, granting to himself and Mr. Fulton the right of the exclusive navigation of the waters of New York, by steamboats, for the period of twenty years, was procured to be passed; and in the spring of 1807, a steamboat called the Clermont was launched from the shipyard of Mr. Charles Brown, and moved by her machinery to the Jersey shore. On the day appointed for her departure, a crowd collected to witness. what most men believed would, at that time, result in a useless experiment. As the boat moved slowly from the bank, the more amiable part of the spectators merely shrugged their shoulders in distrust, while the rest cast out their sarcastic remarks lavishly upon the enterprise; and it was not until they had learned that the boat had sailed along the Hudson to the white spires of Albany, at the rate of five miles an hour, that their jests were changed to acclaiming shouts of exultation. Meantime, the elder Stevens, who had been early associated with Mr. Livingston in the same object, aided by his son, had nearly perfected a steamboat; and, but a fortnight after the trip of Fulton, having been shut out from the