ART. V.-The Steam Engine familiarly explained and illustrated. By the REV. DIONYSIUS LARDNER, L. L. D. Second American, from the Fifth London edition. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey, & A. Hart. 8vo. 8vo. pp. 325.

THE application of the Steam Engine to navigation is among the proudest of the triumphs of human genius. Like many other of the most beautiful improvements in the mechanic arts, it is equally remarkable for the long and patient industry with which it was sought, and the simplicity of the means by which it was finally accomplished.

Although vague glimpses of the possibility of propelling vessels by steam are to be met with in the published histories of the earlier state of the engine, it was not until Watt had susceeded in rendering it double acting, and in effecting a saving of fivesixths of the fuel which had formerly been necessary, that any chance of success in the attempt could be calculated upon. In 1784, Watt completed his improvements, and gave the steam engine the form in which, with little variation, it is used up to the present day. It is from that date that we are to reckon the time which was occupied in bringing the engine, in a practical form, into use as a means of improving navigation. Had any immediate progress been made in the direction pointed out by our countryman Evans, we might have dated the beginning of well grounded investigations with his invention of the high pressure engine. It is to be recorded, to his high honor, that he not only saw the advantage to be derived, in certain cases, from the use of steam of high pressure, but ascertained the mode of rendering the engine of universal application, by impelling the piston in both directions, at a date as early as Watt did. Evans' form of engine, however, remained in model for more than twenty years, and the condensing engine had been applied successfully to navigation, before he had made more than a single experiment in reference to the same object. This experiment is too remarkable to be passed over, although it was not followed by any important consequences. Evans, who was by profession a mill-wright, and whose attention was almost exclusively directed to the improvement of the grist mills, which at

one time formed so important a part of the manufacturing industry of the United States, was employed by the Corporation of the city of Philadelphia in 1801, to build a dredging machine. He proposed to work this by the high pressure engine, of which he was the inventor; instead of conveying his engine to the river Delaware, and placing it in a vessel already afloat, he built both engine and vessel at his works, situated more than a mile from the water. The apparatus being completed, was mounted on wheels, to which motion was given by the engine, and was thus impelled through the streets of Philadelphia, upon the very principle which is now universally adopted in locomotive engines. Upon reaching the water, and launching his vessel, he placed paddles on the circumference of two of the wheels, and by their action conveyed his apparatus to the place where it was to be used.

It is due to Watt himself to state that he was well aware that his engine was capable of application to navigation, and that he had in view the very method by which success was finally obtained. But, a resident of an inland town, and continually occupied in other modes of bringing his invention into use, he thought of no other case than that of canal navigation, and did not see in that a sufficient degree of utility to warrant his diverting his attention from matters of more obvious importance.

England possesses few rivers of any importance, and the largest of them are navigable for but short distances. Her internal navigable communications were therefore principally confined to canals, and in these the use of steam is attended with great practical inconvenience. In the United States, on the other hand, the inducements to apply steam to navigation were strong and powerful. From the harbor of Newport to the frontier of Florida, the early limit of our national jurisdiction, the coast is faced by islands and peninsulas, within which lie land-locked sounds, bays, and arms of the sea, affording a safe navigation, but one liable to great delay from the very circumstance to which its security is owing. Intersecting the line of coast communication, at the angle where the Hudson discharges itself, is another line of navigation, furnished by the deep channel of that river; a channel which turns or penetrates all the mountain ranges of the Appalachian groupe, and extends one hundred and sixty miles from the ocean. At no great distance to the north, Lake Champlain opens a communication of similar character, and for nearly an equal distance.

It is foreign to our purpose to speak of the judicious and im

portant public works which have been planned and executed, for the purpose of improving and completing this grand outline of communication parallel to the coast, which nature herself has pointed out. Suffice it to say, that at the present moment, it is possible to embark on the frontier of Canada, in latitude 45°, and proceed to Beaufort, N. C., a few minutes north of the 34th degree, without change of vessel, or exposure to the dangers of the ocean.

Magnificent as this communication is, it is far inferior in its extent and value, to that laid open to the use of steam, in the Mississippi and its numerous tributaries. The valley of this father of waters, from Pittsburgh on the one hand, to the mouth of the Yellowstone on the other, and from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Balize, is intersected in every direction by streams deep and steady in their course, and yet so rapid as to be inaccessible to an ascending trade, by means either of the sail or the oar. Yet this vast region is already partially occupied by a population, which, although sparse and scattered, has carried with it from its earlier seats, a taste for the comforts of civilized life, together with a relish for the luxuries of foreign growth and European manufacture. These could be supplied by no other means yet discovered, besides the steamboat; and it is in this region that steam navigation, if less perfect than in countries where the practice of the arts is more advanced, has already reached its greatest development. The number of steamboats which, at the present day, navigate the Mississippi and its branches, is probably greater than that of all those of the other parts of the globe united.

The importance of steam navigation to the Atlantic States alone, was sufficient to draw the attention of American engineers, even before civilized settlements had been pushed to the banks of the Ohio, and long antecedent to the acquisition of the mouth of the Mississippi. Rumsey and Fitch were the first to attempt the construction of steamboats. Both of them applied great ingenuity, and exhibited no little mechanical genius. Both, however, performed their experiments before the steam engine had been perfected by Watt, and were in consequence compelled to confine their views to the use of an instrument very ill fitted for their object. Fitch indeed, continued his researches after he learned that Watt had not only given a double action to the piston of the engine, but had contrived the means of rendering its reciprocating motion continuous and rotary. That the former part of Watt's invention would be of value in the plan 9

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he had proposed for using the single acting engine, he had the sagacity to perceive, and to desire to profit by, but of the all important facilities afforded by the production of a rotary motion, he either was incapable of judging, or found it too late to avail himself.

In Great Britain the attempts at navigation by steam immediately followed the completion of Watt's improvements. We extract the history of these attempts from an American work:

"Next in order of time to Fitch and Rumsey, we find Miller of Dalswinton in Scotland. This ingenious gentlemen had, as early as 1787, turned his attention to substitutes for the common oar, and planned a triple vessel propelled by wheels. Finding that wheels could not be made to revolve with sufficient rapidity by men working upon a crank, the idea of applying a steam engine was suggested by one of his friends, and an engineer of the name of Symington, employed by him, to put the idea into practice. The vessel was double, being an experimental pleasure boat on the lake in his grounds at Dalswinton. The trial was so satisfactory, that Miller was induced to build a vessel sixty feet in length. This vessel was also double, and it is asserted, that it was moved by its engine upon the Forth and Clyde canals, at the rate of seven miles an hour. The boat, the wheels, and the engine, were, however, so badly proportioned to each other, that the paddles were continually breaking, and the vessel suffered so much from the strain of the machinery as to be in danger of sinking; and Miller found it unsafe to venture into any navigation of greater depth than the canal. The apparatus was therefore removed and laid up, and here the experiments of Miller ceased. He himself appears evidently to have considered this experiment as an absolute failure, and ascribed the blame to the engineer."

"The Earl of Stanhope in 1793 revived the project of Genevois, for an apparatus similar to the feet of a duck. It was placed, in 1795, in a boat furnished with a powerful engine. He was, however, unable to obtain a velocity greater than three miles per hour."

"It has been stated that Symington was employed by Miller of Dalswinton as his engineer; we have now to record an attempt made by him under the patronage of Lord Dundas of Kerse. Miller's views appear to have been directed to the navigation of rivers and estuaries, if not to that of the sea itself. Symington, on the present occasion, limited himself to the drawing of boats upon a canel. The experiment was made on the Forth and Clyde canals, but the boats were drawn at the rate of no more than three

and a half miles per hour, which did not answer the expectations of his patron, and the attempt was abandoned. During this attempt Symington asserts that he was visited by Fulton, who stated to him the great value such an invention would have in America; and, by his account, took copious notes. In the attempt he thus makes to claim for himself the merit of Fulton's subsequent success, he is defeated by the clear and conclusive evidence, which Fulton exhibited in a court of law, of his having submitted a plan, analagous to that he afterwards carried into effect, to Lord Stanhope, in 1795, six years prior to this experiment of Symington; and a comparison of the draught of Symington's boat, which is still extant, with the boats constructed by Fulton, furnishes conclusive evidence that the latter borrowed no valuable ideas from the former."

During this time the attention of intelligent persons in the United States continued to be directed to the object of our consideration. Those who are most worthy of note are Livingston, Stevens of Hoboken, and Roosevelt. All of these gentlemen applied the resources of talent, ingenuity, and fortune to the enterprize; nor were they content with trusting to their own genius, but sought the aid of the most distinguished engineers, which the rarity of that profession in the United States at that epoch, placed within their reach. Among these it is sufficient to name Brunel, who, in another field, has since earned for himself a reputation second to none. It is enough to name the block-making machinery, and the tunnel beneath the river Thames, to show what powers of mind were brought to the consideration of this question, by that distinguished engineer.

At the present day, when we see the steam engine used in propelling boats, by a method the most obvious and apparently selfevident, we are at loss to imagine how it happened that so much of time, money, and the most elevated talent, should have for years been expended in vain. The solution, however, is to be found in the confession of Chancellor Livingston himself, who stated, after steamboats were in successful operation, that neither his mind, nor that of his associates, was prepared to admit, that an object so desirable and so important, could possibly be effected by simple means.

Livingston was appointed, on the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency, to the situation of Minister to the consular government of France. This appointment put an end to his active agency in the discovery of the means of using steam in navigation. It, however, was attended with a result even more important than could probably have been attained by his own