CHAPTER I.

THE DAWN OF STEAM NAVIGATION.

_Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea! All the old romantic legends. All my dreams come back to me._ —LONGFELLOW.

The up-to-date standard—Old-time sailing ships—The clipper packet-ship—Dawn of steam navigation—Denis Papin on the Fulda—Bell’s _Comet_—Fulton’s _Clermont_—American river steamers and ferry-boats.

Travel increases in faster ratio than do facilities for inter-communication. The prophecy surely is being fulfilled in these latter days, “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” It is estimated that at least 750,000 persons travel yearly between Europe and America; 99,223 cabin passengers and 252,350 steerage passengers landed at New York from Europe in 1896. The Cunard Line brought the largest number of cabin passengers, 17,999, from Liverpool, and the North German Lloyd Line the largest number of steerage, namely, 38,034, from Bremen.

Notwithstanding the wonderful development of railway and steamship systems, means of conveyance during the summer months often fall short of the demand. Passages by the more popular lines of steamships must be engaged months ahead; in many cases the ships are uncomfortably crowded. At such times sofas take the place of berths, and all the officers’ rooms, from the coveted Captain’s cabin to the second and third stewards’ bunks, are called into requisition and held at a round premium. On Saturday, the 8th of May, 1897, no less than 1,500 saloon passengers left New York for Liverpool on the great ocean greyhounds. The travelling season is comparatively short, the competition is keen, and the enormous expense of building, furnishing and running up-to-date steamships renders it difficult to provide the requisite accommodation on a paying basis. The up-to-date steamship must be built of steel, to combine light weight with strength. It must have triple or quadruple expansion engines to economize fuel. It must be propelled by twin or triple screws, as well for the easier handling of the vessel as for safety in case of a breakdown of machinery, and for attaining the highest possible speed. Our ideal steamship must be able to turn quite round in its own length, and to go through the water at an average speed of at least twenty knots an hour. To attain these results, ships of a very large class are called for—nothing short of from eight to ten thousand tons burthen will come up to the mark. There are many magnificent steamships in the North Atlantic trade and elsewhere but as yet few have in all respects reached the up-to-date standard, and even those that are such this year, a few years hence are certain to be regarded as quite behind the times. There is no valid reason to suppose that the process of development which has been going on during the last fifty years in this direction is to be arrested at the close of the century. The indications, so far as they can be interpreted, are all in the opposite direction. The paddle-wheel ocean steamer reached its zenith with the launch of the _Scotia_ of the Cunard Line in 1862. She was the last of the race.

The wooden steamship, “copper-fastened and copper-bottomed,” etc., etc., is long since a thing of the past. The iron age, which succeeded the wooden, has been changed to steel, and steel may change to something else, and steam to electricity. Who knows? Mr. Maginnis, who is himself an engineer and an architect, speaks with authority when he says that, “Whether the improvements be in the ship or in the machinery, gradual advances will be made in the near future.” The thirst of competing steamship companies for conquest on the high seas—at any cost—and the ambition of ship-builders to improve upon the latest improvements, will not be satisfied with present attainments, even if it can be proved to a demonstration that thousands of additional horse-power and hundreds of additional tons of coal per day would be required to increase to any appreciable extent the maximum rate of speed that has already been reached. In the meantime some idea may be formed of the possible saving in the consumption of fuel when it is stated that, by a system of induced draught, discovered since the last two Cunarders were designed, the number of boilers necessary to generate steam enough for 30,000 indicated horse-power may be reduced to little more than one-half, which, to put it briefly, means a corresponding saving in space, weight and first cost.[1] In fact, well-informed marine engineers do not hesitate to express their opinion that the day is not far distant when Atlantic greyhounds may be coursing across the ocean at the rate of thirty knots an hour, bringing Queenstown and Sandy Hook within ninety-three hours of each other.

It is difficult to form a correct idea, from any verbal or pictorial representation, of the elegance, the convenience and the comfort attaching to the “Express Steamship.” Nothing short of a voyage or voyages in one of these floating palaces would suffice to give an adequate conception of their excellence. And yet, when all is said that can be said in praise of the steamship, some of us “old stagers” can look back, if not with lingering regret, at least with pleasant recollection, to the days of the packet-ship, and even of the sailing vessel of humbler pretensions.

Some of the early emigrant ships were certainly of a mean order, and many emigrants suffered cruel hardships before they reached their destination. It was not an uncommon thing for five or six hundred men, women and children to be huddled together indiscriminately in the hold of a vessel of from 250 to 300 tons, doomed to subsist on coarsest food, and liable to be immured beneath hatches for days or weeks at a time, without medical attendance, obliged to cook their own food, and scantily supplied with water; and all this for eight or ten weeks at a stretch!

In one of his autobiographic sketches the late Bishop Strachan says that he sailed from Greenock in the end of August, 1799, “under convoy,” and such was then the wretched state of navigation, he did not reach Kingston, by way of New York and Montreal, till the 31st of December. In a letter before me an aged friend recites the story of his adventurous voyage from Liverpool to Quebec, some fifty years ago. The ship was a superannuated bluff-bowed East Indiaman, but counted good enough in those days to carry five hundred emigrants across the stormy Atlantic. When ten days out they encountered a hurricane which drove the vessel out of her course. Her three masts fell overboard. The cook’s galley and the long boat, the water casks, and everything else on deck, vanished in the gale. The huge hulk rolled like a log in the Bay of Biscay for several days, the passengers meanwhile being confined between decks in horrible confusion. A passing steamer towed them back to Plymouth, where six weeks were spent in refitting the ship, each adult receiving ten shillings and sixpence per week for board and lodging until the repairs were completed. After seven weeks more of great discomfort “and tyrannical treatment on the part of the captain,” they finally reached Quebec in 107 days after first embarking at Liverpool.

My own experience of sailing ships, though fifty-seven years have elapsed, is still fresh in mind and recalls some pleasant memories. My first voyage to New York was from the Clyde in a new American ship, commanded by one Captain Theobald, a typical New Englander, as fine a man as one could desire to meet. The voyage was uneventful in the ordinary sense of the term, but one’s first voyage in a sailing ship is an event never to be forgotten. It was anticipated with peculiar interest, and regarded with far greater importance than attaches to crossing the Atlantic nowadays. So far from being monotonous, there were incessant changes in sea and sky, in the dress of the ship, and the occupations and songs of the sailors. One day the ship might be bowling along beautifully, decked out in her royals and sky-sails, her studding-sails and stay sails; next day, perhaps, she might be scudding under reefed topsails before an easterly gale, pooping seas that washed the quarterdeck and tumbled like a waterfall into the waist of the ship. Occasionally, a “white squall” coming up would make things lively on deck while it lasted. If becalmed in the right place we caught codfish. For the most part, however, the familiar refrain of “tacks and sheets” would be heard many times a day and in the night watches, as we tacked this way and that way against westerly breezes, thankful if the log showed that we had advanced on our course forty or fifty miles in twenty-four hours.

My second voyage westward in a sailing ship was also a memorable one. The Scotch captain of the good ship _Perthshire_, in which we sailed from the Tail of the Bank, off Greenock, on June 19th, 1844, was very unlike the Yankee skipper of the previous voyage. Captain S—— was kind and attentive to his passengers, but not at all popular with his crew. As I watched him taking the sun, the first day out, he said, “Young man, you are going to be some weeks on board this ship, with nothing to do but to eat and drink and sleep. Suppose you take a few lessons in navigation? Here is a spare quadrant which you can use.” I jumped at the offer, and very soon mastered at least the outlines of the business. Much was learned in these six weeks—how to find the latitude and longitude at sea; to ascertain the precise deviation of the chronometer from Greenwich time, and of the compass from its true bearing; to measure the trend and velocity of ocean currents, and, failing solar observations, how to consult the moon and the stars. This was not only interesting; it was a fascinating pastime. The captain of a twenty-knot steamship has seldom need to “resolve a traverse;” he steers a straight course for his destination, and can usually estimate within a few hours, or even minutes, when he will reach it. It is quite different with the master of a sailing vessel; after contending with contrary winds and being driven out of his course for weeks at a time, he must often wrack his brains before he can locate his exact position on the chart. To be enveloped in dense fog in the near neighbourhood of Sable Island for several days at a time, as happened to us on this voyage, is a very perplexing position to be in.

For a slight offence Captain S—— would send a man aloft to scrape masts in a gale of wind; for a graver misdemeanour he would clap him in irons; had the lash been permitted, he would probably not have hesitated to use it. As might be supposed, things did not go very well in the fo’castle. At length a climax was reached, when the starboard watch came aft one day and lodged a complaint. Getting little or no satisfaction, they retired sullenly, went below, and refused to work for a whole week. The working of the ship then devolved on the first and second mates, the carpenter and the cook, with such of the cabin passengers as could give them assistance. The steerage passengers, siding with the sailors, would not touch a rope, and things even went so far that one of them was placed in confinement for insolence. Some of us were rather glad of the opportunity thus afforded of running up the rigging and creeping through the lubbers’ hole without being “salted.” When orders were given to shorten sail or shake out a reef, we “lay out” on the yard in sailor fashion; but how much good we did on such occasions will never be known.[2] At any rate, we counted it fine fun, and it gave the _fiasco_ a touch of romance that we slept with loaded pistols under our pillows. But the mutiny ended harmlessly when the pilot came on board. One may cross the Atlantic nowadays without any kind of “adventure” like that to adorn a tale, even without so much as once speaking to the captain.

Not every one has the chance of seeing Jack in his citadel. I was deputed by the captain to interview the strikers and endeavour to pacify them. Armed with a copy of the shipping articles which the men had all signed, and another formidable document printed in very large type, I went down into the dingy cabin at the dinner hour. Such a place as it was! I shall never forget it. It corresponded in minute detail to Dana’s description of his fo’castle in “Two Years Before the Mast.” It was devoid of furniture. There was not even a table to place their food on. In the centre of the floor stood a dirty-looking wooden tub containing a junk of boiled salt beef; near it was a pail full of boiled rice and some hard-tack. The men, about a dozen of them, sat each man on his sea-chest, using his jack-knife to cut and carve with. There were no plates. Imagine the rest. The only grievance they would mention to me was that they had been refused molasses with their rice! Their mind was made up to stay under hatches till the pilot came aboard. They would work for him, but not for the captain; and they kept their word. As I was about leaving, the spokesman of the party, pointing to the mess on the middle of the floor, said with a look that constrained pity, “Mister, how would you like that for your own dinner?” He had the best of the argument. It may be added here that this voyage to New York lasted forty-two days, and the last entry in my log is to the effect that we made as good a passage as any ship from England, “beating the _Columbus_ packet-ship by two days!”

The clipper “packet ship” was a vast improvement on the ordinary sailing ship. It had just reached its highest point of development when the ocean steamship first made its appearance. It was to the upper strata of the travelling community, sixty years ago, the counterpart of the express steamer of to-day. The packet-ship was built for fast sailing, with very fine lines, was handsomely fitted up and furnished, was exceedingly well found in eatables and drinkables, and carried a great spread of canvas. To see one of these ships under full sail was a sight to be remembered—a rare sight, inasmuch as all the conditions of wind and water necessary for the display of every stitch of canvas are seldom met with in the North Atlantic. They not unfrequently crossed in fourteen or fifteen days. In winter they might be three months on a single voyage, but their average would be from twenty-five to thirty days.

There were many separate lines of packet-ships sailing at regular intervals from London and Liverpool, and from Hamburg and Havre, to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other American ports. Among these were the famous Black Ball Line, the White Star Line, the Old and the New Line of Liverpool packets, etc. The New Line was American, and of it E. K. Collins, the promoter of the Collins’ Line of steamers, was the New York agent. The ships were named _Shakespeare_, _Siddons_, _Sheridan_, _Garrick_, and so forth, hence this was called the “Dramatic Line.” It is refreshing to read one of their advertisements in the Montreal _Gazette_, as old as November 20th, 1838:

“These ships are of the first-class, upwards of 800 tons burthen, built in the city of New York, with such improvements as to combine great speed with unusual comfort to passengers. Every care has been taken in the arrangement of their accommodation. The price of passage hence is $140, for which ample stores, including wines, etc., will be provided; without wines, etc., $120. These ships will be commanded by experienced masters, who will make every exertion to give general satisfaction. Letters charged at the rate or 25 cents per single sheet.

☛The ships of this line will hereafter go armed, and their peculiar construction gives them security not possessed by any other but vessels of war.”

E. K. COLLINS, NEW YORK. WM. & JAS. BROWN & CO., LIVERPOOL.

The _Great Republic_, one of the last of the clipper packet-ships, was built in the United States in 1854. She was a four-master of 3,400 tons, 305 feet long, 53 feet beam, and 30 feet in depth. She made the run from New York to the Scilly Islands in thirteen days. She ended her sailing career as a French transport ship, and finally was degraded to a coal hulk. The largest sailing vessel afloat at the present time is the five-masted steel ship _La France_, built on the Clyde by D. & W. Henderson for French owners. She is 6,100 tons burthen, 375 feet long, 49 feet wide and 33¾ feet depth. Her fore mainmast is 166 feet high. On her first trip from Cardiff to Rio Janeiro she carried 6,000 tons of coal, and attained a speed of twelve and a half knots.

THE DAWN OF STEAMSHIP NAVIGATION.

Paddle-wheels for driving boats through the water were used long before steam-engines were thought of. They were worked by hand and foot-power without, however, any advantage over the old-fashioned oar. The horse-boat, in a variety of forms, has been in use for many years, and is not yet quite obsolete. In its earlier form two horses, one on each side of a decked scow, were hitched to firmly braced upright posts at which they tugged for all they were worth without ever advancing beyond their noses, but communicating motion to the paddle-wheels by the movable platform on which they trod. For larger boats four or five horses were harnessed to horizontal bars converging towards the centre, and moved around the deck in a circle, the paddles receiving their impulse through a set of cog-wheels. The “latest improvement” was on the direct self-acting treadmill principle, the power being regulated by the weight of the horses and the pitch of elevation given to the revolving platform on which the unfortunate animals were perched. Newcomen’s steam-engine had been invented and used for other purposes eighty years at least, before it was applied to the propelling of vessels. The modern steamboat is not an _invention_, but rather the embodiment of many inventions and experiments, extending over a long series of years by different men and in different countries.

One of the first actual steamboats of which there is authentic record sailed down the River Fulda, in Prussia, in the year 1707. It was built, engined and navigated by a clever Frenchman, Denis Papin,[3] who was born in 1647, was educated as a physician, and became assistant to the celebrated philosopher, Huygens, in Paris, where he published a small volume on the mechanical effects to be obtained by means of a vacuum. While this attracted the attention of _savants_, it had little or no interest for practical men, and yet in it lay the germ of the power that was to revolutionize the world. He went to London with letters to the Royal Society, and was employed by that society several years, during which he continued his experiments on atmospheric pressure and the vacuum, and the power of steam. He was next appointed Professor of Mathematics in the University of Marburg, from which he removed to Cassel. He had seen the horse-boat in England, and the idea of employing steam to turn the paddles took strong hold of him. He had a boat built and fitted with a steam-engine, in which he embarked with his family and all his belongings, with a view to making his experiment known in Britain and exhibiting his steamboat. All went well until he reached the junction of the rivers Fulda and Weser, where the boatmen got up a hue-and-cry that their craft was endangered by this innovation. In vain Papin protested that he merely wanted to leave the country. On the plea that their rights of navigating these waters had been infringed upon, they rose up _en masse_, seized the steamboat, dragged out the machinery and smashed it to atoms. Poor Papin found his way back to London a broken-hearted man, never to see the day when his great discovery was to enrich the world.

Fifty years later another experiment was made by Patrick Miller, a banker in Edinburgh, aided by Mr. Taylor, tutor in his family, and Alexander Symington, a practical engineer. Mr. Miller had a boat built and fitted with a small steam-engine, for his amusement, on Dalswinton Loch, Dumfriesshire. It was a twin-boat, the engine being placed on one side, the boiler on the other, and the paddle-wheel in the centre. It was launched in October, 1788, and attained a speed of five miles an hour. The engine, of one horse-power, is still to be seen in the Andersonian Museum, in Glasgow. Encouraged by his experiment, Mr. Miller bought one of the boats used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and had a steam-engine constructed for it by the Carron Ironworks Company, under Symington’s superintendence. On December 26th, 1789, this steamboat towed a heavy load on the canal, at a speed of seven miles an hour; but, strange to say, the experiment was dropped as soon as it was tried.

In 1801 the London newspapers contained the announcement that an experiment had taken place on the Thames, on July 1st, for the purpose of propelling a laden barge, or other craft, against the tide, by means of a steam-engine of a very simple construction. “The moment the engine was set to work the barge was brought about, answering her helm quickly, and she made way against a strong current, at the rate of two and a half miles an hour.” In 1802 a new vessel was built expressly for steam navigation, on the Forth and Clyde Canal, under Symington’s supervision, the _Charlotte Dundas_, which was minutely inspected on the same day by Robert Fulton, of New York, and Henry Bell, of Glasgow, both of whom took sketches of the machinery to good purpose.[4] This boat drew a load of seventy tons, at a speed of three and a half miles an hour, against a strong gale of wind. Under ordinary conditions she made six miles an hour, but her admitted success was cut short by the Canal Trust, who alleged that the wash of the steamer would destroy the embankment.

BELL’S “COMET.”[5]

Nothing more was heard of the steamboat in Britain until 1812, when Henry Bell surprised the natives of Strathclyde by the following advertisement in the Greenock _Advertiser_:

STEAM PASSAGE BOAT,

“THE COMET,”

BETWEEN GLASGOW, GREENOCK AND HELENSBURGH, FOR PASSENGERS ONLY.

The subscriber having, at much expense, fitted up a handsome vessel, to ply upon the River Clyde, between Glasgow and Greenock, to sail by the power of wind, air and steam, he intends that the vessel shall leave the Broomielaw on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, about mid-day, or at such hour thereafter as may answer from the state of the tide; and to leave Greenock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, in the morning, to suit the tide.

The elegance, comfort, safety and speed of this vessel requires only to be proved to meet the approbation of the public; and the proprietor is determined to do everything in his power to merit public encouragement.

The terms are, for the present, fixed at 4s. for the best cabin, and 3s. for the second; but beyond these rates nothing is to be allowed to servants, or any other person employed about the vessel.

The subscriber continues his establishment at HELENSBURGH BATHS, the same as for years past, and a vessel will be in readiness to convey passengers to the _Comet_ from Greenock to Helensburgh. HENRY BELL. HELENSBURGH BATHS, _5th August, 1812_.

Bell’s _Comet_ was a quaint-looking craft, with a tall, slender funnel, that served the double purpose of mast and chimney. Her length was 42 feet, breadth 11 feet, draught of water 5½ feet. She had originally two small paddle-wheels on each side with four arms to each. The engine was about three horse-power, and seems to have been the joint production of Bell and the village blacksmith. The boiler was made by David Napier, at a cost of £52. The engine is still preserved in the patent office of the South Kensington Museum. The _Comet_ was lengthened at Helensburgh, in 1818, to 60 feet, and received a new engine of six horse-power, by means of which her speed was increased to six miles an hour. This engine was made by John Robertson, of Glasgow.

The _Comet_ did not pay as a passenger boat on the Clyde, and was soon after her launch put on the route to Fort William, and continued on that stormy route till December 15th, 1820, when she was wrecked at Craignish, on the West Highland coast. She had left Oban that morning against the advice of her captain, who deemed the boat unseaworthy and quite unfit to encounter the blinding snow storm, in the midst of which she went ashore. But Bell had over-ruled the captain. Fortunately there was no loss of life. She was replaced in the following year by a larger and improved style of vessel, called by the same name and sailed by the same master, Robert Bain, who was the first to take a steamer through the Crinan Canal, and the first to traverse the Caledonian Canal from sea to sea by steam, in 1822. The second _Comet_ came into collision with the steamer _Ayr_ off Gourock in October, 1825, and sank with the loss of seventy lives. She was raised, however, was rigged as a schooner, renamed the _Anne_, and sailed for many years as a coaster.

Mr. Bell was born in Linlithgow in 1767. The son of a mechanic, he worked for some time as a stone-mason, afterwards as a carpenter, and gained some experience in ship-building at Bo’ness under Mr. Rennie. He removed to Helensburgh in 1808, where his wife kept the Baths Inn while he was experimenting in mechanical projects. He was a man of energy and enterprise, but like most inventors was always scant of cash. Had it not been for the generosity of his friends, and an annuity of £100 which he received from the Clyde Trust, he would have come to want in his old age. He seems to have had steam navigation on the brain as early as 1786, and had communicated his ideas on the subject to most of the crowned heads of Europe, as well as to the President of the United States, before he built the _Comet_. Mr. Bell’s memory is perpetuated in an obelisk erected by the city of Glasgow corporation on a picturesque promontory on the banks of the Clyde at Bowling, “in acknowledgment of a debt which it can never repay.” There is also a handsome granite obelisk to his memory on the esplanade at Helensburgh, the inscription on which testifies that “Henry Bell was the first in Great Britain who was successful in practically applying steam power for the purpose of navigation.” The stone effigy of the man adjoining his grave in Row churchyard was placed there by his friend Robert Napier, whose fame and fortune were largely the result of Bell’s enterprise. Mr. Bell died at his inn in Helensburgh, November 14th, 1830.

Fifty years later witnessed the full development of Mr. Bell’s ideal in the _Columba_, then as now the largest river steamer ever seen on the Clyde, and the swiftest. The _Columba_ is built of steel, is 316 feet long and 50 feet wide. She has two oscillating engines of 220 horse-power, and attains a speed of twenty-two miles an hour. Her route is from Glasgow to Ardrishaig and back, daily in summer, when she carries from 2,000 to 3,000 persons through some of the finest scenery in Scotland. She is provided with steam machinery for steering and warping her into the piers, and with other modern appliances that make her as handy as a steam yacht. She resembles a little floating town, with shops and post-office where you can procure money orders and despatch telegrams And what is the _Columba_ after all but an enlarged and perfected reproduction of Bell’s _Comet_!

The reputation of the Clyde in respect of ocean steamships and “ironclads” has become world-wide. Some of the best specimens of marine architecture are Clyde-built. Her own river steamers are the finest and fleetest in the United Kingdom. The Thames river steamers, though far inferior to the Clyde boats, answer their purpose by conveying vast numbers of people short distances at a cheap rate. The Victoria Steamboat Association, with its fleet of forty-five river steamers, can carry 200,000 people daily for a penny a mile. The Rhine steamers and those plying on the Swiss lakes are in keeping with the picturesque scenery through which they run. Painted in bright colours, they present a very attractive and smart appearance. They are kept scrupulously clean and are admirably managed. Many of them are large, with saloon cabins the whole length of the vessel, over which is the promenade deck covered with gay awnings. They run fast. The captain sits in state in his easy chair under a canopy on the bridge—smoking his cigar. The chief steward, next to the captain by far the most important personage on board, moves about all day long in full evening dress—his main concern being to know what wine you will have for lunch or dinner that he may put it on ice for you. The _table d’hote_ is the crowning event of the day on board a Rhine steamer, _i.e._, for the misguided majority of tourists to whom a swell dinner offers greater attractions than the finest scenery imaginable.

The success of the first _Comet_ induced others to follow the example. The year 1814 saw two other small steamboats on the Clyde. Next year the _Marjery_, built by Denny of Dumbarton, made a voyage to Dublin and thence to the Thames, where she plied between London and Margate for some time, to the consternation of the Thames watermen. In 1818 David Napier of Glasgow went into the business, and equipped a number of coasting steamers with improved machinery. At this time the _Rob Roy_, claimed to be the pioneer of sea-going steamers, began to run to Belfast, but being found too small for the traffic she was put on the Dover and Calais route. In 1819 the Admiralty of the day had a steamboat built for towing men of-war, called the _Comet_, 115 feet by 21 feet, with two of Boulton & Watt’s engines of 40 horse-power each. This vessel was followed by the _Lightning_, _Echo_, _Confiance_, _Columbia_ and _Dee_—the latter vessel having side-lever engines of 240 horse-power, with flue boilers carrying a pressure of six pounds to the square inch, which developed a speed of seven knots an hour. In 1822 a large number of steam vessels fitted with condensing engines were afloat. The _James Watt_ was built in that year to ply between Leith and London. The largest steamer at that time was the _United Kingdom_, built by Steele of Greenock, 160 feet long by 26½ feet wide, having engines of 200 horse-power—as much an object of wonder in those days for her “gigantic proportions” as was the _Great Eastern_ thirty years later. In 1825 there were 168 steam vessels in Britain; in 1835 there were 538; in 1855 there were 2,310, including war vessels afloat and building; in 1895 the number of steam vessels built in the United Kingdom was 638, of which number 90 per cent. were built of steel. In 1897 the number of steamers over 100 tons in the United Kingdom, including the colonies, was computed to be 8,500, with a net tonnage of 6,500,000 tons.

THE “CLERMONT.”

Three years before Bell’s achievement on the Clyde, a clever American, profiting by the experiments of Symington, applied his inventive genius to perfecting the application of steam as a motive power for vessels, and gained for himself the honour of being the first to make it available for practical use on a paying basis. This was Robert Fulton, a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1765, who commenced business as a portrait painter and followed that profession for some years in France and England. He invented a number of “notions,” among the rest a submarine torpedo-boat, in which he claimed that he could remain under water for an hour and a half at a time; but failing to receive the patronage of any naval authorities, he returned to New York, and, with the assistance of Mr. John Livingstone, had a steamboat built and fitted with an English engine by Boulton & Watt, of Birmingham. The _Clermont_ (after being lengthened) was 133 feet long, 18 feet beam, and 7½ feet deep. Her wheels were uncovered, 15 feet in diameter, with eight buckets, 4 feet long, to each wheel, and dipping 2 feet. The cylinder was 24 inches in diameter, with 4 feet stroke of piston. The boiler was of copper, 20 feet long, 7 feet wide and 8 feet high.

The _Clermont_ made her first voyage from New York to Albany, August 7th, 1807. Her speed was about five miles an hour. During the winter of 1807-8 she was enlarged, her name being then changed to _North River_. She continued to ply successfully on the Hudson as a passenger boat for a number of years, her owners having acquired the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State of New York by steam. The _Car of Neptune_ and the _Paragon_, of 300 and 350 tons, respectively, were soon added to the Fulton & Livingstone Line. Both of these vessels were fitted with English engines. The _Paragon_ continued to ply on the Hudson for about ten years, earning a good deal of money for the owners. About 1820, while ascending the river, she ran upon a rock and became a total wreck. Other steamboats were built for other waters, and very soon there were steamers plying on all the navigable rivers of the United States available for commerce. Mr. Fulton married a daughter of Mr. Livingstone. He died in New York in 1815, at the height of his fame and prosperity.

The contrast between Fulton’s _Clermont_, or Bell’s _Comet_ and the Atlantic Liner coursing over the sea at railway speed is very striking, and scarcely less remarkable the comparison of the river steamboat of to-day with these early experiments. America has developed a type of steamboat, or rather types of steamboats, peculiarly its own. The light-draught Mississippi steamers[6] bear little resemblance to the Hudson River and Long Island Sound boats while the American steam ferry-boat is a thing certainly not of beauty, but unique. Dickens in his American Notes speaks of the _Burlington_, the crack steamer on Lake Champlain in the early forties, as “a perfectly exquisite achievement of neatness, elegance and order—a model of graceful comfort and beautiful contrivance.” But Dickens never saw the _Priscilla_. She was only launched in 1894, and is claimed to be “pre-eminently the world’s greatest inland steamer—the largest, finest and most elaborately furnished steamboat of her class to be found anywhere.” The _Priscilla_ is 440½ feet long, 52½ feet wide, or 95 feet over the paddle-boxes. The paddle-wheels are of the feathering type, 35 feet in diameter and 14 feet face. Her light draught is 12½ feet, and her speed easily 22 miles an hour, though the ordinary service of the line does not demand such fast running. Her night’s work is 181 miles, which she covers leisurely in ten hours. She cost $1,500,000. All the interior decorations are very elaborate and handsome. In her triple row of staterooms there is luxurious sleeping accommodation for 1,500 passengers. In the spacious dining-room 325 persons may be seated at one time. The grand saloon is a magnificent spectacle, large and lofty, superbly decorated and lighted by electricity. The _Priscilla_ has cargo capacity for 800 tons of freight. “Her machinery is not only a marvel of design and workmanship, but it fascinates all persons interested in mechanical devices.” It consists of a double inclined compound engine, with two high-pressure cylinders, each fifty-one inches in diameter, and two low pressure, each ninety-five inches in diameter, all with a stroke of eleven feet. There are ten return tubular boilers of the Scotch type, each fourteen feet in diameter and fourteen feet long, constructed for a working pressure of 150 lbs. to the square inch. The indicated horse-power is 8,500. The machinery is principally below the main deck, leaving all the space on and above this deck available for general purposes.

This floating palace was built at Chester, Pa., by the Delaware Iron Ship-building and Engine Works Company. She is built of steel. Her registered tonnage is 5,398 tons. Although so vast in her proportions, the _Priscilla_ sits on the water as lightly and gracefully as a swan. Painted white as snow outside, as nearly all American river steamers are, she presents a beautiful, you might say a dazzling, appearance; and she is only one of five magnificent steamers of the Fall River Line, all substantially alike in design and equipment, running regularly all the year round between Fall River and New York, with a perfection of service that cannot be surpassed.

This cut, kindly furnished by the owners, gives a faithful representation of the exterior of a very beautiful Hudson River day steamboat. The _New York_ is built of steel, 311 feet over all, breadth of beam 40 feet, and over the guards 74 feet; average draught of water 6 feet. She combines speed, luxuriousness of furnishing and a beauty of finish in all parts that has not been surpassed on vessels of this class. She is capable of running 24 miles an hour. This boat and her consort, the _Albany_, are claimed to be the finest day passenger river steamers in the world. She is not crowded with 2,500 passengers, of whom 120 may sit down together to an exquisite dinner in the richly decorated dining-room.

A distinct class of steamboats peculiar to America is the ferry-boat. In one of its forms it is to be found fully developed in New York harbour, and serves to convey daily countless thousands of people whose business lies in New York City, but whose homes are on Brooklyn Heights or elsewhere on Long Island, or the New Jersey coast. The boats are very large and very ugly, but do their work admirably, being adapted for the transport of wheeled carriages of every description as well as for foot-passengers. One of the sights of New York worth seeing is a visit to the Fulton Ferry in the morning or in the evening, when the crowds are the greatest. The _Robert Garrett_, which runs down the bay to Staten Island, carries from 4,000 to 5,000 passengers at a trip, and is said to be the largest steam-ferry passenger boat in existence. She is owned by the Staten Island Rapid Transit Co., and cost $225,000.

Another type of ferry-boat is that which, in addition to carrying passengers, is specially adapted for railway purposes. The best specimen of this kind of steamboat is probably to be found on Lake Erie, where a pair of boats, precisely alike, keep up regular communication twice a day, summer and winter, between Coneant, Ohio, and Port Dover, Ontario. They are named _Shenango_, 1st and 2nd. They are each 300 feet long and 53 feet in width. On the main deck are four railway tracks, sufficient for twenty-six loaded cars each containing 60,000 lbs. of coal. On the upper deck are handsomely fitted cabins for 1,000 passengers The ferry is sixty-five miles wide. Sometimes it is pretty rough sailing, but these steamers never fail to make the round trip in thirteen hours. They are fitted with compound engines, Scotch boilers, and twin screws; they draw 12½ feet of water when loaded and run twelve miles an hour; they are prodigiously strong, and can plough their way through fields of ice with marvellous facility.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “The Atlantic Ferry,” p. 175.

[2] If my recollection serves me aright, there were not more than a dozen cabin passengers, and the only one of them who ventured aloft with me was my now venerable friend, Mr. Robert W. Graham, of the Montreal _Star_.

[3] “Denis Papin,” by Henry C. Ewart, in _Sunday Magazine_, 1880, p. 316.

[4] Mr. Symington’s account of his interview with Mr. Fulton, as given in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” is as follows: “When engaged in these experiments, I was called upon by Mr. Fulton, who told me he was lately from North America, and intended returning thither in a few months, but could not think of leaving this country without first waiting upon me in expectation of seeing the boat, and procuring such information regarding it as I might be pleased to communicate.... In compliance with his earnest request, I caused the engine fire to be lighted up, and in a short time thereafter put the steamboat in motion, and carried him four miles west on the canal, returning to the point from which we started in one hour and twenty minutes (being at the rate of six miles an hour), to the great astonishment of Mr. Fulton and several gentlemen, who at our outset chanced to come on board. During the trip Mr. Fulton asked if I had any objection to his taking notes regarding the steamboat, to which I made no objection, as I considered the more publicity that was given to any discovery intended for the general good, so much the better.... In consequence he pulled out a memorandum book, and, after putting several pointed questions respecting the general construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most explicit manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described, with his own observations upon the boat during the trip.”

[5] “The Story of Helensburgh,” 1894, p. 92.

[6] These cuts, copied from Stanton’s “American Steam Vessels,” represent first class Mississippi and Ohio light-draught, high-pressure river steamers. The _J. M. White_, of 1878, was deemed “a crowning effort in steamboat architecture in the West.” She was 320 feet long and 91 feet in width, over the guards. Her saloons were magnificently furnished, and all her internal fittings of the most elaborate description. She carried 7,000 bales of cotton and had accommodation for 350 cabin passengers. Her cost was $300,000. She was totally destroyed by fire in 1886.