, 1877-02-09
Utilization Of Steam a. = Motive
Power.

The invention Of steam As a moving
power is claimed by various nations.
As early as 15l3, a Spanish Captain,
named Blasco de Garay, showed ia the
harbor Of Barcelona q steamboat Of his
own invention. II Is most likely that
Blasco's engine was on the principle Of
the Eolipile Of Hero, invented 100 B.
c., in which steam produces rotary mo-
ton by issuing from orifees. The Ger
man engineer, Sol de Caus, in the service
Of the Elector Palatinein in Heidelberg.
describes 4 steam engine. which was
merely a contrivance for forcing the
water contained in a copper ball through
q tube by applying heat. The Italian
engineer, G.. BFanca, invented, in 1929,
a sort Of steam windmill the steam
being generated in boiler, was directed
by q spout against the fiat vanes Of
wheel. But the first successful effort
was that Of the Marquis of Worcester.
INhis Century Of LareRtions, the manu-
script of which dates from 1865, he de-
scribes a steam apparatus by which he
raised a column of water to the height
of forty feet. This, with the exception
of Blasco's, was the first really useful
application of steam /; the others had
been mere toys. The only surprising
thing is, that thirty years should have
elapsed-between 1777, when the steam
engine had become in Watts hands an
efficient power for other purposes, and
1907, the date of Fulton's first voyage
before a really serviceable steam vessel
was produced. The connecting link
oaaDno 70 l,o kho ,,ca of 1as
instead of oars. As early as 1875, Jona-
than Hulls had taken out patent for
tow boat to be propelled by a paddle
wheel set in motion by a sort of steam
engine. The project appears never to
have been executed. Besides some ex-
periments on the Seine by Comte d.
Auxiron, in 1775, and Periere in ITS,
the Marquis de Joufroy constructed a
steamboat of considerable size in 1882,
which navigated the Seine for some time;
it was deficient, however, in power. In
America experiments began to be made
about 1913 by Fitch and Rumsey. Fitch
launched a paddle steamboat in 1888,
which moved at the rate of four miles
an hour, but before proceeding far the
boiler burst. Rumsey proposed topro-
pei buc Ncoocl Dy uldhluR u btICdLu VI
water issue with force from the stern,
but his attempt failed. In 1901, Mr..
Symington took out a patent for the
construction Of steamboats,, and in 1903
built the Charlotte Dundas," to tow
vessels on the Forth and Clyde Canal.
The success seems to have been COM
plete. In the meantime attempts had
been making at steam navigation in
America by Stevens, Livingston and
others. Robert Fulton, another Ameri-
can, had thought of steam as a motive
power for vessels as early as 1898.
Travelling into Scotland he visited the
unfortunate Charlotte Dundas," and
obtained drawings of the machinery.
Returning to America with one of Bolton
and Watts engines of 20 horse power,
he, in conjunction with Livingston,
built the " Clermont," at New York, and
in 1907 made the first really successful
voyage by steam from New York to
Albany, up the Hudson. The vessel
sailed ITO miles in the first "a hours,
against stream and wind. Fulton has
thus indisputably the honor of having
first proved the practical utility of steam
navigation, Five years later, 1912,
Henry Bell Of Ghsgow, who had wit
messed the experiments on the canal in
| 1913, and had accompanied Fulton on
his visit to the "Charlotte Dundas, !"
started a steamboat, the Comet" on
the Clyde, and was thus the father of
steam navigation III Great Britain.