Wichita eagle., 1889-11-05
aail9 Il eagle
THE OCEAN STEAMER.
MODERN FLYERS COMPARED WITH
EARLY STEAM VESSELS.
A Little Of tho History Of Steamboat Navi-
eation-The Speed Of Vessels Crossing
the Atlantic-The Twin Screw Propeller
Not q New Thing.

the Atlantic-The Twin Screw Propeller
Not q New Thing.
The story Of the steamboat and steamship,
rs told by the collection in the National
museum at Washington, shows the begin
nings rather than the progress OF marine en-
gineering. A collection, to show tbs progress
step by step properly, would fill a building
larger than the present museum and give en-
ployment to a corps Of workers as large as is
now employed in all the departments
The great ocean greyhounds that speed
across the sea with their twin" screws turn
Ing around an incredible number of times In
q minute, smashing records at almost every
trip, are propelled through an idea born with
the century. The twin screw is not now
thing. 1t was invented long before the old
eide wheelers began to roll and splash their
way over the sea- 1t is a different thing,
perhaps, from what it was in 1904, for it is
strong and of beautiful workmanship. They
could not make fine steel machinery in 1904
HISTORY OF STEAM NAVIGATION.
Mr.. j. j. Elfreth Watkins, curator of the
section Of transportation and engineering
has assembled in the museum q series of eN-
hibits that tell a very straight story Of the
beginning and ending, calling today the end,
of the progress in steam navigation.
"The City Of Paris does not go 50 much
faster than steamers of fifteen years ago be-
cause of some great discovery in steam cn-
cheering" hesaid the other day, talking to q
reporter. "The ocean record, like the record
of the turf, is not reduced by hours, bat by
minutes-just as the race horse cuts down
the mile record fraction of q second at a
time.
1.-The marine engineers have only kept pace
with their brethren in other fields Of labor.
/ think the locomotive and the steamship
have improved simultaneously. Think of a
boiler standing $50 pounds pressure to each
square inch hour after hourl That is what
makes forty-five minute trains to Baltimore
possible, and takes the passenger to Philadel-
phia In three hours and thence to Now York
In two more, and that is what makes it pos
sible for the tourist to breakfast at the Hol-
born one Saturday and at Delmonico's the
next.
The principle of the triple expansion en-
CINE is not very new, nor the lines OF tho ves-
sells so changed that this great speed is at
tanned Low pressure engines and slow time
were one result of not being able TO make the
boilers strong enough to stand high pressure.
Rapid travel has its start with the construc-
ton of strong riveted boilers, first OF iron and
then of steel. The steel boiler makes possible
the triple high pressure engine and tLe great
speed. With the old iron Dollars they were
afraid to carry steam enough to force tho
vessel ahead as they may today 1t was too
dangerous. The problem was that Of material
to stand the pressure, and the development of
steam transportation kept pac4 with tho inn
provement of material and workmanship.
THE FIRST TWIN SCREW PROPELLER.
'Think of how much coal they burn to cut
down the time few hours
''The exhibit here shows that the first twin
screw propeller was made by John Stevens
in 1904, and in this the same principle is in
volved as in the ocean greyhounds of today.
Since the day of Stevens and Fulton it has
been matter of development and not CT in
vention. In fact, Fulton was hardly en- in
ventor. He applied; he knew how to bring
together discoveries and make use of them.
Stevens was an inventor, and really has the
right to DO regarded as the first 10 drive
boat propeller by steam. But Fulton made
the first commercially successful steamer
in America, and he viii always be
spoken of as the inventor of the steamboat.
Stevens boat the Phoenix, was launched
about two weeks after Fulton's Clermont.
Stevens made his own boat and his own en-
CINE Fulton bought his engine from Watt
in England, and there is strong evidence that
Watt suggested the proportions to mako the
Il = Il L.
done this, though do not know that that
fact has ever before been made public"
The photograph of the engine and the twin
screws made by Stevens. together with his
description of the propeller in a letter to
Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, in November,
1905, and the duplicate of the wheel, are in
teresting evidences of the ancestry of tho
twin screws that now race the ocean. 1t Is a
curious thing that the very latest and the
very earliest contriyance of propeller should
be so nearly the same thing. The Stevens
propeller has the two screw wheels, one on
each side of the boat forward Of the rudder,
as the City Of Paris has today. In the prin-
ciple was all the speed of this great racer,
waiting only for the power to be sufficiently
applied. But it was reserved for Ericsson
to make the propeller commercial success
more than thirty years later
The collection goes back TO Fulton and
Stevens, to the steamboat of Jonathan Hull,
in 1877, which is represented in print from
a draft published by parliament in 1887.
Next tc that comes an India ink drawing of
Rumsey's boat, with regard 70 which Gen.
Washington wrote to Rumsey. As a rare
relic of this steamboat the collection is en-
oh. Il.
gearing of this boat.
Another valuable object is the original pat
ent granted TO John Fitch, of Philadelphia,
by Louis XVI, king of France, Nov. 90, 1871,
for his steam propellers for boats. There is
also drawing of the Fitch boat, which car.
ried passengers for pay on the Delaware be-
tween Philadelphia and Burlington. and a
newspaper of July 70 1870, con-
tanning an advertisement of the time table of
Fitch's boat
An India ink drawing represents Fultons
steamer Clermont, which made the first trim
from New York TO albany in August, 1907.
The Phoenix, the first steamboat to sail on
the sea, constructed by Stevens at Hoboken.
and launched fifteen days after the Clermont,
is represented In India ink. This W as not a
propeller boat. but side wheeler. 1t made
the trip from Sandy Hook TO Cape May in
lS0S
There is print of Fulton's Paragon OF
ISL, and another of the Fulton First, the
first steam frigate in the United States navy,
built in 1914. One of the most interesting
objects in the collection is the original log OF
the Savannah, kept when she made the first
trip ever made across the Atlantic by
steamer. 1t is exhibited in connection with
an India ink drawing of the vessel The log
IS complete for the whole voyage. from the
departure from Savannah, Nav %, 1919, to