The Wm. Baxter is also a twin-propeller, like the P. L. Sternburg, of 1858, and with compound engines, like the Eureka and the Dawson. She is built of yellow pine, with easy lines, and so low as to be unable to carry five-sixths of a horse-cargo of wheat or corn below deck, so that her lightness gives help to cargo, and her sharp bow and stern to speed. But her construction and model were long since abandoned by canal-boat builders.
The Wm. Newman is a common propeller and double-deck boat, and carries two hundred and ten tons. She is much like the Ruggles of 1858, but has less steam capabilities.
The Charles Hemjee was built upon the Western Division, with a tunnel-shaped encasement to her propeller. Of course she is reported as "very slow."
The John Durston had a propeller built in with her rudder, and driven with a vertical shaft, extending down through a cylindrical rudder-post, but was unfit for service.
Paddle Wheels.
The Port Byron is a stern, paddle-wheel boat, with vertical or eccentric acting paddles, and is like the Viele of 1858. She has a recess the entire length of her bottom of several square feet area, intended to facilitate a flow of water from the bow, but the flow does not occur; the mechanical currents of the wheel will be from the nearest water, and not from ninety feet forward.
The Montana is a similar stern-wheeler, without the recess.
The Success consists of two sections, to be disconnected for passing the locks, with paddle-wheel machinery at the bow. Her wheel, inside of the paddles, is a drum or cylinder, filled with cork, to be buoyant, and the hull has an easy, scow bow, for the water to pass under the boat. Practically, the large drum makes her a horizontal, cylindrical-bowed boat, and she mechanically throws the water therefrom against the scow-shaped bow, and so that the cylinder displacement with the mechanical currents, and the scow-bow displacement, combine to make her very slow. With her two sections she brought one and a half cargoes of corn.
The Excelsior has a horizontal, eccentric-acting paddle wheel, and was built of light iron at Green Point. She had a recess at the bow for her submerged wheel, and, when thus tried, found the retarding effects of the mechanical currents at and against the bow so great, as to cause her original bow-propulsion to be made stern-propulsion, when she was much improved. She was tried with cargo for a short distance on the canal, and withdrawn.
The Fountain City is a common boat, with machinery at her stern. She has two submerged horizontal, excentric-acting paddle-wheels, each of small diameter. These are placed under her quarters, in the rudder cross-section, and she is steered by her machinery. The characteristics of these wheels are like the Excelsior's, and the eccentric variations of both—together with the Byron's, Montana's and Viele's—are known as old devices of secondary merit on river, lake and ocean steamers.