From the Drawings in possession of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Stanhope.

[The illustrations on this page] represent Fulton’s first plans for steam navigation. They were sent by him to Lord Stanhope in the year 1793 and are here reproduced from a copy, by kind permission of the present earl. In his letter descriptive of these ideas Fulton shows the upper part of this illustration, marked No. 1, to be an attempt to imitate the spring in the tail of a salmon. Amidships will be noticed an object resembling a bow such as one usually associates with arrows. This bow was to be wound up by the steam engine, and the collected force attached to the end of the paddle, shown in the stern of the boat, would urge the ship ahead. But the sketch of a ship in the lower part of the picture marked No. 2 represents the model at which he was then working. It will be noticed that she has something of the characteristic stern which was so marked a feature of the sailing ships of this period and had been inherited from the Dutch of the seventeenth century, and is still traceable in the design of the modern royal steam yachts in England, as will be seen by a comparison with[ the illustration of the Alexandra]. In referring to this No. 2, Fulton points out that he had found that three or six paddles answered better than any other number, since they do not counteract each other. By being hung a little above the water there is allowed a short space from the delivery of one paddle to the entrance of the other, and, also, the paddle enters the water more perpendicularly; the dotted lines show its situation when it enters and when it is covered. In the smaller illustration, No. 3, he emphasises the importance of arranging the paddle-blades still further. Thus the paddles A, B, C, and D strike the water almost flat and rise in the same situation, whilst that paddle marked E is the only one that pulls, the others acting against it. Whilst E is sending the ship ahead, “B.A. is pressing her into the water and C.D. is pulling her out, but remove all the paddles except E and she moves on in a direct line.” Finally, he concludes his letter with an explanation that the perpendicular triangular paddles are supposed to be placed in a cast-iron wheel “which should ever hang above the water” and would answer as a “fly and brace to the perpendicular oars”; and with regard to the design of the steamship, he says: “I have been of opinion that they should be long, narrow and flat at bottom, with a broad keel as a flat Vessel will not occupy so much space in the water: it consequently has not so much resistance.”

Desblanc had, like the Earl of Stanhope and Elijah Ormsbee, experimented with the duck’s foot idea, but had also met with failure. Fulton carefully went into the consideration of its merits before trying his Seine boat, but deemed it to be unsuitable. Whatever advantages this method might have possessed, the action of the duck’s foot caused far too great resistance, since after making the propelling stroke it returned through the water before being ready for the following stroke; whereas in the case of the revolving paddles or oars on wheels their return is made through air. Thus the resistance is considerably less.

But all this time Fulton had his native country in mind and not so much the advantages that might accrue to the land in which he had made his experiments. It was the Hudson, not the Seine, which he longed to conquer by steam, and the title-page of his note-book, dated more than a year prior to the events on the Seine, in which he drew a prophetical sketch of a steamboat travelling from New York to Albany in twelve hours, eminently confirms this. Therefore, we find him immediately writing to Messrs. Boulton and Watt from Paris, asking them to make for him “a cylinder of 24 horse-power double effect, the piston making a four-foot stroke”; also he wants them to manufacture a piston and piston-rod, valves, condenser, air-pump, and so on. It is perfectly clear that Fulton had but limited knowledge of the amount of power which an engine could develop. His ability consisted rather in knowing how best to apply that power. Thus he asks in his letter: “What must be the size of the boiler for such an engine? How much space for water and how much for the steam? How many pounds of coal will such an engine require per hour?” and so on. At first Boulton and Watt had to decline the order, since they were unable to obtain permission to get the engine into America. Finally, after paying £548 in purchase, it was not until March of 1805, or most of two years after receiving the order, that Boulton and Watt received permission to ship the engine to America. Fulton had crossed from France to England in 1803, and in the autumn of 1806 left by a Falmouth packet for his native land. Writing to-day, when the Mauretania and Lusitania are still making their wonderful records for fast voyages between the two countries, little more than a hundred years after Fulton had given the inspiration to marine engineering, it is no small contrast that the ship which carried him from England to America took no less than two months on the way. But the same winter he set to work immediately after his return to build that ever-famous Clermont, so called as a courteous acknowledgment of the hospitality he had enjoyed at Livingston’s country place of that name on the banks of the Hudson. From an agreement which had already been made in Paris, dated October 10, 1802, between Livingston and himself, Fulton had jointly contracted to make an attempt to build such a steamboat as would be able to navigate the Hudson between New York and Albany. She was to be of a length not exceeding 120 feet, width 8 feet, and was not to draw more than 15 inches of water. “Such a boat shall be calculated on the experiments already made, with a view to run 8 miles an hour in stagnate water and carry at least 60 passengers allowing 200 pounds weight to each passenger.” After the engine had at last arrived in New York it remained for six months at the New York Custom House, waiting, it is said, until Fulton was able to raise enough money to pay the duties. But as Mrs. Sutcliffe has pointed out in her article on Fulton to which reference has already been made, and to which also I am indebted for many interesting facts then for the first time made public, it is possible that the delay arose because the boat was not yet ready to receive her machinery. Fulton had rich friends who were interested in his work, so that I think the latter is the more probable reason for the delay.

And here, as we step from out of the realm of theories and suggestions into a realm of almost uninterrupted success, we may bring this chapter to a close. But before doing so let us not lose sight of that important fact on which I have already insisted—viz. that when steamboat success did eventually come, it was the happy fortune of no single individual, but an achievement in which many men, long since dead and gone, took part. It was the work of centuries and not of a year or two to bring about this marvellous means of transport. Hero, the ancient Romans, Blasco de Garray, Besson, Solomon de Caus, the Marquis of Worcester, Papin, Savery, Hulls, Watt, Périer, de Jouffroy, Miller, Symington, Taylor, Fitch, Stanhope, Desblanc, Livingston, Rumsey and others had all assisted in bringing this about, sometimes by their success, sometimes also by their failures. When next we step aboard even the most ill-found excursion steamer or the grimiest and most antiquated tug-boat, still more when we lie peacefully in the safety and luxury of a great modern liner, let us not forget that none of this would have been possible but for centuries of work and discovery, years of patient experiment and costly efforts, much disappointment, and considerable anxiety and abuse.

CHAPTER III
THE EARLY PASSENGER STEAMSHIPS

Robert Fulton was not the first to attempt steam navigation on the Hudson, and we have already given instances of the experiments made in the New World; but between the time of his success in Paris and his return to America, although others had failed before, experiments still went on. Thus, in the year 1804, John Stevens, whose interest in the steam propulsion of ships had been aroused by watching Fitch’s endeavours, decided to see what he could do. So by the month of May he had constructed a steamboat which succeeded in crossing the Hudson from Hoboken to New York, being propelled by a wheel placed at the stern, driven by a rotary engine. In the same month also Robert L. Stevens crossed from the Battery, New York, to Hoboken in a steamboat fitted with tubular boilers, which were the first of their kind ever to be made. The machinery was designed by Stevens himself in his own workshop, and it is important to add that this vessel was propelled not by a paddle-wheel but by a double screw, five feet in diameter, with four blades set at an angle of 35°.

Thus it was that three years before Fulton’s Clermont came on to the scene with her paddle-wheels, Stevens had already shown the way with screws. But this success was rather momentary than permanent: a mere flash, though startling in its brilliancy. Immediately after his return to America, Fulton had set to work to build the Clermont, having to endure in the meanwhile the scoffings and even threats of the incredulous, which necessitated the ship being protected night and day before she was quite ready for service. In addition to the main parts of the engines which had arrived from Boulton and Watt, there was much to be done before the combination of hull and parts could produce a steamboat. In the meantime funds had been drained somewhat extensively, and an offer was made to John Stevens, to whom we have just referred, to come in as a partner. The latter happened to be a brother-in-law of Livingston, Fulton’s patron, but the suggestion was declined. In the end the money, amounting to a thousand dollars, was found elsewhere, and the Clermont was completed. We know on Fulton’s own authority that she measured 150 feet in length, was 13 feet wide, and drew 2 feet of water, so that the original dimensions, as given in the agreement which we mentioned as having been made between Livingston and Fulton, were exceeded. She displaced 100 tons of water, her bottom being built of yellow pine 1½ inches thick, tongued and grooved, and set together with white lead. The floors at either end were of oak.

FULTON’S DESIGN OF ORIGINAL APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING THE RESISTANCE OF PADDLES FOR THE PROPULSION OF THE CLERMONT, DATED 1806.