Steamships and their story

by E. Keble Chatterton

But even in those days when slaves could be made to work to the limits of their endurance, it is fairly evident that man believed that there was a future for the mechanical propulsion of ships, and the usual form which this took was of applying paddle-wheels to the side of the ship, and revolving these by means of a capstan turned either by slaves or by oxen. The Chinese, it is scarcely to be wondered at, adopted this means, and so also did the Romans. In 264 B.C., when Appius Claudius Caudex one dark night crossed the Straits of Messina to Sicily, he transported the troops in boats propelled by paddle-wheels through the medium of capstans revolved by oxen, and there is in existence an ancient bas-relief which shows a galley with three wheels on either side to be used for this purpose. Over and over again this same idea was exploited, and even as recently as 1829 Charles Napier, a British naval officer, when he was in command of the frigate Galatea, was by special permission of the Admiralty allowed to fit her with paddles, which were worked by winches on the main deck. He found that in a calm he could thus get his ship along at three knots an hour, and tow a line-o’-battle ship at one and a half knots. But it was noticed then, what experimenters of this nature always found in every age, that, firstly, this method of capstan-plus-paddle-wheels was good only for a short distance; and, secondly, that so great an expenditure of physical force could be more advantageously applied by using the old-fashioned method of rowing.

Many a student and philosopher pictured in his mind some novel method for doing away with sails and oars, among whom we might mention Roger Bacon; but most of these theories seem not to have gone farther than the walls of the study. In 1543 another attempt was made by one Blasco de Garray, on June 17. Himself a native of Biscay, he proceeded to Barcelona, and experimented first with a vessel of 109 tons, and later with one of about twice the size. For many years it was commonly, but erroneously, stated that this was the first steamship. Apart altogether from the unlikeliness of this being the case at so early a date, it has now been proved to be little better than a fable based on insufficient evidence. Even to this present day this inaccuracy is still repeated, and it is not out of place to emphasise the fact yet again that de Garray’s was not a steamship. Special research has been undertaken in the Royal archives of Simancas by able and discriminating students, and the result is that, while it was found that two separate experiments were made with two different vessels, and that one ship had a paddle-wheel on either side worked by twenty-five men, and the other ship by forty men, and that a speed equal to three and a half English miles per hour was obtained, yet there was discovered among these manuscripts no mention whatsoever of the use of steam. The vessels were found to steer well, but the same conclusion was again arrived at—viz. that for a passage of any length it was far easier to use oars.

The idea, however, was not dead, and we find it coming up again in the time of Elizabeth. During her reign there were numbers of little books issued to make the seamen more efficient, and these, of course, deal with the sailing ship. One of the most entertaining that I know of is that entitled “Inventions or Devises Very necessary for all Generalles and Captaines, or Leaders of men, as well by Sea as by Land: Written by William Bourne.” It was published in London in 1578, and is full of fascinating matter for preventing the enemy from boarding ships, and useful tips for sinking him even when he is superior in strength and size to the ship he is attacking. Bourne mentions the following “devise” on page 15:—“And furthermore you may make a Boate to goe without oares or Sayle, by the placing of certaine wheels on the outside of the Boate, in that sort, that the armes of the wheeles may goe into the water, and so turning the wheeles by some provision, and so the wheeles shall make the Boate to goe.” And the next “devise” refers to the fact that “also, they make a water Mill in a Boate, for when that it rideth at an Anker, the tyde or streame will turne the wheeles with great force, and these Milles are used in France.”

In another interesting sixteenth century book, full of curious and wonderful machines, entitled “Theatrum Instrumentorum et Machinarum Jacobi Bessoni, Mathematici ingeniosissimi,” published in 1582, there are detailed illustrations and descriptions of a curious ship which is in shape something like a heart, the bow being the apex, so to speak; the stern has two ends, between which is fitted a species of paddle-wheel of unusual kind. It consists of a cigar-shaped object of wood, not unlike a modern torpedo, but broader. Through this is an axle which allowed the wheel to revolve freely, and on the axle at either end rests a vertical spar, which is fastened to another spar at the top parallel with the wheel. From the centre of this spar an enormous kind of mast or sprit rose high up into the air, which was worked by means of a tackle and ropes leading down to a winch, turned by two men. Thus, if the reader will imagine an object resembling one of those rollers employed in the preservation of a cricket pitch, but made of wood instead of metal, he will get something of the shape of this curious machine. Besson evidently thought a great deal of this invention and speaks of it as “inventum vix credibile,” but it was a clumsy method and cannot really have had many virtues to commend it.

Seven years after Besson’s publication there appeared another book which throws light on the prevailing passion for mechanical propulsion, though it refers back to the time of the ancient galley. In “The History of Many Memorable Things Lost, which were in use among the Ancients ... written originally in Latin by Guido Pancirollus, and now done into English Vol. i.,” published in London in 1715, but first issued in 1589, the following statement is made on page 120:—“I saw also the pictures of some ships, called Liburnæ which had three wheels on both sides, without, touching the water, each consisting of eight spokes, jetting out from the wheel about an hand’s breadth, and six oxen within, which by turning an engine stirr’d the wheels, whose Fellys [spokes], driving the water backwards, moved the Liburnians with such force that no three-oar’d gally was able to resist them.” This would seem to confirm the statement that the ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean certainly employed the paddle-wheel.

But a year before Pancirolli published his book there appeared another interesting work, which shows yet again that the employment of paddle-wheeled craft was far from non-existent. There is a scarce book in the British Museum, published in 1588, entitled “Le Diverse et Artificiose Machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli,” which is illustrated with some highly informative plates. Fig. CLII. shows a kind of pontoon, to be employed by the enemy in attacking a town from the other side of a stream or river. A horse brings a rectangular shaped construction down to the water’s edge, where it is launched and floats. Everywhere this kind of built-up dray is covered in, but in the bows a man is seen firing his harquebus from his protected shelter, while on either side of this craft a paddle-wheel is seen revolving with its six blades, that are not straight, as in the modern wheels, but curved inwards like a scythe. The illustration shows these wheels being turned by a man standing up inside; the wheels are quite open, without paddle-boxes. An oar projecting at the stern enables the craft to be steered.

We see, then, that that earliest form of ship propulsion by mechanical means, the paddle-wheel, was thoroughly grafted into man’s mind long before he had brought about the steamboat. We cannot give here every theory and suggestion which the seventeenth century put forward, but we can state that during this period various patents were being taken out for making boats to go against wind and tide, some of which were conspicuously distinguished by their display of ingenuity to overcome the forces of Nature. We come across all sorts of ideas for “to make boats, shippes, and barges to go against strong wind and tide,” “to draw or haul ships, boates, etc., up river against the stream,” “to make boates for the carryage of burthens and passengers upon the water as swifte in calms and more saft [sic] in stormes than boates full sayled in greater wynes.” The Marquis of Worcester, in 1663, published a little book entitled “A Century of the Names and Scantlings of Inventions,” and he himself patented an invention for sending a boat against the stream by using the actual force of the wind and stream in a reverse manner. But the fact to be borne in mind for our present purpose is that from all these ingenious propositions nothing practical ever evolved that was found to be of any service to man, or the transportation of his commerce. At any rate, there is no record of this.

HERO’S STEAM APPARATUS.

From the Exhibit in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.