A boy was there who afterwards became Lord Brougham, and Robert Burns was also there; and, no doubt, the experiment was watched with much interest.
It appears to have been successful, and next year a bigger boat was tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal, again with some success. But whether Mr. Miller thought he had now spent enough money on these experiments—and Carlyle says Miller “spent his life and his estate on that adventure, and died quasi-bankrupt and broken-hearted”—or whether he was satisfied with the results attained, he abandoned all further effort. Possibly he did not see any opportunity of utilising the invention further. At all events, the development of the steamboat made practically no progress until Symington commenced his experiments under Lord Dundas.
Russell is of opinion that the invention of steam navigation was the joint production of these three men. “The creation of the steamship,” says he, “appears to have been an achievement too gigantic for any single man. It was produced by one of those happy combinations in which individuals are but tools, working out each his part in a great system, of the whole of which no single one may have comprehended all the workings.”
ROBERT FULTON.
To these three, however, must be added Henry Bell, in Britain, and Robert Fulton, in America. They carried the great enterprise further on, to something like assured success.
Miller’s boats had two hulls, and the paddle wheels revolved between. Symington placed his wheel astern. Bell placed his paddles on either side.
“Ah, she will work!” we can imagine the spectators saying, as they watched that strange craft, the Charlotte Dundas, with her double rudder, tugging along her barges.
“Ay, she will work, but the canal folk won’t let her; they think the wash from the wheels will wear away the bank!”
“Then I will take the idea where it won’t be so hindered,” said another. “We are not afraid of our river banks in America.”