ITS RISE AND PROGRESS.
The earliest conception of an auxiliary motive power in navigation is contemporaneous with the first use of the wind; the name of the inventor, "unrecorded in the patent-office," is lost in the lapse of ages. The first motor was, undoubtedly, the hand; next followed the paddle, the scull, and the oar; sails were an after-thought, introduced to play the secondary part of an auxiliary.
Scarce was man in possession of this means of impressing the wind, and resting his weary oar, than, scorning longer confinement to the coast, he boldly ventured upon the conquest of the main. Under the same impulse, the tiny skiff, in which he hardly dared to quit the river's bank, was enlarged, and made fit companion of his distant emprise. These footprints of the infant steps of navigation may all still be traced among the maritime tribes of the Pacific.
From that period sails became the chief motor, and the paddle and the sweep auxiliaries,—which position they still hold to some extent, even in vessels of considerable burden. But as the proportions of naval architecture enlarged, these puny instruments were thrown aside; although the importance and necessity of some such auxiliary in the ordinary exigencies of marine life have always been felt and it has long been earnestly sought.
From the first successful application of steam to navigation—by Fulton, in 1803—it was supposed to be the simplest thing in the world to provide ships with an auxiliary motor; but the result has shown the fallacy of this conception.
For more than twenty years steam-navigation has advanced with giant strides, overstepping several times the limits which science had assigned it; but the paddle-wheel, by which the agency of steam has been applied, forms so bad an alliance with canvas, and supplies so indifferently the requirements of a man-of-war, that it has been impossible by this intermediary to render steam the efficient coadjutor of sails; and it is for this reason that steam so speedily took rank as a primary motor upon the ocean; for, in all the successful marine applications of steam by means of the paddle, steam is the dominant power, and sails the accessory, or almost superfluous auxiliary. It is the screw alone, in some of its modifications, which offers the means of a successful and economical adaptation of steam to ships of war or of commerce; for it is susceptible of a more complete protection than, the paddle, and of an easy and advantageous combination with canvas.
The screw-propeller, in fact, has assumed so important a part in all naval enterprise, that it may not be without interest to trace briefly its rise and progress to the consideration it now commands, and to review, in general terms, the various experiments by which the screw-frigate has been brought to its present high state of efficiency, excelling, for purposes of war, all other kinds of vessels.
As early as 1804, John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, engaged in experiments to devise some means of driving a vessel through the water by applying the motive power at the stern, and with a screw-propeller and a defective boiler attained for short distances a speed of seven knots; and it is surprising, that, with the genius and determination so characteristic of his race, he should have abandoned the path on which he appears to have so fairly entered.
Within the last half-century numerous attempts of a similar character have been made in Europe and America; but although many of the contrivances for this purpose were exceedingly ingenious, and the success of some of the experiments sufficient, one would suppose, to excite the interest of the public and encourage perseverance in the undertaking, yet in no instance were they followed by any practical and useful results until the year 1836, when both Captain Ericsson and Mr. F. P. Smith so fully demonstrated the speed and safety with which vessels could be moved by the screw-propeller, as to convince every intelligent and unprejudiced mind of the importance of their inventions, and immediately to attract the attention of the principal naval powers of the world.
Captain Ericsson is a native of Sweden, but for some years previous to 1836 he had resided in England, where he had become known as an engineer and mechanician of distinguished ability.