Such were the views of Mr. Randall, and, when it is considered that he was no mere theorist, but a man of large practical experience in such matters, there were even greater reasons to anticipate valuable results from the experiment. For twenty-two years before he propounded his scheme to the merchants of Philadelphia, Mr. Randall had been employed in building, fitting, and navigating steam-ships on the American lakes and on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:[163] and the only difference between these ships and the one he projected for the European trade consisted in the increased size, and in the application of two distinct sets of paddle-wheels instead of one.
FOOTNOTES:
[145] Lake Ontario, which lies nearest to the Atlantic, is 172 miles in length, about 60 miles in extreme breadth, and 483 miles in circumference. Lake Erie is about 265 miles in length, from 30 to 60 miles in breadth, and 529 miles in circumference; while Lake Huron is 240 miles long, from 186 to 220 miles wide, and 1000 miles in circumference. Michigan, which is connected with Lake Huron by a navigable strait, is 300 miles in length, 75 miles in width, and 920 miles in circumference, having a superficies of 16,200 square miles. But Lake Superior is the largest of all the lakes, being no less than 360 miles in length, and 140 miles in breadth, with a circumference of 1116 miles; the line of coast formed by the margins of these lakes extends to upwards of 4000 miles, while they are all, nearly throughout their entire length and breadth, navigable for vessels of the largest description, their depth varying, except within a short distance of the shores, from 12 to 200 fathoms.
[146] Chicago, situated on the south-west shore of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of a river of the same name, was in 1830 a mere station in the midst of a forest where a few Americans traded with the Indians in furs. Ten years afterwards it had 4470 inhabitants; but in 1850 these had increased to 27,620, and in 1853 to 60,552. In 1860, when I visited that place, it had become a great city, with somewhere about 150,000 inhabitants, numerous handsome stone buildings, and magnificent stores; those for grain capable of containing, according to the annual report of the Chicago Board of Trade, 5,475,000 bushels of corn, with a capacity for shipping no less than 1,835,000 bushels each day. Indeed, I witnessed the loading of a brigantine with 9000 bushels of wheat from one of these stores in two hours!
[147] The first vessel ever built on western waters was the brig Dean, launched at Alleghany City, Pa., in 1806.
[148] In a letter I received, January 5th, 1855, from Mr. E. P. Dorr, the President of the Buffalo Board of Trade, he says: “The Welland Canal, as it now stands, is used almost wholly by American vessels. It is the key of the other canals; its length is 28 miles, and there are 28 locks, as Lake Erie is 256 feet above Lake Ontario: but a new and enlarged canal is in process of construction, which, when finished, will admit vessels of large tonnage.”
[149] In 1860 there were 265 steam-vessels of 104,543 tons register, belonging to the United States, and 104 similar vessels, registering 33,269 tons, owned in Canada, all of which were engaged in the commerce of the lakes. On January 1st, 1875, the number of steamers belonging to both countries, thus employed, had increased to 689, measuring 258,980 tons. They range in size from 250 to 1500 tons. But, besides these, there were 1770 sailing-vessels of 386,554 tons similarly engaged, or an aggregate of 645,534 tons, one in every five of which vessels can go through the Welland Canal, three-fourths of them being American and one-fourth Canadian. Some of the lake sailing-vessels occasionally trade to England, the first, the Dean of Richmond, having taken a cargo from Chicago direct to Liverpool in 1856.
[150] “Civil Engineering of North America,” pp. 60, 61.
[151] Long Island Sound lies between that island and the mainland, and extends in a north-easterly direction from New York Harbour, affording a sheltered line of navigation of about 120 miles in extent.
[152] If any further proofs were necessary to show that almost everything done in this new business had its origin in England, these will be found in the fact, that a boat launched by Fulton on July 4th, 1815, was a counterpart of the one belonging to Mr. Miller, which he had seen on Dalwinston Lock some years previously. She was a structure resting upon two boats, separated from end to end by a channel 15 feet wide and 60 feet long. One boat contained the copper cauldrons, for preparing the steam; the other, the iron cylinder, piston, levers and wheels. The water-wheel revolved in a space between them just as in one of Mr. Miller’s boats. Had Fulton, in this matter, claimed originality, it would, certainly, be another and striking instance of two persons resident far apart from each other, carrying out the same idea, even in its most minute details.