cargo of linseed and iron castings, and went up the Seine to

Paris. It was some time, however, before iron came into general
use. Ten years later, in 1832, Maudslay and Field built four

iron vessels for the East India Company. In the course of about
twenty years, the use of iron became general, not only for ships

of war, but for merchant ships plying to all parts of the world.
When ships began to be built of iron, it was found that they

could be increased without limit, so long as coal, iron,
machinery, and strong men full of skill and industry, were

procurable. The trade in shipbuilding returned to Britain, where
iron ships are now made and exported in large numbers; the

mercantile marine of this country exceeding in amount and tonnage
that of all the other countries of the world put together. The

"wooden walls"[3] of England exist no more, for iron has
superseded wood. Instead of constructing vessels from the

forest, we are now digging new navies out of the bowels of the
earth, and our "walls," instead of wood, are now of iron and

steel.
The attempt to propel ships by other means than sails and oars

went on from century to century, and did not succeed until almost
within our own time. It is said that the Roman army under

Claudius Codex was transported into Sicily in boats propelled by
wheels moved by oxen. Galleys, propelled by wheels in paddles,

were afterwards attempted. The Harleian MS. contains an Italian
book of sketches, attributed to the 15th century, in which there

appears a drawing of a paddle-boat, evidently intended to be
worked by men. Paddle-boats, worked by horse-power, were also

tried. Blasco Garay made a supreme effort at Barcelona in 1543.
His vessel was propelled by a paddle-wheel on each side, worked

by forty men. But nothing came of the experiment.
Many other efforts of a similar kind were made,--by Savery among

others,[4]--until we come down to Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton,
who, in 1787, invented a double-hulled boat, which he caused to

be propelled on the Firth of Forth by men working a capstan which
drove the paddles on each side. The men soon became exhausted,

and on Miller mentioning the subject to William Symington, who
was then exhibiting his road locomotive in Edinburgh, Symington

at once said, "Why don't you employ steam-power?"
There were many speculations in early times as to the application

of steam-power for propelling vessels through the water. David
Ramsay in 1618, Dr. Grant in 1632, the Marquis of Worcester in

1661, were among the first in England to publish their views upon
the subject. But it is probable that Denis Papin, the banished

Hugnenot physician, for some time Curator of the Royal Society,
was the first who made a model steam-boat. Daring his residence

in England, he was elected Professor of Mathematics in the
University of Marburg. It was while at that city that he

constructed, in 1707, a small steam-engine, which he fitted in a
boat--une petite machine d'un, vaisseau a roues--and despatched

it to England for the purpose of being tried upon the Thames.
The little vessel never reached England. At Munden, the boatmen

on the River Weser, thinking that, if successful, it would
destroy their occupation, seized the boat, with its machine, and

barbarously destroyed it. Papin did not repeat his experiment,
and died a few years later.

The next inventor was Jonathan Hulls, of Campden, in
Gloucestershire. He patented a steamboat in 1736, and worked the

paddle-wheel placed at the stern of the vessel by means of a
Newcomen engine. He tried his boat on the River Avon, at

Evesham, but it did not succeed, and the engine was taken on
shore again. A local poet commemorated his failure in the

following lines, which were remembered long after his steamboat
experiment had been forgotten:--

"Jonathan Hull,
With his paper skull,

Tried hard to make a machine
That should go against wind and tide;

But he, like an ass,
Couldn't bring it to pass,

So at last was ashamed to be seen."
Nothing of importance was done in the direction of a steam-engine

able to drive paddles, until the invention by James Watt, in
1769, of his double-acting engine--the first step by which steam

was rendered capable of being successfully used to impel a
vessel. But Watt was indifferent to taking up the subject of

steam navigation, as well as of steam locomotion. He refused
many invitations to make steam-engines for the propulsion of

ships, preferring to confine himself to his "regular established
trade and manufacture," that of making condensing steam-engines,

which had become of great importance towards the close of his
life.

Two records exist of paddle-wheel steamboats having been early
tried in France--one by the Comte d'Auxiron and M. Perrier in

1774, the other by the Comte de Jouffroy in 1783--but the notices
of their experiments are very vague, and rest on somewhat

doubtful authority.
The idea, however, had been born, and was not allowed to die.

When Mr. Miller of Dalswinton had revived the notion of
propelling vessels by means of paddle-wheels, worked, as Savery

had before worked them, by means of a capstan placed in the
centre of the vessel, and when he complained to Symington of the

fatigue caused to the men by working the capstan, and Symington
had suggested the use of steam, Mr. Miller was impressed by the

idea, and proceeded to order a steam-engine for the purpose of
trying the experiment. The boat was built at Edinburgh, and

removed to Dalswinton Lake. It was there fitted with Symington's
steam-engine, and first tried with success on the 14th of

October, 1788, as has been related at length in Mr. Nasmyth's
'Autobiography.' The experiment was repeated with even greater

success in the charlotte Dundas in 1801, which was used to tow
vessels along the Forth and Clyde Canal, and to bring ships up

the Firth of Forth to the canal entrance at Grangemouth.
The progress of steam navigation was nevertheless very slow.

Symington's experiments were not renewed. The Charlotte Dundas
was withdrawn from use, because of the supposedinjury to the

banks of the Canal, caused by the swell from the wheel. The
steamboat was laid up in a creek at Bainsford, where it went to

ruin, and the inventor himself died in poverty. Among those who
inspected the vessel while at work were Fulton, the American

artist, and Henry Bell, the Glasgow engineer. The former had
already occupied himself with model steamboats, both at Paris and

in London; and in 1805 he obtained from Boulton and Watt, of
Birmingham, the steam-engine required for propelling his paddle

steamboat on the Hudson. The Clermont was first started in
August, 1807, and attained a speed of nearly five miles an hour.

Five years later, Henry Bell constructed and tried his first
steamer on the Clyde.

It was not until 1815 that the first steamboat was seen on the
Thames. This was the Richmond packet, which plied between London

and Richmond. The vessel was fitted with the first marine engine
Henry Maudslay ever made. During the same year, the Margery,

formerly employed on the Firth of Forth, began plying between
Gravesend and London; and the Thames, formerly the Argyll, came

round from the Clyde, encountering rough seas, and making the
voyage of 758 miles in five days and two hours. This was thought