Read of Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard in 1781, was the inventor of the vertical multitubular fire-box boiler, now in general use, which gave him great distinction. In 1788 he designed a steamboat fitted with paddle-wheels and a crank to be turned with the hand, and by trial satisfied himself that the system would work. In 1789 he applied to congress, then convened in New York, for a patent-was the first petitioner for a patent before the patent law was enacted-and it was granted him in 1791; James Rumsey, John Fitch, and John Stevens all receiving patents at the same date for various methods of applying steam to the propulsion of vessels. Samuel Moray of New Hampshire began experimenting with a

steamboat in 1790, built by himself and fitted with paddle-wheels driven by a steam-engine of his own design. He made a trial trip on the Connecticut river one Sunday morning, from Oxford to Fairlee, Vermont, a distance of several miles, and returned safely. He spent his summers in New York until 1793, studying to improve his boat and engine; the boat was a "stern wheeler," and was thought to be capable of steaming five miles an hour. Elijah Ormsbee of Rhode Island caught the spirit, and in 1792 built a small steamboat, with an "atmospheric engine" and “duck's foot" paddles, and made a successful trial trip on the Seekonk river. Nicholas Roosevelt of New York, who had become interested in the Schuyler copper mines, and had constructed an atmospheric engine from the model of Hornblower's, joined with John Stevens and Chancellor Livingston in building a little steamboat, which was tried on the Passaic river in 1798, having on board a party of invited guests, among whom was the Spanish minister; but the enterprise failed. In 1809, Roosevelt became associated with Fulton in the introduction of steamboats on the western waters; and in 1811 Roosevelt built and navigated the New Orleans, the pioneer steamboat that descended the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. He took his family with him and accomplished the trip in fourteen days. John Stevens of New York urged more weighty and advanced opinions and statesman-like views on the economical importance of steam navigation than any man of his time. He was the grandson, through his mother, of the great lawyer and mathematician, James Alexander, and his sister was the wife of Chancellor Livingston; he was a graduate of King's (now Columbia) college in 1768, and at the beginning of this century was fifty-one years of age. His petition

to congress in 1790 for the protection of inventors, was the foundation of the American patent law. His life was devoted to experiments at his own cost for the common good. He built the Phenix which was completed and launched only a few weeks after Fulton's triumph had been assured; it was sent to Philadelphia, as before mentioned, by open sea, to be used on the Delaware. His son, Robert Livingston Stevens, then but twenty years of age, had already commenced his remarkable career of invention. He assisted his father in bringing out a fleet of steamers on the Delaware, and upon the collapse of the Fulton monopoly they together built some of the finest steamboats on the Hudson. The speed when Fulton died had only reached seven miles an hour; Robert L. Stevens built the Philadelphia, in 1813, introducing several new devices, which sailed eight miles an hour. With every steamboat he constructed thereafter the speed was increased, until, in 1827, the North

America attained fifteen miles. From 1815 until 1840 he stood at the head of his profession in this country as a builder of steam-vessels and their machinery, making constant and invaluable improvements. He originated the present form of ferry-boats and ferry-slips, and was the first to bring a steam-ferry into actual operation. He made the first marine tubular boiler in 1831; he adopted a new method of bracing and fastening steamboats, and was the first on record to use the new, unmanageable anthracite coal for steam fuel. He

became, in short, one of the greatest of naval architects, and was constantly lavishing time and money upon changes to enhance the usefulness of steam navigation; and the variety, extent, and importance of his work, it is hoped, will yet be recognized in some substantial form.

The inventive instinct of America appears to have been abreast with that of any other country; and it has the honor, through the trial of the Clermont in 1807, of bridging the chasm between mere attempts and positive achievements in steam navigation. Robert Fulton's fame was justly earned, and is secure in the world's memory. But the time has come when his industrious and less fortunate cotemporaries in invention should not be left in unmerited obscurity. A vast amount of experimental work had to be accomplished, and it is no reflection on a man's genius to have groped in the dark when there was no light within his reach. Immature schemes were necessarily failures; but the causes of such failures were carefully noted, and their fruits became marvels of inspiration. No invention was ever born full-grown or disjoined from antecedents leading to it; thus it is exceptionally interesting to trace the extraordinary efforts and bitter disappointments in widely separated countries which stand in orderly relations one to another, apparently without connection, as essential parts of an intelligent design.

The screw, which was first suggested by Dr. Hooke in 1681, and was the subject of a prize essay by Dr. Bernouilli in 1752, before the French Academy of Sciences, and actually tried in the United States during the Revolution, by David Bushnell, while conducting submarine experiments

with torpedoes, was finally brought into general use by John Ericsson, who in 1836 invented and patented the screw-propeller, which revolutionized navigation. In 1837 he built a steam vessel having twin screw-propellers, which on trial towed the American packet-ship Toronto at the rate of five miles an hour on the river Thames. In 1838 he constructed the iron screw-steamer Robert F. Stockton, which crossed the Atlantic under canvas in 1839, and was afterward employed as a tug-boat on the Delaware river for a quarter of a century. Ericsson had tried to interest the British admiralty in his improvements, but only succeeded so far as to persuade the noble lords to make the excursion with him on the Thames. The barriers of tradition and prejudice had not yet been overcome, and the naval authorities rejected the, to them, new idea, although it was presently taken up by private parties. But the greater boldness and intelligence of some of the representatives of the United States, then in England, gave Ericsson substantial encouragement. Francis B. Ogden of New Jersey placed capital at the inventor's command, who built a little screw-boat called the Francis B. Ogden, and Commodore Stockton of our navy made an excursion on it with Ericsson, and then gave an order for the building of the Robert F. Stockton, above mentioned. On his arrival in America Ericsson was almost immediately given an opportunity to build the large screwsteamer Princeton, a war vessel, and presently the English, French, German, and other European governments had screw-steamers constructed from Ericsson's plans, or from those of his agent in England, Count de Rosen, as the screw was found to possess many advantages over the paddle-wheel as an instrument for ship-propulsion, and the cost of machinery was much lessened by its use.

The first steamer on our Great Lakes was the Ontario, built in 1816, at Sackett's Harbor-three years before the Savannah crossed the Atlantic. At the time of the establishment of the Cunard line of ocean steamers in 1840, one of the most notable events of the decade immediately following the success of the Great Western, there were many fine steamers on our lakes, and they multiplied with rapidity. The first four vessels of the Cunard line had modern paddle-wheels, and the Britannia was the foremost to sail. The Cunard company had agreed to carry the mails fortnightly between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, and the contract was to continue seven years. These ships accommodated only first-cabin passengers, emigrants having no place in any steamer prior to 1850. But no luxuries were provided; a narrow berth to sleep in and ordinary food was esteemed sufficient. The building of the Great Britain, in 1845, was a notable advance in steamship construction, iron being used with great