STEAM NAVIGATION. 3

peror Charles V, and many members of his Court, it appears extra-ordinary that the invention, even at so early a period, should havebeen allowed to sink into oblivion, and that the inventor neglected torender it useful for other purposes.*

An old English writer on military subjects says,“ And further-More you may make a boate to goe without oares: or sayle, by theplacing of certain wheeles on the outside of the boate, in that sort,that the armes of the wheels may goe into the water, and so turningthe wheeles by some provision; and so the wheeles shall make theboate goe.”+

We learn from Paucirollus, a celebrated professor at Padua in1587, that he saw an ancient bas-relief which represented a galleywith three wheels on each side, turned by three pair of oxen: and heobserves that“ they would have a greater velocity than the swiftestthree-decked galleys.””£

In our own country, suggestions for propelling vessels mechani-cally, without the aid of animal power, were made at a very earlyperiod; and the Steam Engine was named, from the use to whichit was applied,“ The Engine for raising Water by Fire,” and patentswere granted for that purpose. Among the earliest projectors onrecord we find the name of David Ramsey, one of the Pages of theKing’s Bedchamber, who with another person, on the 21st of January,in the year 1618, obtained a patent“ To exercise and put in usedivers newe apt Jormes or kinds of Engines and other pfitable In-venCons as well to plough grounds without horse or oxen, and tomake fertile as well barren peats, salts and sea sands, as inlandand upland grounds within the Realmes of England,&c. As, also,CO raise waters, and to make boats for carriages runnin upon the

* For further information on De Garay’s invention,Works of the two authors last quoted.

T“ Invention or Devises,” by William Bourne, P- 15. London, 1578.

$“ Res Memorabiles,” pP. 127. Ambergee, 1599.

the reader is referred to the

1543.

1578.

1599.

1618,