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58 STEAM NAVIGATION.

1801. and if the second invention did not originate with Mr. Taylor(ofwhich his friends have given no shadow of a proof), Mr. Symingtonwas not performing an act of justice to himself in making the trans-fer of the half of his patent.

Should the invention of the combination of machinery in the Char-lotte Dundas be again attributed to any other person than WilliamSymington, which in all probability may be the case, the advocates ofsuch other claimant, by bringing forward proof of prior invention

| and application, will set the matter at rest so far as Symington isconcerned, and make a ready convert of the author of this work.

1804. John Cox Stevens, an American mechanician, in the year 1804made an experiment to propel a boat by a rotary engine, on the axisof which revolved a wheel at the stern of the boat, like a windmillor smoke-jack, but he found it impossible to preserve a sufficientdegree of tightness in the packing of the engine; and a secondmodification of his rotary apparatus, on trial, proving no better thanthe first, he had recourse to Watt’s engine, with a cylinder fourand a half inches diameter, and a nine-inch stroke: the beam wasomitted; the boiler, two feet long, fifteen inches wide, twelve inches

| high, consisted of eighty-one copper tubes, each an inch in diameter;

his boat was twenty-five feet long and five feet wide. This boat wastried in May, 1804, and attained a velocity of four miles an hour.

After having made repeated trials with her, his son undertook to

cross from Hoboken to New York, when unfortunately, as the boat

nearly reached the wharf, the steam pipe gave way, having been puton with soft solder. The boiler being damaged, he next constructedone with the tubes placed vertically. The engine was kept going| for a fortnight or three weeks, the boat making excursions of two or| three miles up and down the river: for a short distance he couldmake it sail at a rate of not less than seven or eight miles an hour.*Mr. Stevens, jun. has the merit of being the first person who took

* Stuart, vol. i. p. 467.