Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science Part 9

II.--ROBERT FULTON.

After Dr. Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, had retired penniless from his manufacturing enterprises, and had taken up his abode in London, one of the constant visitors at his modest residence in Marylebone Fields, was a thin, sharp-featured American, about twenty-eight years of age, an artist by profession, and formerly student of Benjamin West, who, however, was now much more interested in the art of engineering than the art of painting. From an early age he had shown a taste for mechanics, and was fond of spending his play-hours at school loitering about workshops and factories, watching the men at their work, and studying the machines and instruments they used. This sojourn in England had brought him into contact with the Duke of Bridgewater, the great ca.n.a.l projector, and Lord Stanhope, well known for his improvements in the printing press and other contrivances, in whose company his boyish bent towards mechanics was revived, and became quite a pa.s.sion with him. He threw aside his brushes and palette, and applied himself to his favourite pursuit with heart and soul. Having formed the acquaintance of Cartwright, he became a daily visitor at his house, and the enthusiastic, good-natured doctor and he would sit debating for hours the great problem: "Whether it were practicable to move vessels by steam?" Fulton, eager, restless, vivacious, with pencil in hand, was perpetually sketching plans of paddle-wheels; while the doctor, calm, dignified, and earnest, equally engrossed in the subject, was contriving various modes of bringing steam to act upon them. Neither of them had any doubt that the thing could be done, but the "how" long baffled them; and even though the doctor constructed "the model of a boat, which, being wound up like a clock, moved on the water in a highly satisfactory manner," nothing practical came of their cogitations till some years after.

While on a visit to Paris, Fulton was struck with the injury which standing navies of men-of-war inflicted on the mercantile marine, and gave his whole attention, as he says, "to find out the means of destroying such engines of oppression, by some method which would put it out of the power of any nation to maintain such a system, and compel every government to adopt the simple principles of education, industry, and a free circulation of its produce." The means presented itself to his mind in the shape of an explosive sh.e.l.l, called the torpedo, by which any s.h.i.+p of war could be blown to pieces; and for six or seven years he occupied himself in fruitless attempts to get first the government of France, and then that of England, to take up his project.

He did not abandon his schemes with regard to steam-vessels, however; but, under the auspices of Mr. Livingstone, the American amba.s.sador, made several experiments. One vessel of considerable size broke through the middle when the engines were placed on board, but a second one was rather more successful, though but a slow rate of movement was attained.

His project came under the notice of Napoleon, then First Consul, who did not fail to appreciate its value. "It was," he said, "capable of changing the face of the world;" and he directed a commission to inquire into its merits. Nothing came of it, however.

Shortly after, Fulton visited Scotland, and got an introduction to Symington, whom he pressed for a sight of his boat. Symington generously consented, and gave him a short sail on board the steam-tug. Fulton made no concealment of his intention of starting steamboats in his own country, whither he was about to return, and asked Symington to allow him to make a few notes of his observations on board. Symington had no objections; and, therefore, he says, "Fulton pulled out a memorandum book, and after putting several pointed questions respecting the general construction and effect of the machine, which I answered in a most explicit manner, he jotted down particularly everything then described, with his own remarks upon the boat while moving with him on board along the ca.n.a.l." Fulton was very liberal in his promises not to forget his a.s.sistance, if he got steamboats established in America; but Symington never heard anything more of him.

Fulton was at New York in 1806, and busy getting a steamboat put together. It was a costly undertaking, and he had little spare cash of his own; so he offered shares in the concern to his friends, but no one would have anything to do with so ridiculous a scheme, as they thought.

"My friends," says Fulton, "were civil, but shy. They listened with patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamentation of the poet,--

'Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land, All shun, none aid you, and few understand.'

As I had occasion to pa.s.s daily to and from the building-yard while my boat was in progress, I have often loitered, unknown, near the idle groups of strangers, gathering in little circles, and heard various inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was uniformly that of scorn, sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh rose at my expense, the dry jest, the wise calculation of losses and expenditure, the dull, but endless repet.i.tion of 'the Fulton Folly.' Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish, cross my path."

Let them laugh that win. The success which shortly attended Fulton's scheme turned the tables upon those who had mocked at him. The _Clermont_ was completed in August 1807, and the day arrived when the trial was to be made on the Hudson river. "To me," wrote Fulton, "it was a most trying and interesting occasion. I wanted some friends to go on board to witness the first successful trip. Many of them did me the favour to attend as a mark of personal respect; but it was manifest they did it with reluctance, fearing to be partners of my mortification, and not of my triumph. The moment arrived in which the word was to be given for the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. There was anxiety mixed with fear among them. They were silent, sad, and weary. I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my efforts. The signal was given, and the boat moved on a short distance, and then stopped and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent and agitation, and whispers and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated--'I told you so; it is a foolish scheme; I wish we were well out of it.' I elevated myself on a platform, and stated that I knew not what was the matter; but if they would be quiet, and indulge me for half an hour, I would either go on or abandon the voyage. I went below, and discovered that a slight misadjustment was the cause. It was obviated. The boat went on; we left New York; we pa.s.sed through the Highlands; we reached Albany! Yet even their imagination superseded the force of fact. It was doubted if it could be done again, or if it could be made, in any case, of any great value."

The simple-minded country folk on the banks of the Hudson were almost frightened out of their wits at the awful apparition which they saw gliding along the river, and which, especially when seen indistinctly looming through the night, looked to their bewildered eyes, "a monster moving on the water, defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames and smoke." Pine-wood was used for fuel, and whenever the fire was stirred, a great burst of sparks issued from the chimney. "This uncommon light," says Colden, the biographer of Fulton, "first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and tide were adverse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming towards them; and when it came so near that the noise of the machinery and paddles were heard, the crews in some instances shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific sight, and others left their vessels to go on sh.o.r.e; while others, again, prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and lighting its path by the fires which it vomited."

With the novelty of the spectacle its terror died away, and people soon got tired of rus.h.i.+ng out to see the remarkable machine that had once seemed so miraculous to them. The _Clermont_ soon began to travel regularly as a pa.s.sage-boat between Albany and New York, other steam-vessels were constructed on its model, and by degrees the steam marine of America grew into the host it is at present. Thirty years after the first experiment on the Hudson, it was calculated 1300 steamboats had been built in the States.

Fulton did not live long to enjoy his triumphs. He died in 1815, having been actively engaged in promoting steam navigation to his last hours.

III.--HENRY BELL.

The honour which in America attached to Fulton as the man who first brought the steamboat into use, and to the River Hudson as being the scene of the experiment, in our own country fell (in a somewhat less degree, being subsequent), to Henry Bell, and the River Clyde.

Brought up as a millwright, Bell, from want of funds to start in business, was obliged for many years to gain his living as a common carpenter in Glasgow, where he was noted among the trade as being very fond of "schemes," and suspected on that account by narrow-minded folk of being not very reliable in the lower branches of his craft. Scheme after scheme issued from his fertile mind; but he was rash and hasty in working them out, and few proved of much worth. Steam navigation being one of the vexed problems of the time, had every fascination for his peculiar genius; and he seems to have been brooding over it as the last century was closing, and the present opening upon the world. When Fulton visited Symington's invention, Bell appears to have accompanied him, and to have afterwards corresponded with him on the subject. "This," he says, "led me to think of the absurdity of writing my opinions to other countries, and not putting it in practice myself in my own country; and from these considerations I was roused to set on foot a steamboat, for which I made a number of different models before I was satisfied."

Having removed to the little village of Helensburgh, on the banks of the Clyde, and there established a hotel and bath-house, which his wife managed, he endeavoured to work the pa.s.sage-boats by which visitors were brought to the place, by means of paddle-wheels worked by the hand, instead of oars; but the plan did not succeed very well, for the same reason that led to Mr. Miller's abandonment of it--the inefficiency of manual power, which could not be applied with sufficiently sustained and continuous force. He therefore gave it up, and turned his attention to the employment of steam power for the same purpose. Of course, he was laughed at for his pains; and Henry Bell's project for having steamers on the Clyde became a standing joke among the frequenters of the watering-place. Even after the permanent success of Fulton's scheme was known, people would not moderate their incredulity; but Bell's faith, which had never wavered, was now confirmed, and he set about the work with redoubled energy.

In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary funds, had a steam-boat built of twenty-five tons and four horse power. He named it the _Comet_, because a comet had just then appeared in the north-west of Scotland.

The _Comet_ began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in January 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the summer of that year. At first, however, she brought rather loss than gain to her projector. People were shy of trusting themselves on board, and parties interested in the stage-coaches and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of absurd reports about her. It was not till she had gone for some time without accident, that tourists began to think they might as well save their money and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance. In the second year Bell took the _Comet_ off the Clyde, and sent her on a tour round the open coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety and utility of steam navigation was admitted on all hands, and numerous rival enterprises were on foot. In 1820 the _Comet_ was lost between Glasgow and Fort William; and in the following year another of Bell's vessels was burnt to the water-edge--two misfortunes that carried 3000 out of his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon drove him out of the field, and Bell sank into poverty and neglect. A small annuity from the Clyde trustees, and a subscription among his friends, to keep him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received for his enterprise and perseverance. He died in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

IV.--OCEAN STEAMERS.

In the quarter of a century which elapsed between 1812, when the _Comet_ first began to churn the waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation progressed steadily and surely. At first, content with plying along rivers and quiet bays, steamers by-and-by ventured out upon the open sea. We owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to the courage and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of Glasgow, "who," says Mr. Scott Russell, "has effected more for the improvement of steam navigation than any other man." He was quick to appreciate the capabilities of steam-vessels, and saw that they were fit for something more than mere inland voyages. Before starting one of them upon the open sea, however, he carefully estimated the danger to be encountered and the difficulties to be overcome. He took pa.s.sage at the worst season of the year in one of the sailing vessels which formerly plied between Glasgow and Belfast, and which often required a week to perform a journey that is now done by steam in a few hours.

Stationing himself on an elevated part of the deck, he kept a close watch on the movements of the vessel, observing the tossing to which she was subjected by the waves, the extent of the dip when she sank into a trough, the height of elevation when lifted on the summit of a wave, and calculating in his mind how all this would tell on the paddle-wheels.

Through the roughest of the storm, when the vessel was pitching worst, and the wind blowing at its fiercest, he kept his place on deck, regardless of the drenching spray and the blast that almost carried him off his legs. When at length he had satisfied himself by the observation of his own eyes and inquiries of the captain and crew, that there was nothing in the voyage which a steamer could not encounter, he retired contentedly to his cabin, leaving everybody astonished at his strange curiosity respecting the effect of rough weather on the s.h.i.+p.

Not long after David Napier started the _Rob Roy_ steam-packet between Greenock and Belfast, and afterwards between Dover and Calais. In the course of two or three years more he had established steam communication between Holyhead and Dublin, Liverpool and Greenock, and various other parts. The length of each unbroken pa.s.sage was then considered the great difficulty; but as steamers got improved both in form and machinery, pa.s.sages of greater length were successfully accomplished. Steamers traversed in all directions the German Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and, in short, all the waters on the eastern side of the Atlantic; and were in use upon all the rivers and lakes of any size in Europe.

At length, in 1836, the startling project was set on foot of superseding the far-famed New York and Liverpool packet s.h.i.+ps by a fleet of steam-s.h.i.+ps. Before this the _Savannah_, a steam vessel of 300 tons, had, in 1819, crossed from New York to Liverpool in twenty-six days, partly with sails and partly with steam; and another steam vessel had, in 1825, made the voyage from England to Calcutta; but one swallow does not make a summer, and many learned folks, on both sides of the Atlantic, shook their heads doubtfully at the daring scheme of regular steam communication across 13,000 miles of ocean. The experiment was to be made, however; and on the 4th April 1838, the _Sirius_, of 700 tons and 320 horse power, sailed from Cork for the far West. Four days after the _Great Western_ followed in her wake from Bristol.

Great was the excitement in New York as the time drew nigh when the _Sirius_ was considered due. For days together the Battery was crowded with anxious watchers, from the first breaking of the cold, grey dawn till night dropped its dark curtain on the scene. At that time a telescope was a thing to be begged, borrowed, or stolen,--to be got, somehow or other, if only for a minute,--and a man who possessed one was to be looked up to, made much of, and, if possible, coaxed out of the loan of it. All day long a hundred telescopes swept the sea. The ocean steamer was the great topic of the hour, and "any appearance of her?"

the constant question when two people met. On St. George's day, the 23d April, a dim, dusky speck on the far horizon grew under the eye of the thousands of breathless watchers into a long train of smoke, beneath which, as the hours wore on, appeared the black prow of a huge steam-boat. There she was, long looked for come at last; and with the American colours at the fore, and the flag of Old England rustling at the stern, the _Sirius_ swept into the harbour amidst the cheers of the mult.i.tude, the ringing of the city bells, and the firing of salutes. The excitement reached its climax, and the shouting and firing grew deafening, when, some few hours later on the same auspicious day, the _Great Western_ came to anchor alongside of her rival.

Twenty-two years have pa.s.sed since then, and the marvel of 1838 has become a mere everyday affair. There are some fourteen different lines of steamers, comprising more than fifty vessels, running between the United States and Europe, to say nothing of the magnificent steam fleets of the Peninsular and Oriental, the Royal West India, British and North American, Pacific, Australian, South Western, and other companies.

The employment of iron in the construction of s.h.i.+ps, thus securing at once lightness and strength, and the invention of the screw propeller, in 1836, by Mr. J. P. Smith, a farmer at Hendon, by means of which a vessel can combine all the qualities of a first-rate sailing s.h.i.+p with the use of steam power, gave a great impulse to steam navigation, which is still making steady and continuous progress. From one steam vessel in 1812 the number in the kingdom has risen successively to 20 in 1820, 824 in 1840, and over 2000 in 1860. During 1858, 153 steamers were built in the United Kingdom, of which 112 were of iron. It is interesting to observe the advance in size of the steam vessels from their first introduction on the Clyde.

Length. Breadth.

1812. Comet 40 feet 10-1/2 feet.

1825. Enterprise (built expressly to go to India, coaling at intermediate stations) 122 " 27 "

1835. Tagus (for Mediterranean) 182 " 28 "

1838. Great Western (the first s.h.i.+p built expressly for Transatlantic service) 236 " 35-1/2 "

1844. Great Britain (the first large screw s.h.i.+p, and largest iron s.h.i.+p up to that time) 322 " 51 "

1853. Himalaya (iron) 370 " 43-1/2 "

1856. Persia (do.) 390 " 45 "

1859. Great Eastern (do.) 680 " 83 "

In the interval between 1812 and 1870 the number of steamers in the United Kingdom has increased from one to nearly three thousand; and the ocean-going steamer of 1870 is nearly six times the length of that of 1825, and seventeen times the length of the _Comet_, while the difference in tonnage is still greater. How Fulton or Bell would open their eyes at the sight of a vast moving city, such as the Big s.h.i.+p, an eighth of a mile in length, propelled by both paddle-wheels and screw, each worked by four huge engines!

Iron Manufacture.

HENRY CORT.

Iron Manufacture.

HENRY CORT.

The multifarious use of iron in our day has given its name to the age.