As we have been led, in writing about ships of the navy, to refer to steam, we turn aside at this point to treat of that tremendous motive-power.

 

One night, in the year 1807, a terrible sight was witnessed by the inhabitants of the banks of the river Hudson in America.

 

Men love what is marvellous, and they will go a long distance out of their way to see that which is terrific and horrible; but on the night in question there was no need to go far. The farmers had only to look out of their windows, and the sailors of the shipping had only to lift their heads above the bulwarks, to behold a sight that appalled the stoutest hearted, and caused the very hair on the craniums of the timid to stand on end.

 

The object that created so much consternation was—a “monster of the deep!” At some parts of the river, men could not tell what it was like, for the night was dark when it passed, but a dark, shadowy idea they obtained by the light of the fire which the creature vomited from its jaws; and they formed a tremendous conception of its size and power from the speed at which it travelled, the splashing which it made, and the hideous groans with which it burdened the night-air.

 

This “fiery monster of the deep” was the first river-steamer, the Clermont!

 

Before going further into the details of this the first of a class of ships which have, within the last fifty years, almost completely changed the whole system of navigation, let us take a cursory glance at the first attempts made to propel ships by means of steam.

 

The subject has occupied mankind much longer than many people suppose. So long ago as the year 1543, a naval captain of Spain applied an engine to a ship of about two hundred tons, and succeeded in moving it at the rate of about two miles an hour. The nature of his engine the captain kept secret; but it was noted that part of it consisted of a caldron of boiling water.

 

This we are told by Thomas Gonzales, the director of the Royal Archives of Simancas; but his veracity is now called in question,—at any rate, nothing further was afterwards heard of the discovery.

 

The first authentic record we have of steam navigation occurs in a work written by the Marquis of Worcester in 1665, in which allusion is made to the application of engines to boats and ships, which would “draw them up rivers against the stream, and, if need be, pass London Bridge against the current, at low-water.”

 

Many attempts, more or less successful, were made by ingenious men from time to time. Papin of France in 1690 constructed a steamboat, the success of which may be gathered from the fact that it was ultimately broken up by enraged and jealous watermen! Jonathan Hulls in 1736, and M. Genevois in 1759, were each successful, to a certain extent, in constructing working models, but nothing definite resulted from their labours. Yet we would not be understood to undervalue the achievements of such men. On the contrary, it is by the successive discoveries of such inquiring and philosophical men that grand results are at last attained. The magnificent structures that crowd the ocean were not the creations of one era, or the product of one stupendous mind. They are the result of the labours of thousands of men whose names have never been known to fame.

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