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At the date of the introduction into use of the screw propeller, the pressure of steam carried on the boilers of condensing engines of the vessels that now navigate the bays and rivers of the Atlantic seaboard, averaged about 30 pounds per square inch while, on the innumerable steamboats on the Mississippi and its tributaries, the steam averaged 140 pounds per square inch. At the same date, the pressure on English vessels was the same that Watt had established-viz., 2.5 to 3 pounds. The "Great Western," in 1838, carried that pressure, and the iron screw propeller, "Great Britain," in 1840, carried only 5 pounds per square inch.
Colonel Stevens attempted to introduce steam navigation by the screw propeller; laboring at the project for six years, and relinquishing it only one year before the successful application of the paddle wheel by Fulton. The five distinct means he proposed were:
First. The short four-bladed screw propeller.
Second. The use of steam of high pressure.
Third. The multi-tubular boiler.
Fourth. The quick-moving engine connected directly to the propeller shaft.
Fifth. Twin screws.
None of these means were applied to steamships for forty years thereafter; and yet, all are elements in the success of ocean navigation at the present day.
Steam engine building, as a trade, did not exist in the United States until the year 1797; although it had long been established in England. Farey, in his "Treatise on the Steam Engine," London, 1827, states that in the 62 years, intervening between Newcomen's first engine in 1712, and Watt's first engine in 1774, the steam engine had been extensively introduced throughout England, in the form of pumping engines for draining mines, and for raising water to turn overshot wheels, by which cotton mills and a great variety of machinery were driven ; and that as early as 1750, steam engine building had become a recognized trade in England.
The exportation from England, of all machinery, was prohibited by law, except upon an order from the King in Council, until 1820, when the law was repealed. Three known instances when this order was obtained, were, for the pumping engine at Chantilly, for supplying the city of Paris with water; for the pumping engine of the Manhattan Company, for supplying the city of New York in 1799; and for Fulton's rotative engine, in 1806. All three engines were made by Watt.
Towards the close of the last century, Homblower, a distinguished English engineer, came to this country, and erected a pumping engine at the mouth of the shaft of a copper mine near Belleville, on the left side of the Passaic River, New Jersey, about 8 miles from New York; and established a small machine shop near by. This was then the only machine shop in the country. The second, was erected in 1801, by McQueen, in Duane Street, New York, near the Manhattan pumping engine.
The efficiency of the tools for engine building, in this country, in the year 1800, can be judged, by the following extracts from a letter written by P. T. Cope to the city authorities at Philadelphia, in relation to the boring of a cylinder 38.5 inches diameter by 6 feet stroke, for the pumping engine that was erected in the square at Broad and Market Streets, now the site of the Municipal Building. This letter, dated July 3, 1800, from Belleville, was published in the Scientific American Supplement No. 45 November, 1876, page 706. He says that the boring of the cylinder was commenced on the 9th, of the previous April; that the boring had been in progress from that date to the date of the letter, July 3d., two men working day and night, relieving each other, "one almost living in the cylinder"; and that he expected "that about six weeks would be required to finish it."
An inspection of the rude workmanship of the twin-screw engine, as well as that of the boiler, will explain the reason for the abandonment, by Colonel Stevens, of his plan of screw propulsion. There were no tools or competent workmen in America at that date to properly construct the steam engines and the boilers that lie planned between 1800 and 1806. Success was impossible.
When he finally realized this, unwearied by his attempts to introduce steam navigation, dating from the year 1791, he reverted to the paddle wheel, with its slow-moving engine, and with the boilers then in use, carrying steam at the pressure of 2 or 3 pounds above the atmosphere. He was engaged in building the "Phoenix" when Fulton arrived from Europe with the engine made for him by Watt in 1806, which, complete in all its details, and in these respects, far in advance of any engine that could then have been built in this country, achieved success.
Fulton's engine was the first rotative steam engine that was allowed to be exported from England. The paddle steamboat "Phoenix" was completed a few weeks after Fulton's vessel; and, as she was debarred from navigating the waters of the Hudson by the monopoly given to Fulton by the Legislature of the State of New York, she was sent by sea to Philadelphia. The "Phoenix" was the first steamboat that navigated the ocean.
Colonel Stevens always maintained, that with proper machinery the screw would be found superior to the paddle for sea-going Vessels. In 1816, he presented a plan to our Government for a man-of-war propelled by a screw. This may still remain in the archives of the Government at Washington. In regard to the claim in behalf of Fulton, for the introduction of steam navigation, no one has admitted the justice of that claim more unqualifiedly than his unsuccessful rival. Fulton's fame, rests not merely upon the success of the "Clermont" in 1807; but upon what he accomplished, in the interval between that date, and that of his death in 1814. Colonel Stevens, in the letter to the Medical and Philosophical Society, previously quoted, says:
"It is an unquestionable fact, that he [Fulton] was the person who for any practical useful purpose, applied water wheels on each side of a steamboat." And again "Fulton, has, however, incontestably the merit of being the first person who applied steamboats to useful purposes."