STEAM-NAVIGATION.

OST boys have either heard or read of the astonishment of the South Sea Islanders on first beholding a ship in full sail, which they mistook for some monstrous aquatic bird, floating along with its wings uplifted, like the swan, to catch the breeze. The astonishment evinced by the rustic populace of England was almost like that of the savages when first steam-boats appeared in our rivers; and we can remember the time when the wondering villagers walked many a weary mile to see a vessel going against wind and tide, without either oar or sail to propel it along. Grey-headed old men and women, who had dwelt beside the river for more than half a century, and had seen the

vessels tack about from shore to shore, as they made a little headway by shifting the sails and catching the wind, stood with uplifted hands, and staring eyes, and mouths agape, when they saw the little steamer dashing against the current, and with the wind right a-head, passing field and farm and hamlet, as if pushed along by some hidden and gigantic hand. They saw the chimney arise like the neck of the extinct plesisauris, that heaved up above the mastless seas of the early world, showing at times its dusk body, but never revealing the immense fins or paddles by which it oared itself along; and as they gazed, they were almost disposed to believe that this monster of the fossil world had come again to

“Fright the isle from its propriety.”

They had been from childhood familiar with shipping; but, excepting when a strong and favourable wind blew, had only been accustomed to see the vessels move according to the ebb and flow of the river-now making slow progress for about twelve hours, then laying by until the tide turned, and the current was again in their favour; and when the rains descended from the hilly countries, and the tide had no power to turn the headlong waters, for days not a ship came from the direction of the sea, until the steamer flapped its paddles, and came up the river snorting like a sea-horse, and bidding defiance to wind, flood, and tide, as it rolled triumphant over the roaring current. No marvel that in those days the banks of the rivers were lined with wondering faces, and that old men and women asked each other what the world would be fifty years hence.

Nor did their astonishment end here-for the steam-tug next appeared, dragging the large and heavily-laden merchant's ship behind it, as if to say, "Come along, you great lubber, and don't lay sulking there at the mouth of the river, when the grocers want tea, and sugar, and coffee. Keep fast hold

of my hand, and I'll pull you through, although I am but a little fellow, and the current is so strong, and the wind blows in my face, and I am half-blinded by the spray; yet I've got such a spirit within me, that I shall never give up until I've brought you safe to the wharf beside the town, where everybody will be glad and ready to receive you." And but for the steam-boat, wagons would have had to have gone for miles and miles round over-land; and the dangerous ferryboat would have been employed to cross the rapid and highswollen river, and perhaps have been carried away for miles by the rushing waters, and—as we remember in more than one instance-out into the open sea. Then the slow motion of those old-fashioned brigs, sloops, keels, market-boats, catches, barges, and cuckoos, which were sometimes hauled along by horses, but oftener by men and boys, with ropes around their shoulders, moving at such a snail-like pace— never more than two miles an hour. You could count every pane in a cottage window while they passed; but in the steam-boat, weed and willow, and style and grange, seemed to dance by you, and all the landscape to move. Such were the changes made in inland navigation by the introduction of steamers; while on the ocean, greater marvels were wrought.

One of the greatest aids rendered to civilization by the discovery of the steam-engine was the increase it gave to the speed of human locomotion. We must bear in mind, that whoever multiplies and renders easier the means of intercourse between the different races of mankind, is a reformer in the purest sense of the word; for the cause of human progress is advanced by our seeing and learning more of each other, and by the mutual interchange of opinions and ideas. Without wellconstructed roads, this beneficial intercourse cannot take place even between citizens of the same island-country; and while navigation continued dependent on winds and tides, all inter

course with other countries, and especially distant ones, was of course still more restricted. Before steam lent its giant powers to the propulsion of ships, locomotion over the waters of the deep was attended with so much danger and uncertainty that, as a common proverb, it became the type and the representative of everything which was precarious and perilous. The application, however, of steam to navigation has rescued the mariner and the voyager from many of the dangers of wind and water; and even in its present state, putting out of view its probable improvement, it has rendered all voyages of moderate length very nearly as safe and regular as journeys over-land.

The method of moving vessels by paddle-wheels was often adopted by the Romans, and even by the ancient Egyptians; but the wheels were merely turned by handles within the vessels. De Garay's experiment, already noticed in our account of the steam-engine, is supposed to have consisted of the propulsion of paddle-wheels by steam; and long after his time boats were moved by paddle-wheels, though not by the agency of steam, however, in various countries of Europe. In England, for instance, Prince Rupert is related to have challenged King Charles I. to compete with him in a boat-race upon the Thames; and it is further stated that, by using paddle-wheels, the prince succeeded in getting his boat along at a rate equal to twelve miles an hour. There is also, in the Marquis of Worcester's "Century of Inventions," written in 1655, though not published for eight years later, an obscure statement in reference to a vessel being moved by steam, "which should, if need be, pass London Bridge against the current at low water."

Eighteen or twenty years after the publication of the Marquis of Worcester's book, Captain Savary made some attempts to use a steam, or rather an atmospheric engine, to urge a vessel along, but could not carry out his design to any useful

effect. About the same time, too, Denis Papin, an ingenious French philosopher, was endeavouring to prove theoretically how this object might be effected; and he went so far as to lay his plan in detail before the Royal Society, with an offer to put it in practice for the small advance of fifteen pounds towards the expenses. This offer, however, was rejected; chiefly, it is believed, from the Society being at that time in very straightened circumstances. Half a century later, Jonathan Hulls took out a patent for moving vessels by steam power, which vessels were to be used for the purpose of towing other vessels, as the inventor considered it preferable to have the machinery in a separate vessel by itself. The scheme, however, was never put into practice; and other inventions, which met with no better success, followed at intervals. Among the rest, one by M. Genevois, a pastor of Berne, which consisted of a species of steam-propeller, formed like the foot of a duck, to expand and present a large surface to the water when moved against it, and to close up into a small compass when moved in an opposite direction. At length, in 1774, the Comte D'Auxiron, a French nobleman, succeeded in the construction of a boat, which, when tried upon the Seine near Paris, moved against the stream, though slowly, the engine being of insufficient power. In his efforts he was assisted by an ingenious countryman of his, named Perier, who, in the year following the termination of his connexion with the Comte, placed a boat upon the river, with an engine of one horse power, and one paddle; but his means were also insufficient for the purpose, and the boat was ultimately broken up. Perier ascribed his failure to the form of the paddle, which he conceived to be an inefficient substitute for oars, and he adopted several plans to obviate what he conceived to be the difficulty. But there was no useful result; and his endeavours excited little notice even in his own country.

Three years after the failure of these experiments,