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August 9, 1803, this steamboat was cast loose in presence of an immense concourse of spectators, including a committee of the National Academy, consisting of Bougainville, Bossuet, Carnot, and Perier. The steamboat moved but slowly, making only between three and four miles an hour against the current, the speed through the water being about 4.5 miles; but this was, all things considered, a great success.
The experiment attracted little attention, notwithstanding the fact that its success had been witnessed by the committee of the Academy and by officers on Napoleon's staff. The boat remained a long time on the Seine, near the palace. The water-tube boiler of this vessel is still preserved at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers at Paris, where it is known as Barlow's boiler. Barlow patented it in France as early as 1793, as a steamboat boiler, and states that the object of his construction was to obtain the greatest possible extent of heating surface.
Robert Fulton endeavored to secure the pecuniary aid and the countenance of the First Consul, but in vain.
Livingston wrote home, describing the trial and its results, and procured the passage of an Act by the legislature of the State of New York, extending, nominally to Fulton, a monopoly granted the former in 1798 for the term of twenty years from April 5, 1803, - the date of the new law, - and extending the time allowed for proving the practicability of driving a boat four miles an hour by steam to- two years from the same date. A later act further extended the time to April, 1807.
In May, 1804, Robert Fulton went to England, giving up all hope of success in France with either his steamboats or his torpedoes, and the chapter of his work in Europe practically ends here. He had already written to Boulton & Watt, ordering an engine to be built from plans which he furnished them; but he had not informed them of the purpose to which it was to be applied. This engine 1 was to have a steam cylinder two feet in diameter and of four feet stroke. Its form and proportions were substantially those of the boat engine of 1803.
Meantime, the opening of the century had been distinguished by the beginning of work in the same direction by the most active and energetic among Fulton's later rivals. This was Col. John Stevens of Hoboken, who, assisted by his son, Robert L. Stevens, was earnestly engaged in the attempt to seize the prize now so evidently almost within the grasp. This younger Stevens was he of whom the great naval architect and engineer, John Scott Russell, afterward remarked: "He is probably the man to whom, of all others, America owes the greatest share of its present highly improved steam navigation." The father and son worked together for years after Fulton had demonstrated the possibility of reaching the desired end, in the improvement of the hulls and machinery of the river steamboat, until in their hands, and especially in those of the son, the now familiar system of construction in all its essentials was developed. The elder Stevens, as early as 1789, evidently had seen what was in prospect, and had petitioned the legislature of the State of New York for a grant similar to that actually accorded Livingston, later; and he had certainly, at that time, formed plans for the application of steam power to navigation. The records show that he was at work on construction as early, at least, as 1791. The following is a brief statement of his work, mainly as elsewhere given by the Author.
In 1804, Stevens completed a steamboat sixty-eight feet long and of fourteen feet beam. Its boiler was of the water-tubular variety. It contained one hundred tubes, two inches in diameter and eighteen inches long, fastened at one end to a central water-leg and steam-drum. The flames from the furnace passed among the tubes, the water being inside.
The engine was direct-actng high-pressure condensing, having a 10 inch cylinder, two feet stroke of piston, and driving a well shaped screw, with four blades.
This machinery, - the high-pressure condensing engine, with rotating valves, and twin screwpropeller, - as rebuilt in 1805, is still preserved. The hub and blade of a single screw, also used with the same machinery in 1804, is likewise extant.
Stevens' eldest son, John Cox Stevens,
was in Great Britain in the year 1805, and while there patented a modification
of this sectional boiler. In his specification he says that he describes
this invention as it was made known to him by his father, and adds:
"From a series of experiments made in France, in 1790, by M. Belamour, under the auspices of the Royal Academy of Sciences, it has been found that, within a certain range, the elasticity of steam is nearly doubled by every addition of temperature equal to 300 of Fahrenheit's thermometer. These experiments were carried no higher than 2800) at which temperature the elasticity of steam was found equal to about four times the pressure of the atmosphere. By experiments which have lately been made by myself the elasticity of steam at the temperature of boiling oil, which has been estimated at about 6000, was found to equal forty times the pressure of the atmosphere. To the discovery of this principle or law, which obtains when water assumes a state of vapor, I certainly can lay no claim; but to the application of it, upon certain principles, to the improvement of the steamengines, I do claim exclusive right."Continue..."It is obvious that, to derive advantage from an application of this principle, it is absolutely necessary that the vessel or vessels for generating steam should have strength sufficient to withstand the great pressure from an increase of elasticity in the steam; but this pressure is increased or diminished in proportion to the capacity of the containing vessel. The principle, then, of this invention consists in forming a boiler by means of a system, or combination, of a number of small vessels, instead of using, as in the usual mode, one large one, the relative strength of the materials of which these vessels are composed increasing in proportion to the diminution of capacity. It will readily occur that there are an infinite variety of possible modes of effecting such combinations; but, from the nature of the case, there are certain limits beyond which it becomes impracticable to carry on improvement. In the boiler I am about to describe, I apprehend that the improvement is carried to the utmost extent of which the principle is capable. Suppose a plate of brass of one foot square, in which a number of holes are perforated, into each of which holes is fixed one end of a copper tube, of about an inch in diameter and two feet long, and the other ends of these tubes inserted in like manner into a similar piece of brass; the tubes, to insure their tightness, to be cast in the plates; these plates are to be enclosed at each end of the pipes by a strong cap of cast-iron or brass, so as to leave a space of an inch or two between the plates or ends of the pipes and the cast-iron cap at each end; the caps at each end are to be fastened by screw bolts passing through them into the plates; the necessary supply of water is to be injected by means of a forcing pump into the cap at one end, and through a tube inserted into the cap at the other end the steam is to be conveyed to the cylinder of the steam- engine; the whole is then to be encircled in brick-work or masonry in the usual manner, placed either horizontally or perpendicularly, at option."
"I conceive that the boiler above described embraces the most eligible mode of applying the principal before mentioned, and that it is unnecessary to give descriptions of the variations in form and construction that may be adopted, especially as these forms may be diversified in many different modes."
Above Work Selected Extracts From:
"Robert Fulton - His Life and Its
Results"
Robert H. Thurston
Dodd, Mead, and Company Publishers
New York
1891
Main
Page on Robert Fulton
American inventor and engineer,
who brought steamboating to commercial success.
