Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

314 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. THE FAMOUS “ GREAT HARRY ” OF HENRY THE EIGHTH’S TIME. FIRST ENGLISH THREE-DECKER. {From an original drawing by Anthony in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. Photo, Rischgitz Collection.) Forth Clyde The Application of Steam to Marine Propulsion. propelling ma- in 1807 Fulton’s Cler- Messrs. Miller and Symington successfully tried a steamboat on the and Canal. Charlotte. Dun- das, a steam- tug, followed in 1802. The chinery of this vessel con- sisted of a horizontal direct- acting engine—the first ever constructed—driving a stern wheel. mont, a ship 133 feet long, with engines supplied by Messrs. Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, England, com- menced running successfully on the Hudson River between New York and Albany. Five years later, or in 1812, the Comet, a side-wheel boat, began to ply regularly on the between Glasgow and Greenock, her being about five miles an hour. Three hundred and twenty-seven elapsed after Columbus’s first voyage to America before the first steam-propelled vessel a length of between 60 and 70 feet at the keel, an overall length, of over 128 feet, and when fully laden she displaced 233 tons of water. She was fitted with three masts, the fore and main masts being square-rigged. Like practically all the ships built in the latter half of the fifteenth century, the Santa Maria had a huge forecastle forward and a raised poop aft, structures which doubt- less contributed not a little to the bad sailing qualities of the ship ; for it is recorded that the Spanish crew who navigated the duplicate vessel across the Atlantic in 1893, when the same course was taken as sailed by the original ship, found that she rolled terribly. The application of steam to marine propulsion did not take practical shape until 1788 or 1789. In the latter year Clyde speed years THE ILL-FATED “ ROYAL GEORGE,” CARRYING A HUNDRED GUNS.’ LAUNCHED 1756. {Photo, Rischgitz Collection.)