The trade in shipbuilding returned to Britain, where
iron ships are now made and exported in large numbers; the
mercantile marine of this country exceeding in amount and tonnage
that of all the other countries of the world put together. The
"wooden walls"[3] of England exist no more, for iron has
superseded wood. Instead of constructing vessels from the
forest, we are now digging new navies out of the bowels of the
earth, and our "walls," instead of wood, are now of iron and
steel.
The attempt to propel ships by other means than sails and oars
went on from century to century, and did not succeed until almost
within our own time. It is said that the Roman army under
Claudius Codex was transported into Sicily in boats propelled by
wheels moved by oxen. Galleys, propelled by wheels in paddles,
were afterwards attempted. The Harleian MS. contains an Italian
book of sketches, attributed to the 15th century, in which there
appears a drawing of a paddle-boat, evidently intended to be
worked by men. Paddle-boats, worked by horse-power, were also
tried. Blasco Garay made a supreme effort at Barcelona in 1543.
His vessel was propelled by a paddle-wheel on each side, worked
by forty men. But nothing came of the experiment.
Many other efforts of a similar kind were made,--by Savery among
others,[4]--until we come down to Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton,
who, in 1787, invented a double-hulled boat, which he caused to
be propelled on the Firth of Forth by men working a capstan which
drove the paddles on each side.
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