The former had
already occupied himself with model steamboats, both at Paris and
in London; and in 1805 he obtained from Boulton and Watt, of
Birmingham, the steam-engine required for propelling his paddle
steamboat on the Hudson. The Clermont was first started in
August, 1807, and attained a speed of nearly five miles an hour.
Five years later, Henry Bell constructed and tried his first
steamer on the Clyde.
It was not until 1815 that the first steamboat was seen on the
Thames. This was the Richmond packet, which plied between London
and Richmond. The vessel was fitted with the first marine engine
Henry Maudslay ever made. During the same year, the Margery,
formerly employed on the Firth of Forth, began plying between
Gravesend and London; and the Thames, formerly the Argyll, came
round from the Clyde, encountering rough seas, and making the
voyage of 758 miles in five days and two hours. This was thought
extraordinarily rapid--though the voyage of about 3000 miles,
from Liverpool to New York, can now be made in only about two
days' more time.
In nearly all seagoing vessels, the Paddle has now almost
entirely given place to the Screw. It was long before this
invention was perfected and brought into general use. It was not
the production of one man, but of several generations of
mechanical inventors. A perfected invention does not burst forth
from the brain like a poetic thought or a fine resolve.
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