Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

JAMES WATT. 221
At Paris as well as London, other attempts, practically to solve the
grand problem, were made, subsequently to those by Mr. Miller. It
was reserved neither for the Seine nor the Thames, however, to work
out the first successful experiment in European steam navigation ; —
let us glance at its first efforts in the hands of the speculative and
ingenious artificers of the Clyde.
There are some still living 'who can remember what were called the
Fly-Boats, which formed the principal means of communication on the
Clyde, between Greenock and Glasgow, towards the close of last cen-
tury. A short preliminary description of these primitive structures,
and of their spirited builders and owners, is here necessary, as they
were unquestionably the pioneers, and indeed for a time the rivals, of
the first steamboat made available for passenger conveyance in the
British waters.
The Fly-Boats were constructed by Mr. William Nicol of Greenock,
— a well-known and excellent builder of ships' boats, for a long course
of years, at this place. 1 They were about 28 feet keel, from 7^ to
8 feet beam, about 8 tons burden, and wherry-rigged. A slight deck
or awning was erected abaft the main-mast, so as to cover in the
passengers, who sat in the after part of the boat on longitudinal
benches. Some of them, on a still more improved principle, it was
conceived, had a contrivance by which part of the deck or awning
might be lifted up on hinges, to permit of the passengers, in fine
weather, enjoying at once the scenery and the voyage. A kind of
platform or plank ran along the edge of the deck, outside, to admit of
the people belonging to the boat passing from forward to the stern
where the steersman sat, without incommoding the passengers ; and
in fair weather, those among the latter who were particularly favoured,
1 Mr. Nicol was wont to estimate the extent of the active years of his husiness 7808 boats, ex-
his boat-buikUng, on a scale as large as its method tending, in lineal measurement, to upwards of
of computation was singular. He built during thirty miles.