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

224 MEMORIALS OF
On the other hand, it cannot but be felt that Mr. Bell has overstated
his claim in regard to priority in the application of the steam-engine
as a propelling power. For although he was indisputably the first in
this country who permanently succeeded in adapting steam to the
propulsion of vessels in the open waters, for purposes of actual traffic,
it cannot be overlooked that Mr. Symington's boat — which Ave recollect
to have seen, with its brick funnel, after having been laid aside on the
Forth and Clyde Canal — had been fitted with a steam-engine, and
employed on several occasions, six or seven years before the building
of Mr. Bell's first steamboat, in towing vessels on the canal.
Mr. Bell, however, it will be observed, has made a step in advance,
in having satisfied himself, that, if only an adequate moving power
may be obtained, the paddle-wheel can best be made to answer the
purpose of propelling in the water. He has also ascertained that two
paddle-wheels are better than one.
While Bell is experimenting and speculating at Greenock, Mr.
Fulton, from America, in concert with the American chancellor, Mr.
Livingstone, is planning and contriving all conceivable kinds of direct
moving or propelling powers at Paris. He has tried the leaves, (or
duck-foot oars, invented by the Pastor of Bern.) He has also " experi-
mented with wheels, oars, paddles, and flyers similar to those of a
smoke-jack, and found oars to be the best." Thus he writes from
"Paris the 20th of September 1802," — the year in which his first
experimental boat was built, which, however, unhappily broke in two
as soon as it felt the weight and pressure of the machinery, and sank
to the bottom of the Seine, — the year also before his second experi-
ment, the ill success of which brought him to Scotland, to see and to
make inquiries regarding Mr. Symington's boat, and to communicate
with Mr. Bell. 1 A letter written by Mr. Fulton about tins time is
1 A full account of Mr. Fulton'8 communica- boat," was published by the latter in the Cap-
tions with Mr. Bell, on the subject of the " Steam- (Ionian Mercury in 1816.