The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

FIRST STEAMBOATS. 31
In 1775 the elder Perrier, who afterward introduced
tlie manufacturing of steam-engines into France,
made an attempt in a steamboat, but was unsuc-
cessful.
Tlie Marquis de Jouflfroy continued the pursuit of
the same object. His first attempt was made in 1778,
at Baume les Dames, and in 1781 he built upon the
Saone a steam-vessel one hundred and fifty feet long
and fifteen feet wide. The report of his experiment
was made to the French Academy of Sciences, and was
said to be favorable.
No successful experiment could be looked for untU
Watt made public his double-acting engine, and the
improvements made in 1784 to keep up a continuous
and regular rotary motion. To America, then, we are
now to look for the first successful steamboat.
Conspicuous in the list of early experimenters in
steamboats are the names of Rumsey and Fitch. Both
constructed boats propelled by steam as early as 1783,
and models were exhibited to General Washington.
Fitch was the first to try his plan, and in 1785 he
succeeded in moving a boat upon the Delaware ; and it
was not until 1786 that Eumsey got his boat in motion
on the Potomac. Fitch's plan was a system of paddles.
Rumsey at first used a kind of pump, which drew in
water at the bow and forced it out at the stern of his
boat. He soon abandoned this plan of the pump, and
employed poles set in motion by cranks on the axis of
the fly-wheel of his engine, and intended to press against
the bottom of the river. Fitch's boat was propelled
through the water at the rate of four miles an hour.
Eumsey's invention never came to any valuable results.
Next, after Fitch and Eumsey, came an ingenious
gentleman named Miller, of Dolswinton, in Scotland,
Digitized by Microsoft®