mbined, they utterly failed. Both Mr. Prosser and the Western
Transportation Co. were owners of fleets of splendid lake propellers, and
were wealthy, with interests intimately identified with canals. It is
evident there was no want, either of money, mechanical resources, or
knowledge of canal business as basis of their failures with steam.

Capital flowed into the steam enterprise from various resources, and
ambition multiplied experiments, but with no appreciable success.

The difficulties lay beyond the reach of capital and beyond the reach of
known resources, and no adequate knowledge had been developed to solve the
problem. Therefore, after suffering failures for several years, the State
wisely volunteered to add extraordinary inducements by a large
appropriation to encourage success. It could not have been to encourage the
reproduction of former failures by the repetition of former trials.

The inquiry is therefore proper, as a lesson from the history of the early
era of steam, what are the difficulties? Why has steam failed so absolutely
and so universally? Why did the State subsequently offer a large bounty to
foster and develop steam.

Obviously there is some hidden difficulty, some unknown inability, because
steam is the arbiter of the age, it is the great supreme motor of man's
agencies throughout the world, hence we come from the sublime to the
ridiculous when we use it to load boats at Buffalo, to be towed 350 miles
by horses.

The lessons of the early era are worthless for repetition. There is no
better screw-propelling machinery known than was then tried and abandoned;
but the lessons are of value to discover the difficulties which must be
remedied; to teach that the success of steam lies beyond the reach of
publicly known mechanical resources.

The trials establish plainly and incontrovertibly that the failures were
owing to the want of _mechanical adaptation_ to required duty; to a
_mechanical inability_ to utilize the power of the steam; to a _mechanical
waste_ of power beyond their ability to control or remedy; and that the
wasted power was extravagantly large and the utilized insignificantly
small. A very intelligent captain of one of the best and most powerful
steamers known to the Erie Canal, who had a full and carefully-kept log,
stated that when his engine _exceeded_ a hundred horse-power of steam, he
could only equal twelve horses on the tow-path. Thus over seven-eighths of
his power was was