tained. The boiler held only five gallons of water, and needed but
a pint at a time. Rumsey went to England to exhibit his plan on the
Thames, and died there in 1793.

About the same time the Marquis de Joffrey launched a steamer one
hundred feet long on the Loire, at Lyons, using paddles revolving on an
endless chain, but only to find his experiment a failure.

In December, 1786, John Fitch published the following account of a
steamer with which he had made several experiments on the Delaware, at
Philadelphia, and which came nearer to success than any thing that had
at that time been invented:

"The cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal
force at each end. The mode by which we obtain what I term a vacuum is,
it is believed, entirely new, as is also the method of letting the water
into it, and throwing it off against the atmosphere without any
friction. It is expected that the cylinder, which is of twelve inches
diameter, will move a clear force of eleven or twelve cwt. after the
frictions are deducted: this force is to be directed against a wheel of
eighteen inches diameter. The piston moves about three feet, and each
vibration of it gives the axis about forty revolutions. Each revolution
of the axis moves twelve oars or paddles five and a half feet: they work
perpendicularly, and are represented by the strokes of a paddle of a
canoe. As six of the paddles are raised from the water, six more are
entered, and the two sets of paddles make their strokes of about eleven
feet in each revolution. The crank of the axis acts upon the paddles
about one-third of their length from their lower ends, on which part of
the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. The engine is placed in
the bottom of the boat, about one-third from the stern, and both the
action and reaction turn the wheel the same way."

Fitch was unfortunate in his affairs, and became so disheartened that
he ceased to attempt to improve his invention, and finally committed
suicide by drowning himself in the Alleghany River at Pittsburgh.

In 1787, Mr. Patrick Miller, of Dalwinston, Scotland, designed a double
vessel, propelled by a wheel placed in the stern between the two keels.
This boat is said to have been very successful, but it was very small,
the cylinder being only four inches in diameter. In 1789, Mr. Miller
produced a larger vessel on the same plan, which made seven miles per
hour in the still water of the Forth and Clyde Can