el to Washington in 1780. First discoverers of
steam-locomotion are turning up every few months in embarrassing
numbers, but we cannot feel that we have a right to suppress the
claims of honest Rumsey, the protege of Washington. The dates are said
to be as follows: Rumsey launched his steamboat here at Sir John's Run
in 1784, before the general and a throng of visitors from the Springs;
in 1788, John Fitch launched another first steamboat on the Delaware,
and sent it successfully up to Burlington; in 1807, Robert Fulton set
a third first steamboat on the Hudson, the Clermont. Rumsey's motion
was obtained by the reaction of a current _squirted_ through the stern
of the boat against the water of the river, the current being pumped
by steam. This action, so primitive, so remote from the principle
of the engine now used, seems hardly worthy to be connected with
the great revolutionary invention of steam-travel; yet Washington
certified his opinion that "the discovery is of vast importance, and
may be of the greatest usefulness in our inland navigation." James
Rumsey, with just a suspicion of the irritability of talent, accused
Fitch of "coming pottering around" his Virginia work-bench and
carrying off his ideas, to be afterward developed in Philadelphia. It
is certain that the development was great. Rumsey died in England of
apoplexy at a public lecture where he was explaining his contrivance.

A sun-burnt, dark-eyed young Virginian now guides us up the
mountain-road to the Springs, where we find a full-blown Ems set
in the midst of the wilderness. The Springs of Berkeley, originally
included in the estates of Lord Fairfax, and by him presented to the
colony, were the first fashionable baths opened in this country. One
half shudders to think how primitive they were in the first ages, when
the pools were used by the sexes alternately, and the skurrying nymphs
hastened to retreat at the notification that their hour was out and
that the gentlemen wanted to come in. They were populous and civilized
in the pre-Revolutionary era when Washington began to frequent them
and became part owner in the surrounding land. The general's will
mentions his property in "Bath," as the settlement was then called.
The Baroness de Reidesel (wife of the German general of that name
taken with Burgoyne at Saratoga) spent with her invalid husband the
summer of 1779 at Berkeley, making the acquaintance of Washington and
his family; and whole pages of