crew is now the favourite mode
of propulsion. Screw ships of prodigious size are now built and
launched in all the ship-building ports of Britain, and are sent out to
navigate in every part of the world.

The introduction of iron as the material for shipbuilding has immensely
advanced the interests of steam navigation, as it enables the builders
to construct vessels of great size with the finest lines, so as to
attain the highest rates of speed.

One might have supposed that Francis Pettit Smith would derive some
substantial benefit from his invention, or at least that the Ship
Propeller Company would distribute large dividends among their
proprietors. Nothing of the kind. Smith spent his money, his labour,
and his ingenuity in conferring a great public benefit without
receiving any adequate reward; and the company, instead of distributing
dividends, lost about 50,000L. in introducing this great invention;
after which, in 1856, the patent-right expired. Three hundred and
twenty-seven ships and vessels of all classes in the Royal Navy had
then been fitted with the screw propeller, and a much larger number in
the merchant service; but since that time the number of screw
propellers constructed is to be counted by thousands.

In his comparatively impoverished condition it was found necessary to
do something for the inventor. The Civil Engineers, with Robert
Stephenson, M.P., in the chair, entertained him at a dinner and
presented him with a handsome salver and claret jug. And that he might
have something to put upon his salver and into his claret jug, a number
of his friends and admirers subscribed over 2000L. as a testimonial.
The Government appointed him Curator of the Patent Museum at South
Kensington; the Queen granted him a pension on the Civil List for 200L.
a year; he was raised to the honour of knighthood in 1871, and three
years later he died.

Francis Pettit Smith was not a great inventor. He had, like many
others, invented a screw propeller. But, while those others had given
up the idea of prosecuting it to its completion, Smith stuck to his
invention with determined tenacity, and never let it go until he had
secured for it a complete triumph. As Mr. Stephenson observed at the
engineer's meeting: "Mr. Smith had worked from a platform which might
have been raised by others, as Watt had done, and as other great men
had done; but he had made a stride in advance which was almost
tantamount to a new inve