of a class of
ships which have, within the last fifty years, almost completely changed
the whole system of navigation, let us take a cursory glance at the
first attempts made to propel ships by means of steam.

The subject has occupied mankind much longer than many people suppose.
So long ago as the year 1543, a naval captain of Spain applied an engine
to a ship of about two hundred tons, and succeeded in moving it at the
rate of about two miles an hour. The nature of his engine the captain
kept secret; but it was noted that part of it consisted of a caldron of
boiling water.

This we are told by Thomas Gonzales, the director of the Royal Archives
of Simancas; but his veracity is now called in question,--at any rate,
nothing further was afterwards heard of the discovery.

The first authentic record we have of steam navigation occurs in a work
written by the Marquis of Worcester in 1665, in which allusion is made
to the application of engines to boats and ships, which would "draw them
up rivers against the stream, and, if need be, pass London Bridge
against the current, at low-water."

Many attempts, more or less successful, were made by ingenious men from
time to time. Papin of France in 1690 constructed a steamboat, the
success of which may be gathered from the fact that it was ultimately
broken up by enraged and jealous watermen! Jonathan Hulls in 1736, and
M. Genevois in 1759, were each successful, to a certain extent, in
constructing working models, but nothing definite resulted from their
labours. Yet we would not be understood to undervalue the achievements
of such men. On the contrary, it is by the successive discoveries of
such inquiring and philosophical men that grand results are at last
attained. The magnificent structures that crowd the ocean were not the
creations of one era, or the product of one stupendous mind. They are
the result of the labours of thousands of men whose names have never
been known to fame.

The men who, working upon the materials supplied by preceding
generations, brought the propulsion of boats by steam nearest to
perfection, _just before_ the commencement of navigation, were Mr
Miller of Dumfries, Mr Taylor, his friend, and tutor in his family, and
Mr Symington. All of these were, in a very important degree,
instrumental in ushering in the great event. Symington, in 1788, fitted
an engine to a large boat, in which he attained the speed of seven miles
an hour.

The man