eyes, "a monster moving on the water, defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames and smoke.” Pine-wood was used for fuel, and whenever the fire was stirred, a great burst of sparks issued from the chimney. "This uncommon light," says Colden, the biographer of Fulton, "first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and tide were adverse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming towards them; and when it came so near that the noise of the machinery and paddles were heard, the crews in some instances shrunk beneath their decks from the terrific sight, and others left their vessels to go on shore; while others, again, prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and lighting its path by the fires which it vomited."

With the novelty of the spectacle its terror died away, and people soon got tired of rushing out to see the remarkable machine that had once seemed so miraculous to them. The Clermont soon began to travel regularly as a passage-boat between Albany and New York, other steam-vessels were constructed on its model, and by degrees the steam marine of America grew into the host it is at present. Thirty years after the first experiment on the Hudson, it was calculated 1300 steamboats had been built in the States.

Fulton did not live long to enjoy his triumphs. He died in 1815, having been actively engaged in promoting steam navigation to his last hours.

III.-HENRY BELL.

The honour which in America attached to Fulton as the man who first brought the steamboat into use, and to the River Hudson as being the scene of the experiment, in our own country fell (in a somewhat less degree, being subsequent), to Henry Bell, and the River Clyde.

Brought up as a millwright, Bell, from want of funds to start in business, was obliged for many years to gain his living as a common carpenter in Glasgow, where he was noted among the trade as being very fond of "schemes," and suspected on that account by narrow-minded folk of being not very reliable in the lower branches of his craft. Scheme after scheme issued from his fertile mind; but he was rash and hasty in working them out, and few proved of much worth. Steam navigation being one of the vexed problems of the time, had every fascination for his peculiar genius; and he seems to have been brooding over it as the last century was closing, and the present opening upon the world. When Fulton visited Symington's invention, Bell appears to have accompanied him, and to have afterwards corresponded with him on the subject. "This," he says, "led me to think of the absurdity of writing

my opinions to other countries, and not putting it in practice myself in my own country; and from these considerations I was roused to set on foot a steamboat, for which I made a number of different models before I was satisfied." Having removed to the little village of Helensburgh, on the banks of the Clyde, and there established a hotel and bath-house, which his wife managed, he endeavoured to work the passage-boats by which visitors were brought to the place, by means of paddle-wheels worked by the hand, instead of oars; but the plan did not succeed very well, for the same reason that led to Mr. Miller's abandonment of it-the inefficiency of manual power, which could not be applied with sufficiently sustained and continuous force. He therefore gave it up, and turned his attention to the employment of steam power for the same purpose. Of course, he was laughed at for his pains; and Henry Bell's project for having steamers on the Clyde became a standing joke among the frequenters of the wateringplace. Even after the permanent success of Fulton's scheme was known, people would not moderate their incredulity; but Bell's faith, which had never wavered, was now confirmed, and he set about the work with redoubled energy.

In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary funds, had a steam-boat built of twenty-five tons and four horse power. He named it the Comet, because a comet had just then appeared in the

north-west of Scotland. The Comet began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in January 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the summer of that year. At first, however, she brought rather loss than gain to her projector. People were shy of trusting themselves on board, and parties interested in the stagecoaches and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of absurd reports about her. It was not till she had gone for some time without accident, that tourists began to think they might as well save their money and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance. In the second year Bell took the Comet off the Clyde, and sent her on a tour round the open coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety and utility of steam navigation was admitted on all hands, and numerous rival enterprises were on foot. In 1820 the Comet was lost between Glasgow and Fort William; and in the following year another of Bell's vessels was burnt to the wateredge-two misfortunes that carried £3000 out of his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon drove him out of the field, and Bell sank into poverty and neglect. A small annuity from the Clyde trustees, and a subscription among his friends, to keep him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received for his enterprise and perseverance. He died in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

IV. OCEAN STEAMERS.

In the quarter of a century which elapsed between 1812, when the Comet first began to churn the waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation progressed steadily and surely. At first, content with plying along rivers and quiet bays, steamers by-and-by ventured out upon the open sea. We owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to the courage and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of Glasgow," who," says Mr. Scott Russell, "has effected more for the improvement of steam navigation than any other man." He was quick to appreciate the capabilities of steam-vessels, and saw that they were fit for something more than mere inland voyages. Before starting one of them upon the open sea, however, he carefully estimated the danger to be encountered and the difficulties to be overcome. He took passage at the worst season of the year in one of the sailing vessels which formerly plied between Glasgow and Belfast, and which often required a week to perform a journey that is now done by steam in a few hours.

Stationing himself on an elevated part of the deck, he kept a close watch on the movements of the vessel, observing the tossing to which she was subjected by the waves, the extent of the dip when she sank into a trough, the height of elevation when lifted on the summit of a wave, and calculating in his mind