At the period of 1817, there had been built on the Ohio about fifteen boats, several of them under one hundred tons capacity. After the memorable success of Captain Shreve with the "Washington," all fears respecting the navigation of Western waters by steamboats' seem to have vanished. Boat-yards were established at convenient points and steamboat building was active. It is difficult, at this late day, to appreciate the enthusiasm excited among "the people of the West" over the achievements of the Washington" and her gallant captain. Dr. McMurtrie, in his sketches of Louisville, published in 1819, remarks: "Next to Fulton, the Western country owes a vast debt of gratitude to Captain Henry M. Shrevę. It is to his exertions, his example, and, let me add, to his integrity and patriotic purity of principle that it is indebted for the present flourishing state of its navigation. The offer of the Livingston Company was rejected with scorn and indignation, and the affair left to justice, whose sword instantly severed the links that enchained commerce on the Western rivers." Had Shreve been weak and grasping, how different the result! How long would the great monopoly have held control of steamboats, and the prices of transportation for freight and passengers? Fulton had really almost no legitimate claim to originality in connection with the steamboat; he had, however, secured the co-operation of large capitalists, who, after quarreling with each other over the steam apparatus of Watt, John Fitch, John Stevens, and Robert R. Livingston, had finally concluded to join forces and take the country, at least the fluid portions of it, and put it in charge of their monster leviathan; but justice, under an over-ruling Providence, brought their counsels to naught, and gave to the wings of commerce on water, the power of steam free of all constraint, as came to be as palpably the case on land, a few years later, when the locomotive sprang upon the iron track, ready to move in all its ponderous power and winged fleetness, without paying tribute to patent laws, or being in the least restrained from fulfilling its destiny as fast as the laws of nature would permit. The "Washington " was not built under French's patent, as was the "Enterprise," but was built after the plans of Captain Shreve.

The General Pike" was the first boat built in the West for the special accomodation of passengers; she was constructed, in

1818, at Cincinnati for a company of her citizens. According to the City Directory of 1820, "she measures 100 feet keel, 25 feet beam, and draws only 3 feet and 3 inches water."

By the use of Shreve's snag-boat, the great raft of the Red River, consisting of trees, logs and drift-wood of every description firmly imbedded in its channel for more than one hundred and sixty miles, was removed, and the navigation of that river opened, including the raft a distance of nearly twelve hundred miles. This work, alone, in consequence of the immense quantity of public land reclaimed in that region and rendered fit for cultivation, the enhanced value of other lands on the upper part of the river, and the reduced cost in the transportation of supplies to Fort Towson and to the Indians located in that neighborhood, has been worth millions to the Government. Eightyfive thousand dollars was the saving in one season on freight alone. The cost of removing those obstructions was but about $300,000, instead of $3,000,000, as had been prophecied. Such snag-boats have to be constantly removing new obstacles in all the Western rivers.

Upon the advent of John Tyler to the Presidency, after the decease of General Harrison, Captain Shreve was officially informed of his removal from office, by a letter dated at Washington, September 11th, 1841. After thirty-four years literally spent on the waters, he returned to the quiet pursuits of an agricultural life, in which he was engaged in youth. His farm was near St. Louis, and with the same zeal and liberality which he had always manifested, he devoted himself energetically to improving his landed estate.

At the opening of the telegraph at St. Louis, Captain Shreve sent the first message borne by electricity from the banks of the Mississippi to the tide waters of the Atlantic. It was to the President of the United States, at Washington. Thus did he fill out the measure of a career of great usefulness and brilliant endeavor. Quietly at his home, for the last ten years of his life he enjoyed the pleasures of a serene old age, and died, after a protracted illness, in his 66th year, March 6th, 1851.

RICHARD TREVITHICK

AS born on the 13th of April, 1771, in the parish of Illogan, a few miles west of Redruth, in Cornwall. He

may be fairly regarded as THE INVENTOR OF THE RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE, if any single individual be entitled to that appellation. He was a person of extraordinary mechanical skill, but of marvelous ill fortune, who, though the inventor of many ingenious contrivances, and the founder of fortunes of many, himself died in extreme poverty, leaving behind him nothing but his great inventions and the recollection of his genius.

He early entertained the idea of making the expansive force of steam act directly on both sides of the piston, on the high-pressure principle, and thus getting rid of Watt's process of condensation. Although Cugnot had employed high-pressure steam in his road locomotive, and Murdock in his model, and although Watt had distinctly specified the action of steam at high-pressure as well as low, in his patents, the idea was not embodied in any practical working engine until taken in hand by Trevithick. The results of his long study were embodied in the patent which he took out in 1802, in his own and Vivian's name, for an improved steam-engine, and "the application thereof for driving carriages and other purposes."

The arrangement of Trevithick's engine was ingenious. It exhibited a beautiful simplicity of parts; the machinery was arranged effectively, uniting strength with solidity and portability, and enabling steam to be employed with very great rapidity, economy, and force.

Trevithick's steam carriage was the most compact and handsome yet invented, and, as regards arrangement, has scarcely to this day been surpassed. It consisted of a carriage capable of accommodating some half dozen passengers. Underneath the engine and machinery was inclosed, in about the size of an orchestra drum, the whole being supported on four wheels-two in front, by which it was guided, and two behind, by which it was driven. The engine had but one cylinder. The piston-rod outside the cylinder was double, and drove a cross-piece, working in guides, on the opposite side of the cranked axle to the cylinder, the crank

of the axle revolving between the double parts of the piston-rod. Toothed wheels were attached to this axle, which worked into other toothed wheels fixed on the axle of the driving-wheels. The steam-cocks were opened and shut by a connection with the crank-axle; and the force-pump, with which the boiler was supplied with water, was also worked from it, as were the bellows to blow the fire and thereby keep up the combustion in the furnace. The first railway locomotive was finished and tried upon the Merthyr train-road, on the 21st of February, 1804. As a locomotive, it was a remarkable success. The pressure of the steam was about 40 lbs. on the inch. The engine ran upon four wheels, coupled by cog-wheels, and the four wheels were smooth.

On the first trial, this engine drew, for a distance of nine miles, ten tons of bar iron, together with the necessary carriages, water, and fuel, at the rate of five and a half miles an hour.

Trevithick, in a great measure, solved the problem of steam locomotion on railways. He had produced a compact engine, working on the high-pressure principle, capable of carrying fuel and water sufficient for a journey of considerable length, and of drawing loaded wagons at five and a half miles an hour. He had shown by his smooth wheeled locomotive that the weight had given sufficient adhesion for hauling the load. He had discharged the steam into the chimney, though not for the purpose of increasing the draught, as he employed bellows for that purpose.

There can be no doubt as to the great mechanical ability of Trevithick. He was a man of original and intuetive genius in invention. Every mechanical arrangement which he undertook to study issued from his hands transformed and improved. But there he rested. He struck out many inventions, and left them to take care of themselves. His great failing was the want of perseverance.

Trevithick made the first railway locomotive, and cast the invention aside, leaving it to others to take it up and prosecute it to a successful issue. He introduced, if he did not invent, the cylindrical boiler and the high-pressure engine, which increased so enormously the steam power of the world; but he reaped the profits of neither. He invented an oscillating engine and a screw propeller; he took out a patent for using superheated steam, as well as for wrought iron ships and wrought iron floating docks; but

he left it to other men to introduce these several inventions. Never was there such a series of splendid mechanical beginnings. He began a Thames Tunnel, and abandoned it. He went to South America with the prospect of making a gigantic fortune, but he had scarcely begun to gather in his gold than he was forced to fly, and returned home destitute. But even when he had the best chances, Trevithick threw them away.

There may have been some moral twist in the engineer's character, into which we do not seek to pry; but it seems clear that he was wanting in that resolute perseverance, that power of fighting an up-hill battle, without which no great enterprise can be conducted to a successful issue.

The character of Richard Trevithick presents a remarkable contrast to that of George Stephenson, who took up only one of the many projects which the other had cast aside, and by dint of application, industry, and perseverance, carried into effect one of the most remarkable, but peaceful revolutions which has ever been accomplished in any age or country.

During the last year of his life, Trevithick resided at Dartford, in Kent. He was entirely without means at his death, being some sixty pounds in debt to the landlord of the Bull Inn, where he had lodged for nearly a year.

ALFRED VAIL.

N THE month of September, 1807, there was born into the family of a sturdy machinist, a son, who in process of time came to be given the name of Alfred Vail.

Stephen Vale was the first man in New Jersey to set up a machine for making cut nails, which he started at Dover in his native county. He early married a young lady of excellent sense and of great amiability and nobleness of character, who manifested the best qualities of a true housewife and an earnest Christian mother. Mrs. Vail had several children; the eldest was a daughter, Harriet, and the second a son, Alfred, the subject of our sketch.