History of Steam on the Erie Canal | Page 2

boats in tow, but were short-lived canallers.
PADDLE-WHEELS AND OTHER DEVICES.
During these years the paddle-wheel system was thoroughly tried, and under varied circumstances.
As the locks prevented the use of side-wheels for full freights, an adjustable stern-wheel was tried. This could be raised or lowered in adaptation to the light or full cargo.
The H. K. Viele was a first-class canal steamer, with stern-wheel and vertical, or excentric, acting paddles. These were considered by some as peculiarly well adapted to canal purposes, yet in practice proved otherwise.
The Fall Brook was built by Mr. John McGee, of Seneca Lake renown, for towing purposes, intending to establish a line between Seneca Lake and New York city; but her canal abilities were so poor as to cause her withdrawal to lake duty.
She had powerful engines, with vertical acting paddle-wheel, set amidships between twin-hulls, with a full flow of water from bow to stern, and was decked across forward and aft of her wheel.
The Lady Jane, of Utica, was a bow paddle-wheel boat with small engines. She accomplished but little.
As paddle-wheel canallers have proven less efficient than screw propellers they are more limited in numbers.
Other contemporary devices were tried.
The canal-boat, Oswego, had her stern recessed to receive a submerged horizontal, centrifugal-acting water-wheel, which received water at a central and ejected it at a periphery opening for propulsion.
This opening could be turned for steerage or backing purposes. She was altered at Green Point and received good machinery at Brooklyn, but was soon restored to horses.
Duck's-feet paddles were experimented with at Buffalo. A scull propulsion was tried upon the Hudson. Also hinge-bladed propellers, to open and close with a fore-and-aft movement at the stern. This last device was tried by a Doctor Hunter, who has more recently tried a "Fish-Tail Propeller," the blades being made of rubber, to imitate the form and elasticity of the tail, with mechanical imitations of movement.
It is hardly necessary to add that these devices were all worthless, and others of miscellaneous character may have been tried, yet without merit.
REMARKS.
Wealth, experience and skill have marked this first era of steam, and though combined, they utterly failed. Both Mr. Prosser and the Western Transportation Co. were owners of fleets of splendid lake propellers, and were wealthy, with interests intimately identified with canals. It is evident there was no want, either of money, mechanical resources, or knowledge of canal business as basis of their failures with steam.
Capital flowed into the steam enterprise from various resources, and ambition multiplied experiments, but with no appreciable success.
The difficulties lay beyond the reach of capital and beyond the reach of known resources, and no adequate knowledge had been developed to solve the problem. Therefore, after suffering failures for several years, the State wisely volunteered to add extraordinary inducements by a large appropriation to encourage success. It could not have been to encourage the reproduction of former failures by the repetition of former trials.
The inquiry is therefore proper, as a lesson from the history of the early era of steam, what are the difficulties? Why has steam failed so absolutely and so universally? Why did the State subsequently offer a large bounty to foster and develop steam.
Obviously there is some hidden difficulty, some unknown inability, because steam is the arbiter of the age, it is the great supreme motor of man's agencies throughout the world, hence we come from the sublime to the ridiculous when we use it to load boats at Buffalo, to be towed 350 miles by horses.
The lessons of the early era are worthless for repetition. There is no better screw-propelling machinery known than was then tried and abandoned; but the lessons are of value to discover the difficulties which must be remedied; to teach that the success of steam lies beyond the reach of publicly known mechanical resources.
The trials establish plainly and incontrovertibly that the failures were owing to the want of mechanical adaptation to required duty; to a mechanical inability to utilize the power of the steam; to a mechanical waste of power beyond their ability to control or remedy; and that the wasted power was extravagantly large and the utilized insignificantly small. A very intelligent captain of one of the best and most powerful steamers known to the Erie Canal, who had a full and carefully-kept log, stated that when his engine exceeded a hundred horse-power of steam, he could only equal twelve horses on the tow-path. Thus over seven-eighths of his power was wastefully developed in order to render one-eighth useful. But this occurred when he was moving only two loaded boats--the steamer and one in tow--but when moving four boats--three in tow--the percentage of utility was lessened, and he could not exceed eight to ten per cent. of his steam, as shown in slower movement, when fewer horses on the tow-path could equal him.
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