In 1618, David Ramsay obtained a patent for an invention “to make boates for carriages running upon the water as swift in calmes and more safe in storms than boats full sayled in great windes;” and in 1630 he patented a plan “to make boats, ships, and barges to goe against the wind and tide;” and “to raise water from lowe pitts by fire”[22] (the steam-engine). In 1637, Francis Lin and others patented a plan “to use and exercise upon the River Thames, and any other river within England and Wales, according to their owne way and inventing the sole drauinge and workinge up of all Barges and other vessels without the use of horses;” and, in 1646, Edward Ford proposed a similar plan for the navigation of rivers, and one whereby he could “bring little ships, barges, and vessels in and out of havens without or against any small wynd or tide, and transport souldiers and passengers without or against wynde yf the seas be not rough.”[23] In 1652 (July 30th), Thomas Grant, Doctor of Physic, obtained a patent “for several instruments, whereof the first is an instrument very profitable when co[~m]on winds fayle for a more speedy passage of calmed shipps or other vessells upon the sea or great rivers, which may be called the wynds māty.” In the recital of the inventions of the Marquess of Worcester, 8th February, 1661, reference is made to one which was “applicable to make a boat that roweth or letteth, even against wind and stream to any part of the compass which way soever the streame runs or wind blows, and yet the force of the wind or stream causeth its motion.” But though the Marquess has generally had the credit of having applied a power other than manual or animal labour for the purpose of propulsion, it has been doubted from the description of his invention if it was a steam-engine which could be applied to drive a boat.[24] Petty, in 1663, used a double boat with success.[25] Chamberlaine and Bushnell, in 1678, had also their plans for propelling boats against wind and tide, while Hooke, in 1661, described windmills in which “we have all the main features both of the screw-propeller and feathering wheel.”[26] [Illustration] [Sidenote: Morisotus’ _vessel_ with _paddle-wheels_.] From about this period much attention was directed to the use of machinery for propulsion. Morisotus, moreover, who published his views in 1643,[27] speaks of the paddle-wheel as a mode of propelling vessels, known also, as he believed, to the ancients, and states that the simple machinery employed was the same in fact as was in his day used in mining operations in the Spanish Indies. Schefer, in his instructive and interesting work, also makes mention of a remarkable vessel described by Pancirolli (who wrote, in 1587, on naval and military matters) as resembling what he had seen in an old bas-relief of an Illyrian galley, a vessel apparently propelled by wheels similar in character to those in the above wood-cut, from Morisotus. [Sidenote: Hollar’s drawing.]