Though my faith in the reports of the genius and early inventions of the Chinese has frequently been rudely shaken in the course of my investigation of their reputed discoveries, I may remark that Mr. MacGregor, for whose opinions I entertain no ordinary respect, states, in the paper he read to the Society of Arts,[127] that “the use of the screw-propeller may be of an indefinite antiquity,” and adds that “a model of one was brought from China in 1680, which had two sets of blades, turning in opposite directions.” It was not, however, until 1729, that we have any authentic account of a plan of propulsion, in any way approaching the valuable invention now so largely in use. In that year an ingenious Frenchman, M. Du Quet, described a contrivance by which a screw turned by the water in a stream, wound up a rope for towing vessels, of which the annexed (p. 101) is an illustration.[128] In 1745, Masson describes an apparatus for working an oar at the stern of a vessel so as to give it a “sculling” motion; in 1746 Bougner mentions that “revolving arms, like the vanes of a windmill,” were tried for the propulsion of vessels, and, in 1770, as already incidentally noticed, the celebrated Watt speaks of using a screw-propeller, of which the annexed is a sketch, to be turned by a steam-engine.[129] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Sidenote: Joseph Bramah, 1785.] In 1779, Matthew Wasborough, to whose genius we are indebted for many inventions in connection with marine propulsion, patented a “new invented machine or piece of mechanism which, when applied to a steam-engine or any reciprocal movement, produces a circular or rotative motion without the medium of a water-wheel;” Joseph Bramah, of whose invention I have already spoken in detail, speaks of (1785) a wheel with inclined fans or wings, similar to the fly of a smoke-jack, which may be turned round either way under water, causing the ship to be forced backward or forward,[130] and, in 1798, he tested the application of a screw in a boat, of which the annexed, copied from Mr. MacGregor’s instructive paper, is an illustration. [Illustration] [Sidenote: Mr. J. Stevens, 1804.] [Sidenote: Richard Trevethick, 1815.]