In the Far East also, wheel-boats were in use long before steam-driven paddle-wheels were invented. The Chinese certainly used them. In a paper read at the Society of Arts in April 1858, Mr. John McGregor, a barrister, who devoted considerable time to the study of early mechanical appliances, stated that an old work on China contains a sketch of a vessel moved by four paddle-wheels, and used perhaps in the seventh century. In certain “Memoires” of the Jesuit Fathers at Peking, published at Paris in 1782, there appears this quaint description of a “barque à roues”: “This vessel is 42 feet in length and 13 feet in width. The wheels are fixed in an empty space about a foot high situate underneath the strip between the stout planks _a b_. From the axle or centre of the wheels any number of spokes radiate which act like teeth for the wheels. They enter the water to the depth of a foot. A number of men make the wheels turn round. The length of the prow from _l_ to _m_ is 8 feet. The length of the body of the vessel from _n_ to _o_ is 27 feet, and the length of the poop 7 feet. Heads of tigers are represented on movable boards covered with leather, about 5 feet in height and 2 feet wide. These boards shelter from the enemy the soldiers who are behind them. They are removed when the crew decide on boarding the enemy’s vessel.” The good Fathers in their “Memoires” add a recommendation to experts in Paris to study the principle with a view to its adoption in French vessels, and they point out that even if the extra speed attained were ever so slight it might be sufficient to bring a vessel out of a dangerous situation. It may well be doubted, however, whether the shipping experts in Paris at that date profited by this humanitarian suggestion. Be this as it may, the passage proves that the propulsion of vessels by revolving wheels was not a western idea only. [Illustration: “BARQUE À ROUES,” PRIMITIVE CHINESE PADDLE-BOAT.] Panciroli, writing in the sixteenth century, describes an extraordinary boat of which he had seen a picture. His book is not illustrated; but we find a representation of a _liburna_, or galley, which exactly corresponds to Panciroli’s description,[3] in Morisotus’ (Claude Barthélemy Morisot) “Orbis Maritimi ... generalis Historia,” published in 1643. [3] “Vidi etiam effigiem Navium quarundam, quas Liburnas dicunt; quæ ab utroque latere extrinsecus tres habebant rotas, aquam attingentes: quarum quælibet octo constabat radiis, manus palmo e rota prominentibus: intrinsecus vero sex boves machinam quandam circumagendo rotas illas incitabant: et radii aquam retrorsum pellentes, Liburnam tanto impetu ad cursum propellebant, ut nulla triremis ei posset resistere.”--GUIDO PANCIROLI: _Rerum memorabilium_, libri ii. Ambergæ, 1599.