and continuous actions were being fought out in the American Courts for some years which engaged Fulton until the time of his death. It was not until the Supreme Court of the United States in 1824 decided adversely to Fulton’s associates on the question of exclusive right to steamboat navigation on the Hudson that this new industry received its impetus and a large number of steamships began to be built. But we are anticipating and must return to the thread of our story. [Illustration: THE “CHARLOTTE DUNDAS.” _From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._] [Illustration: THE “CLERMONT” IN 1807. _From a Contemporary Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum._] In Scotland, which has been not inaccurately called the cradle of the world’s steamship enterprise, another interesting experiment was to be witnessed early in 1802, where a vessel named the _Charlotte Dundas_ (of which an interesting model, now in the South Kensington Museum, is here illustrated) was to cause some pleasant surprise. This vessel was 56 feet long and 18 feet wide; she had a depth of 8 feet. As will be seen from the illustration, she was fitted with a paddle-wheel placed inside the hull, but at the stern. Her horizontal engine was also by Symington, and since most of the mechanism was placed on deck, we are able to see from the model a good deal of its working. It will be noticed that the cylinder is placed abaft of the mast and that the piston-rod moved on guides which can be just discerned in the photograph. Attached to this is the connecting rod, which terminates at the crank on the paddle shaft, an entirely different means of obtaining rotary motion as compared with the “sun-and-planet” method which we saw adopted by Watt. As the steam entered the cylinder from the boiler it pushed the piston and its rod horizontally; and the connecting rod, being attached thereto at one end, and to the crank at the other, the paddle-wheel was made to revolve. Below the deck were the boiler, the condenser and the air-pump. The two rudders were controlled by means of the capstan-like wheel seen in the bows. As here seen the paddle-wheel is open in order to show its character, but as considerable spray would be cast up on deck when the wheel was revolving it was covered over by the semi-circular box, which is seen on the ground at the left of the picture. This engine which Symington supplied to the _Charlotte Dundas_ was of a kind different from that which he had previously fitted to Miller’s double-hulled ship. For by his own patent Symington superseded the old beam engine, and obtained his rotary motion by coupling the piston-rod, by means of a connecting rod, with the crank.