parallel hulls with paddle wheels between them. Such was the state of this art when the Nineteenth Century commenced its wonderful record. No practical steam vessel had been constructed, as the efforts in this direction were handicapped by the crudeness of all the arts, and were to be regarded as experiments only, most of which had to be abandoned. The seed of this invention, however, had been sown in the fertile soil of genius, conception of its great possibilities had fired the zeal of the inventors in this field, and the new century was shortly to number among its great resources a practical and efficient steamboat. [Illustration: FIG. 106.--SYMINGTON’S STEAMBOAT, 1801.] The first steamboat of the Nineteenth Century was the “Charlotte Dundas,” built by William Symington in 1801, see Fig. 106, and used on the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1802. She had a double acting “Watt engine,” which transmitted power by a connecting rod to a crank on the paddle-wheel shaft. The boat had a single paddle wheel in the middle near the stern, and was intended only for canal use, in the place of horses. It was abandoned for fear of washing the banks. [Illustration: FIG. 107.--STEVENS’ TWIN SCREW PROPELLER AND ENGINE, 1804.] In 1804 Col. John Stevens constructed a boat on the Hudson, driven by a Watt engine, and having a tubular boiler of his own invention and a twin screw propeller. The engine, boiler, and twin screws are shown in Fig. 107. The same year Oliver Evans used a stern paddle wheel boat on the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It was driven by a double acting high pressure engine, and geared so as to rotate wagon wheels by which it was transported on land, as well as the paddle wheels when on the water. It was in primitive form both a locomotive and a steamboat. [Illustration: FIG. 108.--THE “CLERMONT,” 1807.]