Automobile Biographies. Lyman Horace Weeks
and other scientific gentlemen of the city, in the hope that it might lead in some way to his future advancement in life. Mr. Meason became the patron and friend of Symington, allowed the model to be exhibited at his own house, and invited many persons of distinction to inspect it. The carriage supported on four wheels had a locomotive behind, the front wheels being arranged with steering-gear. A cylindrical boiler was used for generating steam, which communicated by a steam-pipe with the two horizontal cylinders, one on each side of the firebox of the boiler. When steam was turned into the cylinder, the piston made an outward stroke; a vacuum was then formed, the steam being condensed in a cold water tank placed beneath the cylinders, and the piston was forced back by the pressure of the atmosphere. The piston rods communicated their motion to the driving-axle and wheels through rack rods, which worked toothed wheels placed on the hind axle on both sides of the engine, and the alternate action of the rack rods upon the tooth and ratchet wheels, with which the drums were provided, produced the rotary motion. The boiler was fitted with a lever and weight safety valve. Symington’s locomotive was abandoned, the inventor considering that the scheme of steam travel on the common roads was impracticable.
Henceforth, Symington gave his attention to the study of boat propulsion by steam. In 1787 he got out a patent for an improved form of steam engine, in which he obtained rotary action by chains and ratchet-wheels. This engine, with a four-inch cylinder, was used to work the paddles of a pleasure boat on Dalswinton Loch, in 1788, the boat steaming at the rate of five miles an hour. This boat is now in the South Kensington Museum, and it has been termed “the parent engine of steam navigation.” The experiment with this method of boat propulsion was so successful that a year later larger engines, with eighteen-inch cylinders, were fitted to another boat, which attained a speed of seven miles an hour. In 1801, Symington took out a patent for an engine with a piston rod guided by rollers in a straight path and connected by a rod with a crank attached directly to the paddle-wheel shaft—the system that has been in use ever since. Although the perfect practicability of this method of boat propulsion was fully demonstrated by a trial on the tugboat Charlotte Dundas, in March, 1802, the plan for steam power on canals and lakes was not carried further. The Forth and Clyde Company, and the Duke of Bridgewater, who were backing Symington, gave up the project and he could get help from no other sources. His inventions and experiments are generally regarded as marking the beginning of steam navigation. It is interesting to note that among those who were guests on the Charlotte Dundas, on the occasion of this trial trip, was Robert Fulton, who wrote a treatise on steam navigation in 1793, tried a small steamboat on the river Seine, in France, in 1803, and in 1807 launched his famous steamship, the Clermont, on the Hudson River.
Symington, disappointed and discouraged, gave up his work and went to London. The rest of his life was for the most part thrown away, and he became one of the waifs and strays of London. In 1825 he received a grant of one hundred pounds from the privy purse, and later on fifty pounds more, in recognition of his services for steam navigation. He died in obscurity and although he was unquestionably the pioneer in his country of the successful application of steam to navigation on inland waters his name is only a bare memory.
Born in Warren, Mass., July 2, 1759. Died near Belfast, Me., January 20, 1849.
Graduated from Harvard College in 1781, Read was a tutor at Harvard for four years. In 1788 he began experimenting to discover some way of utilizing the steam engine for propelling boats and carriages. His efforts were mainly directed toward devising lighter, more compact machinery than then generally in use. His greatest invention at that time was a substitute for the large working-beam. This was a cross-head beam which ran in guides and had a connecting-rod with which motion was communicated. The new cylinder that he invented to attach to this working-frame was double-acting. In order to make the boiler more portable he invented a multi-tubular form, and this he patented, together with the cylinder, chain-wheel, and other appliances.
The boiler was cylindrical and was placed upright or horizontal, and the furnace was carried within it. A double cylinder formed a water-jacket, connected with a water and steam chamber above, and a water-chamber below. Numerous small straight tubes connected these two chambers. Read also invented another boiler in which the fire went through small spiral tubes, very much as it does in the present-day locomotives, and this was a smoke-consuming engine. For the purpose of acquiring motion he first used paddle-wheels, but afterward adopted a chain-wheel of his own invention.
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