History of Steam on the Erie Canal
A >>
Anonymous >> History of Steam on the Erie Canal
HISTORY OF STEAM
ON THE
ERIE CANAL.
Appeal for the Extension of the Act
of April, 1871, "to Foster and
Develop the Inland Commerce
of the State,"
FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CANALS
AND THE
COMMERCIAL COMMUNITY.
_NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1873._
NEW YORK:
EVENING POST STEAM PRESSES, 41 NASSAU STREET, COR. LIBERTY.
1873.
With Respects of the Author,
155 Broadway, N. Y.
HISTORY OF STEAM
ON THE
ERIE CANAL.
SCREW PROPELLERS FROM 1858 TO 1862.
During the maple sugar season of the spring of 1858, a well-to-do farmer,
of western New York, whittled out a spiral or augur-like screw-propeller,
in miniature, which he thought admirably adapted to the canal. He soon
after went to Buffalo, and contracted for a boat to be built, with two of
his Archimedean screws for propulsion by steam.
Although advised by his builders to substitute the common four-bladed
propellers, he adhered to his original design, and with one propeller at
either side of the rudder--called "twin-propellers"--she was soon ready for
duty. She is the vessel known to history as the _Charles Wack_.
She carried three-fourths cargo and towed another boat with full cargo, and
made the trip from Buffalo to West Troy in seven days, total time,
averaging two miles per hour. But she returned from Troy to Buffalo, with
half freight, in four days and sixteen hours, net time; averaging three and
one-twelfth miles per hour, without tow.
This initiated the series of steamers from 1858 to 1862, and, with others
that soon followed, created a general enthusiasm in behalf of steam
transportation, which led to a trip through the canal that fall, on a
chartered steam-tug, by the Governor of the State, the Canal Board, and
other notables, and with public receptions, speeches, &c., at different
cities along the route.
That boat was soon followed by the _S. B. Ruggles_, a first-class steam
canal-boat, built by the Hon. E. S. Prosser, of Buffalo, with a first-class
modern propeller, and with double the engine capacity of the former.
The _P. L. Sternburg_ soon followed, and was a first-class boat, with
modern twin-propellers, but with less engine capacity than the _Wack_.
The same season there were some local steamers built to run regularly
between different cities on the line of the canal.
The following season of 1859 was the most active year the Erie Canal has
ever known in regard to steam.
The _C. Wack_ was sold to Mr. Prosser, who took out her Archimedean
propellers, and substituted a modern propeller, and doubled her engine
capacity, and reproduced her as the _City of Buffalo_.
The _Gold Hunter_ was produced by the Western Transportation Company, of
Buffalo. She was a short, oblong tub, with a square, box-like bow, and
rounded stern, designed only to carry machinery and coal, and was to be
recessed into the stern of ordinary horse-boats by cutting away an
equivalent space therefrom. She was designed to make a trip on the canal,
and be immediately transferred to another boat for return trip, thus to
avoid the usual loss of time at the termini of the canal. She was abandoned
after a brief trial.
The canal-boat _Niagara_ had the Cathcart propeller supplied, which
consisted of a union of the propeller and rudder by a universal joint in
the shaft, and so adjusted as to unite them for steerage purposes. This
design was tried on the steamer _Cathcart_, upon the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, in 1858, and with considerable newspaper _eclat_.
The _Rotary_, of New York, was a new steamer for freighting purposes, with
a rotary engine and common propeller. This occupied but little space, and
worked prettily on exhibition.
The _Eclipse_, of New York, was new, and had oscillating propeller engines.
SCREW-TUGS.
The _Gov. King_ was a medium-sized New York harbor propeller, and made
repeated trips with three boats in tow, and one trip with five boats. She
was so slow as to be unremunerative, as compared with horses.
The Western Transportation Co., after the failure of the _Gold Hunter_,
built two powerful tugs, the _Washington_ and _Lafayette_. They were soon
withdrawn.
Mr. Prosser built the first-class tug, _Stimers_, but she had a short canal
history.
The tugs, _Bemis_ and _Dan Brown_, made good runs each, with three boats in
tow, but were short-lived canallers.
PADDLE-WHEELS AND OTHER DEVICES.
During these years the paddle-wheel system was thoroughly tried, and under
varied circumstances.
As the locks prevented the use of side-wheels for full freights, an
adjustable stern-wheel was tried. This could be raised or lowered in
adaptation to the light or full cargo.
The _H. K. Viele_ was a first-class canal steamer, with stern-wheel and
vertical, or excentric, acting paddles. These were considered by some as
peculiarly well adapted to canal purposes, yet in practice proved
otherwise.
The _Fall Brook_ was built by Mr. John McGee, of Seneca Lake renown, for
towing purposes, intending to establish a line between Seneca Lake and New
York city; but her canal abilities were so poor as to cause her withdrawal
to lake duty.
She had powerful engines, with vertical acting paddle-wheel, set amidships
between twin-hulls, with a full flow of water from bow to stern, and was
decked across forward and aft of her wheel.
The _Lady Jane_, of Utica, was a bow paddle-wheel boat with small engines.
She accomplished but little.
As paddle-wheel canallers have proven less efficient than screw propellers
they are more limited in numbers.
Other contemporary devices were tried.
The canal-boat, _Oswego_, had her stern recessed to receive a submerged
horizontal, centrifugal-acting water-wheel, which received water at a
central and ejected it at a periphery opening for propulsion.
This opening could be turned for steerage or backing purposes. She was
altered at Green Point and received good machinery at Brooklyn, but was
soon restored to horses.
Duck's-feet paddles were experimented with at Buffalo. A scull propulsion
was tried upon the Hudson. Also hinge-bladed propellers, to open and close
with a fore-and-aft movement at the stern. This last device was tried by a
Doctor Hunter, who has more recently tried a "Fish-Tail Propeller," the
blades being made of rubber, to imitate the form and elasticity of the
tail, with mechanical imitations of movement.
It is hardly necessary to add that these devices were all worthless, and
others of miscellaneous character may have been tried, yet without merit.
REMARKS.
Wealth, experience and skill have marked this first era of steam, and
though combined, they utterly failed. Both Mr. Prosser and the Western
Transportation Co. were owners of fleets of splendid lake propellers, and
were wealthy, with interests intimately identified with canals. It is
evident there was no want, either of money, mechanical resources, or
knowledge of canal business as basis of their failures with steam.
Capital flowed into the steam enterprise from various resources, and
ambition multiplied experiments, but with no appreciable success.
The difficulties lay beyond the reach of capital and beyond the reach of
known resources, and no adequate knowledge had been developed to solve the
problem. Therefore, after suffering failures for several years, the State
wisely volunteered to add extraordinary inducements by a large
appropriation to encourage success. It could not have been to encourage the
reproduction of former failures by the repetition of former trials.
The inquiry is therefore proper, as a lesson from the history of the early
era of steam, what are the difficulties? Why has steam failed so absolutely
and so universally? Why did the State subsequently offer a large bounty to
foster and develop steam.
Obviously there is some hidden difficulty, some unknown inability, because
steam is the arbiter of the age, it is the great supreme motor of man's
agencies throughout the world, hence we come from the sublime to the
ridiculous when we use it to load boats at Buffalo, to be towed 350 miles
by horses.
The lessons of the early era are worthless for repetition. There is no
better screw-propelling machinery known than was then tried and abandoned;
but the lessons are of value to discover the difficulties which must be
remedied; to teach that the success of steam lies beyond the reach of
publicly known mechanical resources.
The trials establish plainly and incontrovertibly that the failures were
owing to the want of _mechanical adaptation_ to required duty; to a
_mechanical inability_ to utilize the power of the steam; to a _mechanical
waste_ of power beyond their ability to control or remedy; and that the
wasted power was extravagantly large and the utilized insignificantly
small. A very intelligent captain of one of the best and most powerful
steamers known to the Erie Canal, who had a full and carefully-kept log,
stated that when his engine _exceeded_ a hundred horse-power of steam, he
could only equal twelve horses on the tow-path. Thus over seven-eighths of
his power was wastefully developed in order to render one-eighth useful.
But this occurred when he was moving only two loaded boats--the steamer and
one in tow--but when moving four boats--three in tow--the _percentage of
utility_ was lessened, and he could not exceed eight to ten per cent. of
his steam, as shown in slower movement, when fewer horses on the tow-path
could equal him.
The steamer is a reservoir, and its rotatory power is free to be developed
"_inversely as its resistances_." Hence, when fastened to a pier, it is all
developed in its receding currents, and _per contra_ when moving; if its
machinery had a perfect fulcrum, it would all be developed in the run of
the boat; consequently, on rivers and lakes, with fine-lined steamers, that
cut the water like a knife, it is like standing in a small boat and pushing
from a large one, but on canals, with their full bows, it is like standing
in a large boat and pushing from a small one; the little one runs away with
the power. The more than 100 square feet area of immersed section of the
full bow represents the large boat, and the dozen square feet effective
area of propeller blades, set at an easy angle for spiral motion and
recession velocity, is the little one that squanders the power so
extravagantly. Increase in number of boats increases this contrast. The
propeller blades of a good canaller will move twelve to fifteen miles, in
their line of spiral movement, to get two to three miles headway for the
boat.
_A correct scientific analysis_ can trace the developments of the
eighty-five to ninety per cent. of the inherent power of the steam that is
wasted on the common canal-boat, and that has no resultant effect whatever
in the motion of the boat, just as positively as it can trace the
co-developments of fifteen to ten per cent. that is utilized and that moves
the boat.
The practical man sees the truths of these statements. He sees steam used
with small, medium and large engines for canal purposes, and sees them all
fail to meet the economy of transportation established by horses; but he
would just as soon put men on the tow-path to compete with horses as to put
horses into his elevators to compete with steam; and that, because in the
elevators the power of the steam is chiefly utilized, whilst on the canal
it is chiefly wasted.
It is therefore conclusive that there is an absolute necessity for a NEW
MECHANICAL SYSTEM, for a radically different system of transmissive
mechanism, for a system that can develop a considerable portion of the
power of the steam in the movement of boats.
The variations of the old systems of propulsion that are being continuously
tried are worthless, in the very nature of the case, because they are in no
sense a remedy for existing inabilities, and because they do not, in any
sense whatever, meet the difficulties.
STEAM IN 1871 AND 1872.
SCREW PROPELLERS.
Soon after the Act of April, 1871, to foster and develop the inland
commerce of the State, the steam canal-boat _Cathcart_ was tried. She is
like the _Niagara_ of 1859, and has not been continued in the trade.
The canal-boat _George Barnard_, afterward called the _Andrew H. Dawson_,
was tried, and has run through the season of 1872. She has a common
propeller in her bow, with a recess from the water-line inclined to twenty
feet aft to the bottom. Her propeller, therefore, forces the current
against this incline and along the bottom in retardation of its progress.
Hence, she cannot be expected to excel former trials.
The _Eureka_ is an iron boat, built at Buffalo, with twin-propellers at her
bow, set in recesses, at a diverging angle, to throw the water from the bow
along the sides of the boat. She is built, by men of canal experience, with
compound engines, and was designed to be a superior boat for canal
purposes. But her _mechanical currents_ at and against the bow must have a
retarding tendency, not compensated by any other considerations.
The _George A. Feeter_ is also a twin-propeller, with diagonal, channel
waterways on each side for about twenty-five feet, when they merge into a
larger channel about five feet forward of the rudder. Her propellers are
set in these channels, about ten feet aft of their side openings. With her
propellers thus housed, the mechanical currents against the aft-sides of
her channels are very damaging to her efficiency.
The _Wm. Baxter_ is also a twin-propeller, like the _P. L. Sternburg_, of
1858, and with compound engines, like the _Eureka_ and the _Dawson_. She is
built of yellow pine, with easy lines, and so low as to be unable to carry
five-sixths of a horse-cargo of wheat or corn below deck, so that her
lightness gives help to cargo, and her sharp bow and stern to speed. But
her construction and model were long since abandoned by canal-boat
builders.
The _Wm. Newman_ is a common propeller and double-deck boat, and carries
two hundred and ten tons. She is much like the _Ruggles_ of 1858, but has
less steam capabilities.
The _Charles Hemjee_ was built upon the Western Division, with a
tunnel-shaped encasement to her propeller. Of course she is reported as
"very slow."
The _John Durston_ had a propeller built in with her rudder, and driven
with a vertical shaft, extending down through a cylindrical rudder-post,
but was unfit for service.
PADDLE WHEELS.
The _Port Byron_ is a stern, paddle-wheel boat, with vertical or eccentric
acting paddles, and is like the _Viele_ of 1858. She has a recess the
entire length of her bottom of several square feet area, intended to
facilitate a flow of water from the bow, but the flow does not occur; the
mechanical currents of the wheel will be from the nearest water, and not
from ninety feet forward.
The _Montana_ is a similar stern-wheeler, without the recess.
The _Success_ consists of two sections, to be disconnected for passing the
locks, with paddle-wheel machinery at the bow. Her wheel, inside of the
paddles, is a drum or cylinder, filled with cork, to be buoyant, and the
hull has an easy, scow bow, for the water to pass under the boat.
Practically, the large drum makes her a horizontal, cylindrical-bowed boat,
and she mechanically throws the water therefrom against the scow-shaped
bow, and so that the cylinder displacement with the mechanical currents,
and the scow-bow displacement, combine to make her _very slow_. With her
two sections she brought one and a half cargoes of corn.
The _Excelsior_ has a horizontal, eccentric-acting paddle wheel, and was
built of light iron at Green Point. She had a recess at the bow for her
submerged wheel, and, when thus tried, found the retarding effects of the
mechanical currents at and against the bow so great, as to cause her
original bow-propulsion to be made stern-propulsion, when she was much
improved. She was tried with cargo for a short distance on the canal, and
withdrawn.
The _Fountain City_ is a common boat, with machinery at her stern. She has
two submerged horizontal, excentric-acting paddle-wheels, each of small
diameter. These are placed under her quarters, in the rudder cross-section,
and she is steered by her machinery. The characteristics of these wheels
are like the _Excelsior's_, and the eccentric variations of both--together
with the _Byron's_, _Montana's_ and _Viele's_--are known as old devices of
secondary merit on river, lake and ocean steamers.
The _Santiago_ is a scow-boat, with a recess, or flume, the whole length of
her bottom, to a stern propeller. Her steam was soon abandoned.
An endless-chain propulsion was tried upon the Western Division, without
success.
A common canal-boat has been experimented with at Brooklyn to propel her by
the reaction of a powerful blower or fan. This was driven first by a
ten-horse, and next by a forty-horse stationary engine, and afterwards by a
forty-horse oscillator. Each failed to move her from her slip, and the
conception proved an absurdity.
In addition to these, local steamers have been run between different cities
for local purposes, more or less, since 1858, and steam-tugs have been
brought into requisition occasionally.
OBSERVE:
This review presents the important fact, that NO NEW MECHANICAL SYSTEM HAS
BEEN INTRODUCED.
The screw-propellers and paddle-wheels are multiplications from the former
era. The variations from the common propeller and paddle-wheel, in the
miscellaneous devices, are all under _reductions of merit_.
All the bow-propulsions, and all the variations from the _Viele_,
_Sternburg_ and _Ruggles_ of the former, and the _Byron_, _Baxter_ and
_Newman_ of the present era, are inferior, whether viewed practically or
scientifically.
Hence, steam has received no mechanical advancements since 1858; and the
efforts of 1872 are as positive and determinate failures as those of 1862.
THE TRIALS OF STEAM IN 1872 LESS ECONOMICAL THAN IN 1858 TO 1862.
It should be observed that the first trials of steam in 1858 were made
during a season of low water, and when the Canal Board had limited the
loading of boats to four and three-fourths feet draught of water, which,
later in the season, was increased to five feet, and in subsequent years to
six feet, as continued to the present time.
Among the most successful trials of the first era of steam on the canals,
may be mentioned the _H. K. Viele_, _P. L. Sternburg_, and _S. B.
Ruggles_. Each could carry three-fourths cargo and tow a full cargo, and
each exceed the speed of horse-boats.
Among the most successful trials of the present era may be mentioned the
_Port Byron_, _Baxter_, and _Newman_. Each can carry five-sixths of a
common cargo, and exceed the speed of horses.
In the early era of steam, _the prominent policy_ was to combine towage
with carrying capacity by the steamer, for economical expedition. In the
present era, it has been to make the carrying capacity of the steamer, in
itself, economical and expeditious.
This latter policy has arisen under the Appropriation Act of April, 1871,
which limits the minimum cargo to two hundred tons, and the minimum average
speed of three miles per hour. But these limitations must cover a superior
economy of freight transportation to that by the former trials with steam.
Else, they are worthless; else, they are failures, as in 1862, and their
general introduction impracticable.
As in the steamers _Byron_, _Baxter_ and _Newman_, _there is nothing
mechanically new_, in variation from the _Viele_, _Sternburg_ and
_Ruggles_--these trios being _respectively mechanical counterparts of each
other_; the paddle-wheels of the _Byron_ and _Viele_, the twin-propellers
of the _Baxter_ and _Sternburg_, and the common propellers of the _Newman_
and _Ruggles_, being respectively identical--the economical features are
easily considered.
The first trio can carry 200 tons at good speed; the second can carry 180
tons, and tow 240 tons; total, 420 tons, at good speed.
To the first trio, two boats of each class must be altered; two sets of
machinery must be furnished; two corps of engineers maintained, and coal
for two round trips must be supplied, with incidental expenses to two
steamers, to move 400 tons of freight.
To the second trio, only one boat of each class is to be altered; one set
of machinery furnished; one corps of engineers maintained, and coal for one
round trip supplied, with the incidental expenses, to move 420 tons of
freight.
The costs of alterations and adaptations of the first trio are two-fold
those of the second; the cost of machinery greater to the first trio than
to the second; the costs of engineers two-fold to the first trio; the costs
of coal about the same to each, with greater incidental expenses to the
first than to the second _per tons of freight moved_.
The differences in the two trios are in their _steam capabilities and in
their times_; the second requires about one day extra on the canal, as
possibly due to the locking of the tow, though no extra time is required
where both locks of the pair are ready. But the extra twenty tons of
freight more than pays the extra time.
The times of transit or rates of speed to the two eras are very nearly
alike, the steamers of the first having _greater steam capabilities_, as
due to their boat in tow, whilst those of the present era have reduced
their steam capabilities to increase their cargoes from the 180 tons to 200
tons.
The times of transit, or rates of speed, are given in the following
miscellaneous record, and as published, from time to time, from 1858 to
1862:
The _Wack_ was 7 days, total time, with boat in tow, from Buffalo to Troy.
The _Wack_ was 4 days 16 hours, net time, with half freight, from Troy to
Buffalo.
The _Sternburg_ was 28 hours, total time, with boat in tow, from Buffalo to
Rochester, 93 miles, averaging 3-1/3 miles per hour.
The _Ruggles_ was 5-1/2 days, net time, with boat in tow, from Buffalo to
Troy, and 6 days 14 hours, net time, from Buffalo to New York.
The _Eclipse_ was 7-1/2 days, total time, without tow, from Buffalo to
Troy, and 5-1/2 days, total time, without tow, from Troy to Buffalo.
The _Gold Hunter_ was 7 days 5 hours, total time, without tow, from Buffalo
to Troy.
The _Rotary_ was 4 days 4 hours, total time, with half freight, from Troy
to Buffalo, and 3 days 16 hours, net time.
The _Bemis_, a screw-tug, with three boats, was 5 days and 8 hours, net
time, from Buffalo to Schenectady, 321 miles, average 2-1/2 miles per hour.
The _Washington_, do., with 3 boats, was 5 days 2 hours, net time, from
Buffalo to Cohoes, 340 miles, average 2-3/4 miles per hour.
The _Dan Brown_, do., with three boats, was 6 days, net time, from Buffalo
to Albany, 351 miles, average nearly 2-1/2 miles per hour; and was 7 hours
from Buffalo to Lockport, 31 miles, averaging 4-2/3 miles per hour.
YEARS 1871 AND 1872, AS PUBLISHED.
The _Dawson_ and the _Cathcart_ have both made and repeated through trips
from Buffalo to Troy, with 5/6 of horse cargoes, in about 7 days, total
time.
The _Port Byron_ was 5 days 10-1/2 hours, total time, and 4 days 7 hours,
net time, with 117 tons of freight, from Troy to Buffalo, from Oct. 29th to
Nov. 4th. _The more important down time_ was not published.
The _Baxter_ was 5 days 14 hours, total time, and 4 days 9 hours, net time,
with half freight, from Troy to Buffalo, from Oct. 29th, in the morning, to
Nov. 3d; from Sept. 30th to Oct. 5th she was 5 days on her up trip, and
early in September was 5 days, also, from Troy to Buffalo.
On her first trip down she left Buffalo Sept. 12th, and arrived at West
Troy, the 19th, in 7 days 4 hours, total time, and reached New York the
21st, in 8 days 13 hours, total time, with 200 tons of freight. In some
way she reduces her 7 days 4 hours to 4 days 8 hours, net time, to Troy;
and her 8 days 13 hours, to New York, to 5 days 17 hours.
Second trip down was from Buffalo to Waterford, when she was longer upon
the canal than on her first trip of over 7 days.
Third trip down, left Buffalo Nov. 9th, and arrived at Troy 15th, and New
York 17th, or over 6 days to Troy, and 8-1/4 to New York, with 5/6 horse
cargo. This canal trip was during the horse epidemic, and the large number
of boats laid up made it very favorable for steam.
But the _Baxter's times_ have been developed by a model which would require
_one-third of a common boat to be rebuilt_--one-sixth at the bow and
one-sixth at the stern--it is, therefore, proper to state, that if we put
her machinery and steam capabilities into a common boat--and the seven
thousand such boats cannot be dispensed with--it would be _very slow_, as
her speed would be reduced by three causes:
1st. Because of an increased velocity of bow displacement at a reduced
speed of boat.
2d. Because of an increased velocity of stern replacement, at a reduced
speed of boat, against the mechanical or counteracting propelling currents.
3d. Because the percentage of wasted power is increased, and of utilized is
diminished, by greater resistance to motion.
The _Wm. Newman_ left New York Oct. 30th, and arrived at Buffalo Nov. 7, in
8 days, with 120 tons of freight.