CONDENSED HISTORY OF STEAM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 196, 5 January 1877, Page 12

CONDENSED HISTORY OF STEAM.

— •«-+ About 280 years 8.C., Hero of Alexandria formed a toy which exhibited some of the powers of steam and was moved by its power. A.D. 540, an architect arraged several caldrons of water, each covered with the wide bottom of a leather tube, which rose to a naiTow top, with pipes extended to the rafters of the adjoining building. A fire was kindled beneath the caldron, and the house was shaken with the efforts of the steam ascending the tubes. This is the first notice of the power of steam recorded. In 1543, June 17th, Brasco de G-aray tried a steamboat at 200 tons with tolerable success at Barcelona, Spain. It consisted of a caldron of boiling water, and a moveable wheel on each side of the ship. It was laid aside as impracticable. A present, however, was made to G-aray. In 1630, the first railroad was constructed at Newcastle on the Tyne.

The first idea of a steam engine in England was in the Marquis Worcester's "History of Invention," a.d. 1633. In 1701, Newerman made the first engine in England. In 1764, James Watt made the first perfect steam engine in England. In 1766, Jonathan Hulls first set forth the idea of steam navigation. In 1778, Thomas Payne first proposed the application in America. In 1781, Marquis Joaffrey constructed a steamboat on the Saone, In 1781, two Americans published a work on it. In 1789, William Symington made a voyage in one on the Forth and Clyde Canal. In 1802, this experiment was repeated. In 1782, Ramsay propelled a boat by steam at New York. In 1789, John Fitch, of Connecticut, navigated a boat by a steam engine on the Delaware. In 1794, Robert Fulton first began to apply his attention to steam. In 1783, Oliver Evans, a native of Philadelphia, constructed a steam engine to travel on a turnpike road. The first steam vessel that ever crossed the Atlantic was the Savannah, in the month of June, from Charleston to Liverpool. — ' Hunt's Merchants' Magazine.'