The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

5 cient device, but its first practical application for moving vessels was not made until 1836, when a small craft, ARCHIMEDES, built and fitted with a screw propeller devised by Francis P. Smith, ran successfully in England on the Paddington Canal and in September of the following year made a trip at sea from Ramsgate to Dover, and then steamed to London. The horizontal submerged paddle wheel was developed by Lieutenant William W. Hunter, United States Navy (3). It was the usual vertical paddle wheel though much smaller, laid down on its side and mounted in a drum on a vertical shaft within the hull and below the load water line, the center being so placed that the outer rings and radial arms carrying the floats extended outboard through an aperture in the side a distance equal to their width. Each wheel was to be turned by a horizontal engine with a crank fitted to the upper end of the vertical shaft extending through the top of the drum. A boat was to have two wheels, one to each side. The hull was to be sponsoned out above the load water line to protect them from damage when docking or when coming alongside other ships. Hunter succeeded in interesting Secretary of the Navy A.P. Upshur in his device. With the Secretary's cooperation he built a small craft and fitted it with his wheels at Norfolk in the spring of l8*fl, and named her GERM.She was $2 feet long, 11 feet wide and drew 2 feet of water. The paddles of the wheels had an area of 1 square foot and the engine, a power of 6 horses. On her trial trip on the canal near Norfolk she made 8 to 9 miles an hour. (*+) • Hunter demonstrated GERM at Washington and other coast ports where her performances elicited much approval. He then took her up the Hudson to Albany and through the Erie Canal to Buffalo. There he put her through her paces on Lake Erie. The topographical engineers of the army, on duty there, took quite an interest in her. Later in the summer he took her back to salt water and down to Baltimore, after having successfully demonstrated the suitability of his device for service on sea, river, canal and lake. GERM was the first steamboat to pass from salt water to Lake Erie via the Erie Canal and return. At this time there was no direct trade between lakes Erie and Ontario by steamers because they were sidewheelers, all too long or if short enough, then still too wide to pass the locks of the Welland Canal. There was direct steam connection between Montreal and Kingston via the Rideau Canal by small craft with stern wheels or side wheels mounted in recesses in the hull about amidship. But these boats were not suitable for service on Lake Ontario. There was therefore a need on these waters for a steamboat that could pass through these canals and safely navigate the lakes. If such a steamboat could be devised then the much desired direct trade, that between the lower St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario and between that lake and Lake Erie and the upper lakes, would become a reality. Hunter had demonstrated with his GERM, that such a steamboat was a possibility. The traffic between lakes Ontario and Erie and the upper lakes was handled by schooners and sloops of the largest size that could fit the locks of the Welland Canal. Accordingly these craft were less than 110 feet long overall, less than 22 feet wide and drew less than 8 feet of water. But sailing craft were not entirely satisfactory for the lakes, because of the calms that frequently prevailed and the violent storms that occasionally occurred during the open season. Then they were practically helpless in the ice of the spring and late fall. The lay of the lakes further had a marked effect on their use in interlake traffic. Fair winds on lakes Ontario and Erie could be head winds on Huron and Michigan and so on. Consequently the time of passage from lakes Ontario and Erie to Chicago was often a very uncertain matter. With luck it could be made in a week or two, otherwise it could take four and more. The solution to this problem was the submerged wheel, either Hunter's or the screw propeller. But Hunter was more interested in apply-