Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 240 (part 2)

The heating of the wires in electric circuits must have been observed so early and so often with both electrostatic and voltaic apparatus, that no one has bothered to claim or trace priorities for this “effect.” The production of incandescence, however, and the even more dramatic combustion or “explosion” of metal-foil strips and fine wires has a good deal of recorded history. Among the first to burn leaf metal with a voltaic pile was J. B. Trommsdorff of Erfurt who noted in 1801 the distinctly different colors of the flames produced by the various common metals. In the succeeding few years, Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution frequently, in his public lectures, showed wires glowing from electric current.

Early electrical instrumentation based on the heating effect took an unusual form. Shortly after 1800, W. H. Wollaston, an English M.D., learned a method for producing malleable platinum. He kept the process secret, and for several years enjoyed an extremely profitable monopoly in the sale of platinum crucibles, wire, and other objects. About 1810, he invented a technique for producing platinum wire as fine as a few millionths of an inch in diameter, that has since been known as “Wollaston wire.” For several years preceding 1820, no other instrument could compare the “strengths” of two voltaic cells better than the test of the respective maximum lengths of this wire that they could heat to fusion. One can sympathize with Cumming’s comment in 1821 about “the difficulty in soldering wires that are barely visible.”

Electrical Instrumentation, 1800-1820

The 20 years following the announcement of the voltaic-pile invention were years of intense experimental activity with this device. Many new chemical elements were discovered, beginnings were made on the electrochemical series of the elements, the electric arc and incandescent platinum wires suggested the possibilities of electric lighting, and various electrochemical observations gave promise of other practical applications such as metal-refining, electroplating, and quantity production of certain gases. Investigators were keenly aware that all of the available means for measuring and comparing the electrical aspects of their experiments (however vaguely these “electrical aspects” may have been conceived), were slow, awkward, imprecise, and unreliable.

The atmosphere was such that prominent scientists everywhere were ready to pounce immediately on any reported discovery of a new electrical “effect,” to explore its potentialities for instrumental purposes. Into this receptive environment came H. C. Oersted’s announcement of the magnetic effects of a voltaic circuit, on July 21, 1820.

Figure 2.—“Galvanometer” was the name given by Bischof to this goldleaf electrostatic instrument in 1802, 18 years before Ampère coupled the word with the use of Oersted’s electromagnetic experiment as an indicating device.

Oersted’s Discovery

Many writers have expressed surprise that with all the use made of voltaic cells after 1800, including the enormous cells that produced the electric arc and vaporized wires, no one for 20 years happened to see a deflection of any of the inevitable nearby compass needles, which were a basic component of the scientific apparatus kept by any experimenter at this time. Yet so it happened. The surprise is still greater when one realizes that many of the contemporary natural philosophers were firmly persuaded, even in the absence of positive evidence, that there must be a connection between electricity and magnetism. Oersted himself held this latter opinion, and had been seeking electromagnetic relationships more or less deliberately for several years before he made his decisive observations.

His familiarity with the subject was such that he fully appreciated the immense importance of his discovery. This accounts for his employing a rather uncommon method of publication. Instead of submitting a letter to a scientific society or a report to the editor of a journal, he had privately printed a four-page pamphlet describing his results. This, he forwarded simultaneously to the learned societies and outstanding scientists all over Europe. Written in Latin, the paper was published in various journals in English, French, German, Italian and Danish during the next few weeks.

In summary, he reported that a compass needle experienced deviations when placed near a wire connecting the terminals of a voltaic battery. He described fully how the direction and magnitude of the needle deflections varied with the relative position of the wire, and the polarity of the battery, and stated “From the preceding facts, we may likewise collect that this conflict performs circles….” Oersted’s comment that the voltaic apparatus used should “be strong enough to heat a metallic wire red hot” does not excuse the 20-year delay of the discovery.

Beginnings of Electromagnetic Instrumentation

The mere locating of a compass needle above or below a suitably oriented portion of a voltaic circuit created an electrical instrument, the moment Oersted’s “effect” became known, and it was to this basic juxtaposition that Ampère quickly gave the name of galvanometer. It cannot be said that the scientists of the day agreed that this instrument detected or measured “electric current,” however. Volta himself had referred to the “current” in his original circuits, and Ampère used the word freely and confidently in his electrodynamic researches of 1820-1822, but Oersted did not use it first and many of the German physicists who followed up his work avoided it for several years. As late as 1832, Faraday could make only the rather noncommittal statement: “By current I mean anything progressive, whether it be a fluid of electricity or vibrations or generally progressive forces.”

Nevertheless, whatever the words or concepts they used, experimenters agreed that Oersted’s apparatus provided a method of monitoring the “strength” of a voltaic circuit and a means of comparing, for example, one voltaic battery or circuit with another.

It was perfectly clear, from Oersted’s pamphlet, that if a compass needle was deflected clockwise when the wire of a particular voltaic circuit lay above it in the magnetic meridian, the same needle would also be deflected clockwise if the wire was turned end-for-end and placed below the compass needle, without changing the rest of the circuit. Anyone perceiving this fact might deduce, as a matter of logic, that if the wire of the circuit was first passed above the needle, in the magnetic meridian, then folded and returned in a parallel path below the needle, the deflecting effect on the needle would be repeated, and a more sensitive indicator would result, assuming that any additional wire introduced has not affected the “circuit” excessively.

Since 1821, historical accounts of the origins of electromagnetism seem to have limited their credit assignments for the conception and observation of this electromagnetic “doubling” effect (or “multiplying” effect, if the folding is repeated) to three persons. Almost without exception, however, these accounts have given no specific information as to precisely what each of these three accomplished, what physical form their respective creations took, what experiments they performed, and what functional understanding they apparently had of the situation. The usual statement is simply that a compass needle was placed in a coil of wire. The main purpose of the present review is to recount some of these details.

The following are the three candidates whose names are variously associated with the “invention” of the first constructed electromagnetic instrument, or “multiplier,” or primitive galvanometer.

Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger (1779-1857) in 1820 had already been editor for several years of the Journal für Chemie und Physik, and was professor of chemistry at the University of Halle.

Johann Christian Poggendorf (1796-1877) in 1820 had only recently entered the University of Berlin as a student following several years as an apothecary’s apprentice and a brief period as an apothecary. Four years later, he succeeded Gilbert as editor of the influential Annalen der Physik, a position he held for more than 50 years.

James Cumming (1771-1861) in 1820 was professor of chemistry at Cambridge University.

Chronology and Priority

The earliest established date in the “multiplier” record is September 16, 1820, when Schweigger read his first paper to the Natural Philosophy Society of Halle. There seems to be no reason to doubt that this report justifies the frequently used label “Schweigger’s multiplier.”

In an exuberant support of Schweigger’s position, Speter with no mention of Cumming and no hint of “invention” details, shows that Poggendorf in 1821 admitted Schweigger’s priority, but suffered some lapse of memory 40 years later when writing sections of his biographical dictionary, leaving a distinct suggestion that the invention was his. Further confusion for later generations resulted from some ambiguous entries in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie of 1888. The name “multiplier” seems not to have originated with Schweigger himself. Speter credits it to Meineke as “working” editor of Schweigger’s Journal, but Seebeck seems to have used it much earlier.

Conceding priority of conception to Schweigger (Cumming has not been a real competitor on this point) does not alter the fact that all three seem to have reached their results independently of one another, that the first work of each on this subject was published within a period of five months, that there were significant differences in their conceptions of the uses and the optimum design of their devices and that between them they provided an adequate foundation for the subsequent development of the galvanometer to become the primary electrical-measuring instrument.

In the matter of publication, Schweigger, as editor of what was popularly called Schweigger’s Journal, had an obvious advantage, and presented his experiments beginnings on page 1 of the first volume of his Journal for 1821, published January 1 of that year. Oersted’s paper had appeared two volumes previously. He began by referring to Oersted’s discovery as “the most interesting to be presented in a thousand years of the history of magnetism.” He was, in fact, so impressed with the epochal nature of Oersted’s achievement that he commemorated it by giving his Journal a second title so that “volume one” of the new title could begin in the year after Oersted’s publication.

Poggendorf, as a relatively junior student, had no such easy access to publicity, but he had a staunch admirer in one of his professors, Paul Erman at the University of Berlin. Erman added a seven-page postscript on Poggendorf’s invention to his book Outline of the Physical Aspects of the Electro-chemical Magnetism Discovered by Professor Oersted, published before April 1821, with an introductory paragraph:

Herr Poggendorf, who is one of the most excellent ornaments of the lecture room and laboratory of the University here, carried out a very coherent and well-conceived investigation of electro-chemical magnetism, leading step-by-step to a method of amplifying this activity-phenomenon by means of itself.

The postscript begins by referring to the “condenser [Kondensator] just brought to my attention by Herr Poggendorf” and explains that he cannot release his treatise “without preliminary announcement of this subject of the highest importance.” (It can be inferred from the text that the name “condenser” was chosen because of the device’s enhancing of magnetic measurements analogously to the enhancing of electric measurements by Volta’s electrostatic “condenser.”)

Immediately on reading the book, Schweigger published extracts, mainly of the postscript, with indignant comments on Erman’s remissness (or worse) in having failed to mention Schweigger’s prior work.

However, Erman was not alone in his unawareness, if it was that, of Schweigger’s discovery.

Rival editor Gilbert of the Annalen der Physik reviewed Erman at much greater length than Schweigger, reprinting most of the postscript with evident enthusiasm, and stating in his preamble that the invention is attributed to “a young physicist studying here in Berlin, Herr Poggendorf.” Only in a footnote is the reader directed to another footnote in the next article in the volume, where Gilbert finally states that he “cannot leave unmentioned the fact that this amplifying apparatus seems to be due to Herr Professor Schweigger.” He then quotes rather fully from Schweigger’s first two papers. Oersted in 1823 explained the situation thus: “The work of M. Poggendorf, having been mentioned in a book on electromagnetism by the celebrated M. Erman published very shortly after its discovery, became known to many scientists before that of M. Schweigger. This is the reason for the same apparatus carrying different names.”

The same confusion is well illustrated by the paper to which Gilbert attached his confessional footnote mentioned above. Written by Professor Raschig of Dresden, on April 3, 1821, the paper is entitled “Experiments with the Electro-magnetic Multiplier,” but the device, throughout the paper, is repeatedly referred to in the phrase “Poggendorf’s condenser, or rather multiplier,” an awkward combination that suggests editorial intervention.

The work of James Cumming at Cambridge is described in two papers which he read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1821, which were then duly published in the Transactions of that Society. The first, “On the Connexion of Galvanism and Magnetism,” was read April 2, 1821, and the second, “On the Application of Magnetism as a Measure of Electricity,” was read a few weeks later on May 21st.

Though he quotes some unrelated 18th-century experiments by Ritter in Germany, an 1807 publication of Oersted’s, and electromagnetic experiments with solenoids performed by Arago and Ampère in late 1820, Cumming makes no mention of Schweigger or Poggendorf, and never uses the word “multiplier.” It, therefore, seems probable that his work was done without knowledge of the German publications or inventions.

Original Electromagnetic Multipliers

Of the three sets of instruments made, respectively, by Schweigger, Poggendorf and Cumming, those of Schweigger are the most elementary, and the least realistic from a practical point of view. He makes little effort to investigate the effect of any design parameters, but presents some odd conductor configurations that involve unimportant variations of the basic principle. The following extracts from his first three papers contain the major references to his conception, construction, and use of his multiplier.

PAPER READ IN HALLE, SEPTEMBER 16, 1820

That a powerful voltaic pile is required for these experiments (of Oersted) I have confirmed in my physics lectures, using an electric pile that was so strong it would easily produce potassium metal the second and third day after it was built. However, I soon saw that the electromagnetic effect was related, not to the pile, but to the simple circuit, and I was thereby led to perform the experiment with much greater sensitivity. To amplify these electromagnetic phenomena of the simple circuit it seemed to me necessary to adopt a different arrangement from that initiated by Volta, in order that the electrical phenomena of his simple circuit might be raised to a higher degree.

Since a reversal of the effect occurs according to whether the connecting-wire lies over or under the needle, and likewise according to whether the wire leads from the positive or negative pole, thence I say it is an easy inference that a doubling of the effect is attainable, which is verified in practice.

I present to the Society the simple “doubling apparatus” [Verdoppelungs-Apparat], where the compass is placed between two wires passing around it. A multiplication of the effect is easily obtained when the wire is not just once but many times wound around. A single turn suffices, however, to demonstrate Oersted’s experiments, using small strips of zinc and copper dipped in ammonium-chloride solution.

Amid innumerable, rambling theorizations (such as, that “hydrogenation affects magnetism as oxidation affects galvanism,” or “sulphur, phosphorous and carbon are especially significant in magnetism, since iron in combination with any of these inflammable materials becomes a magnet-material”), Schweigger announces that he looked for the reactive force of the needle on the connecting wire in the simple Oersted experiment, and that he used his “amplifying apparatus” to look for magnetic effects from an electrostatic machine, but without success in both cases. He suggests that he will continue with many more electromagnetic experiments because “with the use of the doubling-apparatus, the needle, instead of needing for excitation a cell capable of generating sparks, approaches more closely the sensitivity of a twitching nerve.” However, “additional special experiments are required to find to what limits the amplification can be increased by the method I have created in the construction of this doubling-apparatus, using multiple turns of wire.”

Figure 3.—This wire “bow-pattern” was the first illustration Schweigger gave of his “doubling apparatus,” though he had presented a verbal description of a single-coil arrangement somewhat earlier. The purpose of the bow pattern was to show that compass needles at the centers of the two loops deflected in opposite directions. (From Journal für Chemie und Physik.)

PAPER READ IN HALLE, NOVEMBER 4, 1820

[The first half of this paper describes successful observations of the reaction-force of a magnetic needle on the connecting wire of a voltaic circuit, achieved by pivoting the connecting wire in the form of brass needles above and below the compass needle. Though the multiplier configuration of needle and wire is in fact present here, Schweigger does not mention it, evidently regarding this as a separate project. He continues.]

In my lecture of September 16th, I showed that Oersted’s results depend, not on the voltaic cell, but only on the connecting circuit. The principle I have used for amplification of the effects, for the construction of an electromagnetic battery as it were, was the winding of wire around the compass, and I now present to the Society a bow-pattern of multiple-wound, wax-insulated wire, Figure 3. [There were no illustrations with Schweigger’s first paper.] While a single wire, using the weak electric circuit here, deflects the magnetic needle only 30° or 40°, if the compass is placed in one of the openings of this pattern, the needle is deflected 90° to the east, or in the other opening 90° to the west, using the same weak electric circuit….

The “bow-pattern” device has novelty interest only, adding nothing to the elucidation of the multiplier phenomenon. The same is true of Schweigger’s next proposal, shown in figure 4. “… I will now add another apparatus, which is just an extension of the previous one, whereby the needle can take up any angle from 0° to 180°.” A short length of circular glass tubing, of inside diameter large enough to contain a compass needle, stands with its axis vertical and has single or multiple loops of wire wound on it in vertical diametral planes. In the illustration, successive plane coils are inclined at 30° to one another. “… the electric current flows through the whole wire, and the needle moves under all of these currents, and coming always into another loop can take any desired angle.”

With much further theorizing about “the correlation of magnetism with the cohesion of bodies,” Schweigger states again his evaluation of his discovery: “Oersted succeeded in electromagnetic research by using a spark-producing cell, which could make a wire glow. My amplifying electromagnetic device needs only a weak circuit of copper, zinc, and ammonium chloride solution.”

Figure 4.—Schweigger made this peculiar construction of wire coils, wound endwise on a short vertical section of glass tubing with a compass needle inside, merely to startle his Halle audience with the fact that the compass needle could rest in any of several stable positions. (From Journal für Chemie und Physik.)

Figure 5.—Schweigger’s suggestion of one possible design for an amplifying electromagnetic indicator. The components are wooden rods and insulated wire. Position b referred to in the text is at the bottom of the diagram between the letters a and c. (From Journal für Chemie und Physik.)

“FURTHER WORDS ABOUT THE NEW MAGNETIC PHENOMENA”

[This was presumably written between November 4, 1820, and the January 1, 1821, publication date of his Journal.]

These wonderful new electrical effects are most easily rendered perceptible with the help of the previously described wire loops. To focus attention on just one of the windings of Figure 3, we sketch a new drawing, Figure 5…. Since it is of major importance that these loops be made of silk-covered wire lying evenly on one another, it is convenient to wind the loops on two small slotted sticks of wood, although it is also possible to hold the wires together with wax or shellac, or to tie them together in an orderly manner with silk thread….

In Figure 5, Aa and Cc represent little slotted rods of wood on which the silk-covered wire is wound. Only three windings are shown in the figure, but I generally adopt three times that many. Now t is connected with the copper and d with the zinc, and the compass B set between the rods Aa and Cc with the coil perpendicular to the magnetic meridian and the terminals d, t at the east.

The instant Z and K are dipped in the ammonium chloride solution, the needle turns around and stays with the north pole point south….

If now the compass is taken out of the coil and put in position b, all effects are reversed, and are considerably weaker, for obvious reasons….

It is of the same significance whether we bring the compass from B to b in Figure 5, or from mesh 1 to mesh 2 in Figure 3, only that in the latter case, because the compass is enclosed by the two sides, a stronger effect results….

If now the coil is rotated … so that the face previously north now faces south, then on connecting the electric circuit there is absolutely no trace of effect on the needle, assuming that the terminal wires are not reversed….

It seems unnecessary to note that our magnetic coil can be placed in the direction of the magnetic meridian or at any arbitrary angle with it….

Following several pages of further talk about the relation of “cohesion to magnetism” and about “unipolar and bipolar conductors,” the only additional item of interest is the observation that discharges of a Leyden jar (Kleistichen Flasche) strong enough to burn strips of leaf gold and to magnetize an iron rod in a coil, produced no compass-needle deflections, even with the help of the “amplifying apparatus.”

Schweigger, therefore, described the basic multiplier idea clearly enough in his first paper, but offered no sketch of the simplest construction until the third paper. In the second paper, meanwhile, he had illustrated two peculiar designs involving the principle in less elementary ways.

His indifference to whether the wire loops lie in the magnetic meridian (fig. 3) or perpendicular to it (fig. 5) or “at any other arbitrary angle to it,” reveals a poor appreciation of the measuring-instrument potentialities. His conception seems to be primarily that of a detector.

Poggendorf’s invention, as first reported by Erman and presented to a wider audience by Gilbert was described as consisting of typically 40 to 50 turns of /10-line diameter, silk-covered copper wire tied tightly together, with the whole pressed laterally to form an elliptical opening in which a pivoted compass needle could move freely while maintaining clearance of about 2 lines from the wire at all points.

“This magnetic condenser can be a great boon to electro-chemistry,” said Erman, for “it avoids all the difficulties of electric condensers.” He noted that, using the condenser, Poggendorf had already established the electric series for a great number of bodies, discovered various anomalies about conductivities, and found a way of detecting dissymmetry of the poles of a compass needle. On the other hand, even with the condenser, no magnetic effects have so far been obtainable from a strong tourmaline, or from a 12,000-pair, Zamboni dry cell.

Poggendorf’s own account of his work finally appeared as a very long article in the journal known as “Oken’s Isis.” The editorial controversies mentioned earlier may have occasioned this use of a periodical of such minor status in the fields of physics and chemistry.

The source of Poggendorf’s vision of the multiplier principle was a little different from Schweigger’s inspiration. Aiming at some detailed analysis of Oersted’s observation, Poggendorf ran the connecting wire of his cell-circuit along a vertical line to just above or below the pivot-point of the compass needle, then, after a right-angle bend, horizontally above or below one of the poles of the needle. As he studied the deflections produced for all four possible positions of such a wire, with both cell polarities, he came to realize that if a rectangular wire loop in a vertical plane enclosed a compass needle, all parts of the horizontal sides of the loop would produce additive deflections. By a separate experiment, he showed that the vertical sides of the loop would also increase the deflections. He saw at the same time that the effect of additional turns would be cumulative.

The multiple surrounding of the needle by a silk-covered wire, in a plane perpendicular to the long axis of the needle, affords the physicist a very simple and sensitive means of detecting the slightest trace of galvanism, or of magnetism produced by it, so that I have given the name of magnetic condenser to this construction, though I attach no special value to this name …

In analyzing the astonishingly increased power which the condenser gives to the magnetic effect of a circuit, the first question that arises is how the effect varies with the number of turns, whether it increases indefinitely or reaches a maximum beyond which additional turns have no effect. The answer to this first question is linked to the solution of another, viz, whether the degrees deflection are a direct expression of the measure of the magnetic force or not.

To instruct myself on this point I made use of three separate circuits, each containing an 8-turn condenser, and put these as close together as possible in the magnetic meridian … with the needle between the windings. Each single circuit … gave a deflection of 45° … When two were connected the deflection was 60°, and when finally all three were put in magnetic operation, the deflection grew to only 70°. It appears clearly from this that the angle of deflection is not in a simple ratio with the magnetic force acting on the needle….

Neither Poggendorf nor Schweigger seems to have ruled out, on logical grounds alone, the possibility of deflections greater than 90°, with the loop-plane in the magnetic meridian, though Poggendorf does add a vague note that if the needle deflected too far it would encounter forces of the opposing sign.

Poggendorf experimented with the size of the circuit wires, finding that larger wires led to greater deflections. He noted that the size of the cell plates and the nature of the cell’s moist conductors would certainly have a great effect, but that to investigate these in detail would take undue time, and he therefore proposed to keep this part of the apparatus constant, using one pair of zinc and copper plates 3.6 inches in diameter, separated by cloth soaked in ammonium-chloride solution.

Poggendorf’s principal quantitative study of his magnetic condenser used 13 identical coils, each with 100 turns. In order that the turns should all be at approximately the same distance from the needle, the coils were wound of the finest brass wire that could be silk-insulated, the wire diameter being 0.02 lines. On adding coils one at a time across the cell (i.e., connecting them in parallel), the deflections were as follows:

Turns 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300

Deflection
in degrees 45 50 55 59-60 62 63 64 65 65/2 66 66 66 66

Adding some coils with fewer turns, and connecting various combinations “as a continuum” (i.e., in series), the deflections using the same cell were:

Turns 1 5 10 25 50 75 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

Deflection
in degrees 10 22 27 30 35-40 40 40 40 40 40 41 40 40 40 40 40

Making a few coils from wire with /8-line diameter, the deflections, again using the same cell were:

Turns 5 25 50 100 Over 100

Deflection
in degrees 20-22 40-45 45 65 65

Since the needle used in these experiments was almost as long as the inside clearance of the coils, no simple tangent law can be applied, and it is not possible to discover an equivalent circuit in modern terms. However, the constancy of the deflections for large numbers of turns in each case indicates that the cell voltage and resistance were fairly constant, and a rough estimate suggests that the cell resistance was comparable to the resistance of one of the 100-turn coils of fine wire. Such a value means that cell resistance limited the maximum deflections for the parallel-connected multipliers, while coil resistance fixed the limit in the series case.

For all of these reasons, it was impossible that any useful functional law could be obtained from the data.

Poggendorf concluded only that “the amplifying power of the condenser does not increase without limit, but has a maximum value dependent on the conditions of plate area and wire size.” He added two other significant comments derived from various observations, that the basic Oersted phenomenon is independent of the earth’s magnetism, and that the phenomenon is localized, i.e., is not affected by distant parts of the circuit.

Only a small fraction of Poggendorf’s paper is devoted to elucidating the properties of the condenser. A similar amount is concerned with refuting various proposals, such as those of Berzelius and Erman, about distributions of magnetic polarity in a conducting wire to account for Oersted’s results. More than half of the paper describes results obtained by using the condenser to compare conductivities and cell polarities under conditions where no effect had previously been detectable. Notable is the observation of needle deflections in circuits whose connecting wires are interrupted by pieces of graphite, manganese dioxide, various sulphur compounds, etc., materials which had previously been considered as insulators in galvanic circuits. Poggendorf gives these the name of “semi-conductor” (halb-Leiter).

Figure 6.—Electromagnetic instruments of James Cumming, used at Cambridge in 1821. One is a single-wire “galvanometer,” following Ampère’s definition. Cumming called the multiple-turn construction “galvanoscopes.” He showed how to increase their sensitivity by partial cancellation of the earth’s magnetism at the location of the compass needle. (From Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, vol. 1, 1821.)

Cumming’s first mention of the multiplier phenomenon, in his paper of April 2, 1821, is quite casual, and describes only a one-turn construction. He speaks first of single-turn ring of thick, brass wire, and after noting that the sides of a circuit produce additive effects on a needle, he comments that a flattened rectangular loop produces nearly quadruple the effect of a single wire. The paper is primarily a review of Oersted’s work, with references to electromagnetic observations before Oersted, and accounts of various related but nonmultiplier experiments that Cumming has made. His second paper, of May 21st, contains a fine plate (fig. 6) illustrating arrangements used in investigating the subject of the paper’s title “The Application of Magnetism as a Measure of Electricity.” (Neither Poggendorf nor any of his commentators ever illustrated his “condenser.”)

Although this plate is never referred to in the paper itself, a nearby “Description” gives a few comments. The two wire patterns shown are noted as simply “forms of spiral for increasing the electromagnetic intensity.” The mounted wire loop, with enclosed compass needle and terminal mercury cups, is clearly identical in principle with the devices of Schweigger and Poggendorf, and is called a “galvanoscope.” The largest structure illustrated does not involve the multiplying effect. It is called a “galvanometer,” consistent with Ampère’s definition of that word. To use it, two leads of a voltaic circuit are inserted into the mercury cups AC and BD, and the board EFGH carrying the cups is moved vertically until some “standard” deflection is obtained on the compass needle below. The relative “strength” of the circuit is then given by the calibrated position of the sliding section. Uncertainties are undoubtedly introduced by the arbitrary positions of the connecting wires from the test circuit to the mercury cups, but Cumming drew some interesting conclusions from various measurements he made.

Observing needle deflections for various positions of the wire A-B, with a “constant” voltaic circuit, he found that “the tangent of the deviation varies inversely as the distance of the connecting wire from the magnetic needle.” Here is a combination of the deflection law for a needle in a transverse horizontal field and the magnetic-force law for a long, straight wire. The latter had been determined experimentally by Biot and Savart, in November 1820, by timing the oscillations of a suspended magnet.

Figure 7.—“Schweigger multiplier” used by Oersted in 1823. A thin magnetic needle is held in a light, paper sling at F, suspended by a fine, vertical fiber. (From Annales de Chimie et de Physique.)

Cumming considers his straight-wire calibrated “galvanometer” to be a device for “measuring” galvanic electricity; on the other hand, his multiple-loop “galvanoscopes” are for “discovering” galvanic electricity. With the multiplier instrument, he found galvanic effects (i.e., needle deflections) using copper and zinc electrodes with several acids not previously known to create galvanic action. A potassium-mercury amalgam electrode created a powerful cell with zinc as the positive electrode, establishing both the metallic nature of potassium and the fact that it is the most negative of all metals.

In a third paper, presented April 28, 1823, Cumming reports use of the galvanoscope in experiments on the thermoelectric phenomena recently discovered by Seebeck. His note that “for the more minute effects a compass was employed in the galvanoscope, having its terrestrial magnetism neutralized …” seems to be the earliest mention of this version of the astatic principle, a technique whose dramatic effects were especially valuable in low-resistance thermoelectric circuits, where the extra resistance of additional multiplier turns largely offsets their magnetic contribution. In detail, “the needle is neutralized by placing a powerful magnet North and South on a line with its center; and another, which is much weaker, East and West at some distance above it: by means of the first the needle is placed nearly at right angles to the meridian, and the adjustment is completed by the second.”

On varying the length of the connecting wire of the circuit, Cumming found the deflections of the multiplier needle to be in a nearly reciprocal relation. He speaks of the “conducting power of the wire,” and seems not far from visualizing Ohm’s law, of which no published form appeared until 1826. Ohm’s own experiments were made with very similar apparatus.

Conclusions

An effort has been made to show that electrical experimenters prior to Oersted’s discovery in 1820 were in desperate need of some electrical instrument for galvanic or voltaic circuits that would combine sensitivity, simplicity, reliability, and quick response. The nearly simultaneous creation by Schweigger, Poggendorf and Cumming of an arrangement consisting of a coil of wire and a compass needle provided the first primitive version of a device to fill that need.

Figure 8.—Completely useless arrangement of vertical coil and horizontal, unmagnetized needle, presented in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal of 1821 as “Poggendorf’s Galvano-Magnetic Condenser.” Almost every aspect of Poggendorf’s instrument has been incorrectly represented.

It appears that Schweigger is clearly entitled to credit for absolute priority in the discovery, but the original sources suggest that both his understanding of the device and the subsequent researches he performed with it were markedly inferior to those of the other independent discoverers. In using the generic label, “Schweigger’s Multiplier,” there have been historical examples of attributing to Schweigger considerably more sophistication than is justified. Figure 7 shows an instrument designed by Oersted in 1823, which he says “differs in only minor particulars from that of M. Schweigger.” On comparing figure 7 with figures , , or , the remark seems overly generous.

The history of the multiplier instruments has had its fair share of erroneous reports and misleading clues. A fine example is the illustration of figure 8, taken from what is often quoted as the first report in English on Poggendorf’s “Galvano-Magnetic Condenser.” The sketch is the editor’s interpretation of a verbal description given him by a visiting Danish chemist who, in turn, had received the information in a letter from Oersted. It incorporates, faithful to the description, a “spiral wire … established vertically,” with a needle “in the axis of the spiral,” yet by misunderstanding of the axial relations and of the ratio of length to diameter for the coil, a completely meaningless arrangement has resulted. The confusion is compounded by the specifying of an unmagnetized needle.

Schweigger and Poggendorf, through their editorial positions, were among the best known of all European scientists for several decades. On one basis or another their reputations are firmly established. Comparison of the accounts of the early “multipliers,” however, suggests that the Reverend James Cumming, professor of chemistry at the University of Cambridge, was a very perceptive philosopher. This was well understood by G. T. Bettany who wrote in the Dictionary of National Biography that Cumming’s early papers “though extremely unpretentious,” were “landmarks in electromagnetism and thermoelectricity,” and concluded that: “Had he been more ambitious and of less uncertain health, his clearness and grasp and his great aptitude for research might have carried him into the front rank of discoverers.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Dr. Robert P. Multhauf, chairman of the Department of Science and Technology in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of History and Technology, for encouragement in the writing of this paper and for the provision of opportunity to consult the appropriate sources. To Dr. W. James King of the American Institute of Physics, I am grateful for many provocative discussions on this and related topics.

The following assumed typographical errors have been corrected:

Page : J. B. [Johann Bartholomacus] Tromsdorff—should be Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff

Page : “paper of April 2, 1821, is quite”—had “1921.”

Footnote : “Geschichte der Elektrizität”—had “Elektrizitat.”

Footnote : “Journal für Chemie und Physik”—had “and.”

One questionable spelling has been retained as follows:

Footnote : “Sur le Multiplier electro-magnetique”—should be “Multiplicateur”?

"> Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology:
Paper 39

Fulton’s “Steam Battery”:
Blockship and Catamaran

Howard I. Chapelle

SURVIVING DESIGNS FOR FLOATING BATTERIES 145

CONTROVERSIAL DESCRIPTIONS 147

COPENHAGEN PLANS 150

HISTORY OF DOUBLE-HULL CRAFT 152

SAIL AND INBOARD PLANS 157

RECONSTRUCTING THE PLANS 161

NAVAL STEAMERS 167

INDEX

Figure 1.—Scale model of Fulton's Steam Battery in the Museum of History and Technology. (Smithsonian photo P-63390-F.)

Howard I. Chapelle

FULTON’S
“STEAM BATTERY”:
BLOCKSHIP and CATAMARAN

Robert Fulton’s “Steam Battery,” a catamaran-type blockship, was built during the War of 1812. Until recently, not enough material has been available to permit a reasonably accurate reconstruction of what is generally acknowledged to be the first steam man-of-war.

With the discovery, in the Danish Royal Archives at Copenhagen, of plans of this vessel, it is now possible to prepare a reconstruction and to build a model.

This article summarizes the history of the vessel, describes the plans and the reconstruction, and also evaluates its design with particular attention to the double-hull construction.

The Author: Howard I. Chapelle is curator of transportation in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of History and Technology.

The identity of the first steam man-of-war has been known for many years, and a great deal has been written and published on the history of this American vessel. Until recently, the only available drawing of the ship has been a patent drawing made for Robert Fulton. This does not comply with contemporary descriptions of the steamer and the drawing or plan is out of proportion with the known dimensions. The lack of plans has heretofore made it impossible to illustrate the vessel with any degree of precision, or to build a scale model.

The discovery in 1960 of some of the plans of this historic ship in the Danish Royal Archives at Copenhagen now makes possible a reasonably accurate reconstruction of the vessel and also clarifies some of the incomplete and often confusing descriptions by contemporary writers.

Of the numerous published accounts of the ship that are available, the most complete is David B. Tyler’s “Fulton’s Steam Frigate.” A contemporary description of the vessel by the British Minister to Washington, 1820-23, Stratford Canning, was published by Arthur J. May. In Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States, by Charles B. Stuart, and The Steam Navy of the United States, by Frank M. Bennett, the history of the ship and some descriptive facts are given. Stuart, in an appendix, gives in full the report of the Supervisory Committee (set up to administer the building contract). Tyler and Stuart, and the Committee Report are the principal sources from which the following summary of the ship’s history is drawn.

Figure 2.—“Demologos,” a wood engraving based on the sketch which Robert Fulton showed to President Madison in 1813. This wood engraving appears as plate 1 in Charles B. Stuart’s Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States, and illustrates the section on Naval Steamers, from which the account “The Demologos; or, Fulton the First,” is here reproduced (pp. 167-171). Stuart obtained the sketch, assumed to have been made for Fulton’s patent on the design of the Steam Battery, from the files of the U.S. Navy Department.

On December 24, 1813, Robert Fulton invited a group of friends—prominent merchants, professional men and naval officers—to his home in New York City and there presented a proposal for a project of great local interest. At that time the War of 1812 was in its second year and the economic effect of the British naval blockade was being felt severely. The blockade cut off seaborne trade and posed a constant threat of attack upon New York and other important ports, particularly Baltimore. To defend the ports, it had been proposed to build mobile floating batteries or heavily built and armed hulks with small sailing rigs, but the high cost of these and their doubtful value in helping to break the blockade, compared to the value and action of a very heavy, large frigate, or a 74-gun ship, caused authorities to hesitate to proceed with the construction of any blockships or floating batteries.

Fulton’s proposal concerned a floating battery propelled by steam power. He believed that steam propulsion not only would give it effective maneuverability with no loss of gunpower, but also would allow a successful attack upon the Royal Navy blockading ships during periods of protracted calm, when sailing men-of-war were nearly helpless. The blockaders then could be attacked and picked off, one by one, by the heavily armed steamboat.

Among those present at the meeting was Major General Henry Dearborn, a leading citizen and soldier who was later to become noted in American political history. The first step taken during this meeting was the founding of the Coast and Harbor Defense Company with Dearborn as president, Fulton as engineer, and Thomas Morris as secretary. Next, a committee was established to raise funds from Federal, State, and New York City governments as well as from individual contributors to build the battery. The members of this committee consisted of General Dearborn, Commodore Stephen Decatur, U.S.N.; General Morgan Lewis; Commodore Jacob Jones; U.S.N.; Noah Brown, shipbuilder; Samuel L. Mitchill; Henry Rutgers; and Thomas Morris.

The committee proved cumbersome and was reduced to General Lewis, Issac Bronson, Henry Rutgers, Nathan Sanford, Thomas Morris, Oliver Wolcott, and John Jacob Astor. Known as the Coast Defense Society and with the name of Pyremon given the ship in prospectus, they attempted, unsuccessfully, to raise funds privately.

The estimated sums to build a battery 130 feet long, with a 50-foot beam, capable of a speed of 5 mph, and carrying 24 long guns (18-pdr.), was $110,000. Fulton, still the chief engineer, in an effort to interest the Federal Government, built a model of the proposed vessel and submitted it to some prominent naval officers—Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jacob Jones, James Biddle, Samuel Evans, Oliver Perry, Samuel Warrington, and Jacob Lewis. All gave their support to the Society in a written statement and this recommendation proved helpful to the project in Congress and in the Navy Department. In the process of passing a bill which went to the Senate Naval Affairs Committee calling for $250,000 for the construction of the floating battery, the sum was raised to $1,500,000 for the construction of “one or more” floating batteries and passed on March 9, 1814.

To supervise the start of construction, the Coast Defense Society appointed a committee consisting of Dearborn, Wolcott, Morris, Mitchill, and Rutgers, with Fulton as engineer, and a model and drawing of the proposed vessel was submitted to the Patent Office. The Secretary of the Navy, although supporting the project, delayed action until he had weighed the importance of the batteries in relation to other war needs, for at this time the naval shipbuilding program on the Great Lakes was considered of prime importance. He also raised some technical questions concerning the design of the batteries, which Fulton answered with a description of the vessel as 138 feet on deck, 120 feet on the keel, 55 feet beam (each hull to have a 20-foot beam and the “race” between to be 15 feet wide), draft 8 or 9 feet loaded, and the intended speed was to be 4/2 to 5 mph. The ship was to carry 24 long guns (32-pdr.), the engine was to be 130 hp, and the total cost, $200,000. In his letters to the Secretary of the Navy, Fulton stated that Adam and Noah Brown would build the hull for $69,800 and that he would build the engine, machinery and boilers for $78,000, a total of $147,800. He intended to have the boilers, valves, fastenings, and air pumps of brass or copper, which would raise the machinery costs 59 percent above that of stationary engines and boilers then in use.

On May 23, 1814, the Secretary of the Navy authorized the Coast Defense Society and its committee to act as Navy agents and to enter into the contracts required to build a vessel, and to draw on the Navy storekeepers or Navy Yard commandants for such stores or articles on hand needed for construction. The contracts were prepared and the committee now was officially empowered to act for the Society, with Rutgers, Wolcott, Morris, Dearborn, Mitchill, and Fulton. On June 4, Dearborn asked the Navy Department for $25,000 advance, for work had started. On the 6th, he informed the Secretary that he had been ordered to assume command of the defenses of Boston and that Rutgers had been appointed chairman of the construction committee in his place.

It is apparent that the Navy Department was pressed for funds, due to the very extensive shipbuilding programs on Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain in addition to the seagoing vessels being built in some of the coastal ports. This was certainly one cause for the Secretary of the Navy’s reluctance to carry out the requirements of the bill passed by Congress immediately after its signature and, also, this reluctance caused the supervisory committee much embarrassment in its administration of the contract.

Another factor which caused difficulty in the administration of the contract was the position of Adam and Noah Brown. The brothers were deeply involved in the shipbuilding program on the Lakes, in which they were associated at times with Henry Eckford. The Browns constructed a blockhouse, shops, and quarters at Erie; in addition to Perry’s two brigs and five of his schooners, they also built some of the Lake Ontario vessels and, later, the Saratoga on Lake Champlain. In their New York yard, whose operation continued throughout the war, they built some large letter-of-marques: the General Armstrong, Prince de Neufchatel, Zebra, Paul Jones, and some smaller vessels. They also cut down the 2-decked, merchant ship China into a single flush-deck letter-of-marque, renamed Yorktown; and they had a contract to build the sloop-of-war Peacock. It is remarkable that the Browns could undertake and complete so much work between 1813 and 1815 and still be able to build the steam battery in a very short time.

With the contracts in order, the Browns began building. The keels of the battery were laid June 20, 1814. It is apparent that the Browns prepared the original hull plans, undoubtedly before the building authority was obtained. The vessel required only about four months to build; she was launched October 29, 1814, at 9 a.m. This was an excellent performance, considering the size of the vessel, the amount of timber required and handled in her massive construction, and the other work being done by the builders. During the ship’s construction, sightseers were a nuisance and finally guards had to be obtained. During the building of the steam battery, work had to be practically stopped on the sloop-of-war Peacock at one period after she had been partially planked.

There were difficulties in obtaining metalwork for the vessel during her construction, due to the blockade and the demand for such material for other shipbuilding at New York. On November 21, 1814, the ship was towed from the Browns’ yard on the East River by Fulton’s Car of Neptune and Fulton, each lashed to the sides of the battery, and taken to Fulton’s works on the North River. There Fulton supervised in person the completion of the vessel and construction of her machinery. Undoubtedly only a little of his time was required in inspection of the Browns’ work on the battery, for the shipbuilders had been closely associated with Fulton throughout the life of the project and were fully capable as ship designers. The work on the machinery was another matter, however, for men capable of working metal were scarce and few workmen could read plans. Fulton had some of the work done outside of his own plant, particularly the brass and copper work (mostly by John Youle’s foundry). As a result, Fulton was required to move from plant to plant, keeping each job under almost constant observation and personally supervising the workmen. The equipment then available for building a large engine was inadequate in many ways. The large steam cylinder presented a problem: it had to be recast several times and some of the other parts gave trouble, either in casting or in machining and fitting.

Figure 3.—Scale model of Steam Battery, showing double hull, in the Museum of History and Technology. (Smithsonian photo P-63390-D.)

Guns for the battery were another problem. Only 3 long guns (32-pdr.), were available at the Navy Yard. The Secretary of the Navy promised some captured guns then at Philadelphia. Because of the blockade, these had to come overland to New York. The captured guns thus obtained were probably English, part of the cargo of the British ship John of Lancaster captured by the frigate President early in the war. Apparently 24 guns were obtained this way; only 2 were obtained from the Navy Yard. In July the Supervising Committee carried out some experimental damage studies, in which a 32-pdr. was fired at a target representing a section of the topsides of the battery. Drawings of the result were sent to the Secretary of the Navy.

Further problems arose over the delays of the government in making payments: the banks discounted the Treasury notes, so the Committee members had to advance $5,000 out of their own pockets. There was fear that British agents might damage the vessel, and although the project was undoubtedly known to the British, no evidence of any act of sabotage was ever found. Captain David Porter was assigned to the command of the battery in November, and it was upon his request that the vessel was later rigged with sails.

With the Steam Battery approaching completion, the Secretary of the Navy became more enthusiastic and the construction of other batteries of this type was again proposed. Captain Stiles, a Baltimore merchant, offered to build a steam battery, the hull to cost $50,000; the entire cost of the vessel, $150,000, was raised in Baltimore and the frames of a battery erected. Another battery was projected at Philadelphia and the Secretary of the Navy wanted one or more built at Sackett’s Harbor, but naval officers and Fulton objected. A bill put before Congress to authorize another half million to build steam batteries passed the first reading January 9, 1815, went to the House February 22, 1815, but the end of the war prevented any further action on it.

On February 24, 1815, Fulton died. He had been to Trenton, New Jersey, to attend a hearing on the steamboat monopoly and, on the way back, the ferry on North River was caught in the ice. Fulton and his lawyer, Emmet, had to walk over the ice to get ashore. On the way, Emmet fell through and Fulton got wet and chilled while helping him. After two or three days in bed Fulton went to his foundry to inspect the battery’s machinery causing a relapse from which he died. This resulted in some delay in completing the machinery and stopped work on the Mute, an 80-foot, manually propelled, torpedo boat that Fulton was having built in the Browns’ yard.

It was decided to suspend work on the Baltimore battery after an expenditure of $61,500, but the New York battery was to be completed to prove the project was practical. The final payment of $50,000 was made four months after it was requested.

Charles Stoudinger, Fulton’s foreman or superintendent, was able to complete and install the ship’s machinery. On June 10, 1815, the vessel was given a short trial run in the harbor with Stoudinger and the Navy inspector, Captain Smith, on board. This trial revealed the need of some mechanical alterations; sails were not used, and it was found she could stem the strong tide and a fresh headwind. The vessel also was visited by the officers of French men-of-war at anchor in the harbor.

On July 4, 1815, she was given another trial. She left Fulton’s works at Corlear’s Hook at 9 a.m., ran out to Sandy Hook Lighthouse, bore west and returned, a total of 53 miles under steam, reaching her slip at 5:20 p.m. She was found to steer “like a pilot boat.” This prolonged trial revealed that the stokehold was not sufficiently ventilated and more deck openings were required. The windsails used in existing hatches were inadequate. The paddle wheel was too low and had to be raised 18 inches, and there were still some desirable modifications to be made in the machinery.

On September 11, 1815, she was again given a trial run. All alterations had been made, including the addition of hatches and raising the paddle wheel, and her battery was on board with all stores, supplies, and equipment. She had 26 long guns (32-pdr.), mounted on pivoted carriages, and now drew 10 feet 4 inches. On this day she left her slip at 8:38 a.m. and went through the Narrows into the Lower Bay, where she maneuvered around the new frigate Java at anchor there. The battery then was given a thorough trial under steam and sail and, with the ship underway, her guns were fired to see if concussion would damage the machinery. The vessel was found to be a practical one, capable of meeting the government’s requirements in all respects; her speed was 5/2 knots. However, the stokehold temperature had reached 116° Fahrenheit! She returned to her slip at 7:00 p.m.

On December 28, 1815, the Committee in a written report to the Secretary of the Navy, gave a description of the vessel and praised her performance. At this time a set of plans was made by “Mr. Morgan,” of whom no other reference has appeared, and sent to the Navy Department. These cannot now be found. The Committee recommended the battery be commissioned and used for training purposes. This suggestion was not followed.

The ship remained in her slip during the winter, and in June 1816 she was turned over to the Navy and delivered to Captain Samuel Evans, commandant of the New York Navy Yard. Captain Joseph Bainbridge was assigned to her command. However, she was not commissioned and soon after her delivery she was housed over and placed “in ordinary,” that is, laid up. The final settlement showed that the Committee, as Navy agents, had paid out $286,162.12 with $872.00 unpaid, as well as a claim for $3,364.00 by Adam and Noah Brown, making a total of $290,398.12.

The following year, on June 18, 1817, she was unroofed and put into service with a small crew. With President James Monroe on board, she left the Navy Yard about noon for a short trip to the Narrows and then to Staten Island and returned in the evening. The next day she was again placed “in ordinary.”

Four years later, in 1821, when her guns and machinery were removed, it was found that she was rapidly becoming rotten. She was then utilized as a receiving ship. At 2:30 p.m. on June 4, 1829, she blew up, killing 24 men and 1 woman, with 19 persons listed as injured. Among those killed was one officer, Lt. S. M. Brackenridge. Two lieutenants and a Sailing Master were hurt, four midshipmen were severely injured, and five persons were listed as missing. The explosion of 2/2 barrels of condemned gunpowder was sufficient, due to her rotten condition, to destroy the ship completely. A Court of Inquiry blamed a 60-year-old gunner, who supposedly entered a magazine with a candle to get powder for the evening gun. It was stated to the court that about 300 pounds of powder in casks and in cartridges was on board the ship at the time.

She was not replaced until the coast-defense steamer Fulton was built in 1837-38, though in 1822 the Navy purchased for $16,000 a “steam galliot” of 100 tons, the Sea Gull, to be used as a dispatch boat for the West Indian squadron engaged in suppressing piracy during 1823. In 1825 she was laid up at Philadelphia, and in 1840 she was sold for $4,750.

It is a curious fact that the battery did not receive an official name, as did the sailing blockship on the ways at New Orleans, which at the end of the War of 1812 was officially listed as the Tchifonta. Nor was the battery given a number, as were the gunboats. In official correspondence and lists, the steam battery is referred to as the “Fulton Steam Frigate,” or as the “Steam Battery,” but in later years she was referred to as the “Fulton” or “Fulton the First.” Perhaps the explanation is that as she was the only one of her kind she was not numbered, and as she was not considered fit for coastal or extended ocean voyages, she was not given a name.

Surviving Designs for Floating Batteries

The designs of American blockships that have survived are those of the Tchifonta, 145 feet long, 43-foot moulded beam, 8-foot 6-inch depth in hold, and about 152 feet 9 inches on deck. She was to carry a battery of 22 long guns (32-pdr.), on the main deck 12 carronades (42-pdr.), on forecastle and quarter decks. She was to have been rigged to rather lofty and very square topgallant sails, and would have been capable of sailing fairly well, though of rather shoal draft, drawing only about 8 feet 6 inches when ready for service. She was sold on the stocks at the end of the war and her later history is not known.

Another and earlier design for a blockship, or floating battery, was prepared by Christian Bergh for Captain Charles Stewart in 1806. This was a sailing vessel for the defense of the port of New York, planned to mount 40 guns (32-pdr.), on her two lower decks and 14 carronades (42-pdr.), on her spar deck. She was to be 103 feet 6 inches between perpendiculars, a 44-foot moulded beam, 10-foot depth of hold, and drawing about 9 feet when ready for service. She was intended to be ship-rigged, but was never built. A few small sloop-rigged block vessels also were built during Jefferson’s administration. The sloop-of-war Saratoga, built on Lake Champlain by the Browns, in 1813, was practically a blockship. A plan for a proposed “Guard Ship,” or “Floating Battery,” was made by James Marsh at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1814. This was an unrigged battery, 200 feet extreme length, 50-foot moulded beam, 9-foot depth of hold, to mount 32 guns (42-pdr.), on a flush deck, with a covering deck above.

Figure 4.—Design for an unrigged floating battery proposed by James Marsh, Charleston, South Carolina, March 14, 1814.

Through the courtesy of the trustees of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, the Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Statens Sjöhistoriska Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, the author has been able to illustrate in this article the designs of some of the early floating batteries.

In the last quarter of the 18th century and later, the Danes had built sail-propelled floating batteries or blockships, which were employed in the defense of Copenhagen. The British built at least one sail-propelled battery, the Spanker, in 1794. This was a scow of very angular form with overhanging gun-deck, bomb-ketch-rigged, and about 120 feet overall 42-foot 4 inches moulded beam and 8-foot depth of hold. She is said to have been a failure due to her unseaworthy proportions and form; the overhanging gun deck and sides were objected to in particular. She is called a “Stationary Battery” in her plans, which are in the Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Controversial Descriptions

The contemporary descriptions of the Fulton Steam Battery do not agree. This was in part due to differences between the dimensions given out by Fulton during the negotiations with the Federal Government, and after the ship’s construction was authorized. From the context of various statements concerning the projected vessel, such as that of the naval officers, the changes in the intended dimensions of the ship can be seen. For example, the officers state the model and plan shown them would produce a battery carrying 24 guns (24- and 32-pdrs.), and a letter from Fulton to Jones, shows she was to be 138 feet on deck and 55-foot beam. The final reported dimensions, given by the Supervisory Committee, are 156 feet length, 56 feet beam, and 20 feet depth.

In addition there are a few foreign accounts which give dimensions and descriptions. The most complete was probably that of Jean Baptiste Marestier, a French naval constructor who visited the United States soon after the end of the War of 1812 and published a report on American steamboats in 1824. The Steam Battery is barely mentioned though a drawing of one of her boilers is given. Marestier made another report on the American Navy, however. Extensive searches have been made for this in Paris over the last 14 years, but this paper has not been found in any of the French archives. References to the original text indicate that the naval report dealt very extensively with the Steam Battery. Some of his comments on the battery appeared in Procès-verbaux des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences. Marestier considered the powers of the battery to have been overrated due to fanciful accounts of some laymen writers. He was aware of the shortcomings of the double hull in a steam vessel at the then-possible speeds, but he apparently thought two engines, one in each hull and each with its boilers would be better than Fulton’s arrangement of boilers in one hull and engine in the other. He noted that the paddle wheel turned 16-18 rpm and that steam pressure sustained a column of mercury 25 to 35 centimeters. The safety valve was set at 50 centimeters. Fuel consumption was 3/8 cords of pine wood per hour.

In view of the access Marestier is known to have had to American naval constructors, shipbuilders, and engineers, it is highly probable that he not only obtained the building plan of the ship but also some of the earlier project plans from the builders and from Fulton’s superintendent, Stoudinger. It is, therefore, a great misfortune that his lengthy report on the Battery cannot be produced.

A French naval officer who investigated the ship, M. Montgéry, also wrote a description, published in “Notice sur la Vie et les Travaux de Robert Fulton.”

It should be noted in regard to what Montgéry wrote about the Battery, that in 1821 it had been considered desirable to disarm the ship. The engineer in charge, William Purcell, had reported that as there were not proper scuppers, dirt and water had entered the hull and had collected under the engine and boilers, causing damage to the hull, and also that with guns removed, the Battery would float too high for the paddle wheel to propel the vessel; so it had been decided to remove all machinery as well as the armament.

Montgéry’s description, published in 1822, was taken from his report to the Minister of Marine and Colonies. It noted the battery was made of two hulls separated by a channel, or “race,” 15/2 feet wide, running the full length of the vessel. The two hulls were joined by a deck just above the waterline, as well as by an upper deck, and also connected at their keels by means of 12 oak beams each 1 foot square. The vessel was 152 feet long, 57 feet beam, and 20 feet deep. Sides were 4 feet 10 inches thick, and the ends of the hull were rounded and alike. There were two rudders at each end, one on each hull, alongside the race. The eight paddle blades, each 14/2 feet by 3 feet, turned in either direction by stopping the engine piston at half-stroke and reversing the flow of steam. Rigged with two lateen sails and two jibs, the ship sailed either end first. The engine of 120 hp was in one hull and two boilers were in the other. Other sources, Marestier, and Colden in Procès-verbaux des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, gave additional information (some of it incorrect): the engine was inclined, with a 4-foot-diameter cylinder, 5-foot stroke, direct-connected to the paddle wheel, which was turned at 18 rpm. The boilers were 8 × 22 feet with the fireboxes in inside cylinders, each about 5 feet in diameter, and extending about half the length of the boiler from the fire doors. Two fire tubes, each about 3 feet in diameter, returned the gases from the inside end of the fireboxes to the stacks at the firing end. Except at the fire-door end, the firebox was completely surrounded by water. The boiler pressure of about 6 psi was not maintained, varying somewhat with each stroke of the engine.

Water level in the boilers was indicated by try cocks. The safety valve was controlled by a counterbalanced lever. A jet of salt water was injected into the exhaust trunk to form a vacuum by condensation. An air pump transferred condensate and sea water into a tank from which it passed overboard. Only about a tenth of this water was returned to the boilers.

Montgéry stated also that only the lower or gun deck was to be armed. No bulwarks were on the spar deck, only iron stanchions to which were fastened a breastwork of wet cotton bales when the Steam Battery was in action.

The Battery was designed to carry 30 guns (32-pdr.), with 3 guns in each end and 12 on each side, but no guns in the wake of paddle wheel and machinery. Hatches to give air to the stokehold were located amidships. The Battery was to have been supplemented at the ends of each hull by a Columbiad “submarine gun” (100-pdr.), Fulton’s invention, but these were not fitted. Provision was to be made in the fireboxes for heating shot, and a force pump with a cylinder 33 inches in diameter was employed to throw a stream of cold water, about 60-80 gallons per minute, for a distance of about two hundred feet. This could be done only when the paddle wheel was not in operation. The paddle wheel was housed, the top fitted with stairs to the spar deck. The gun deck, over the race, was used in part for staterooms, of which the bulkheads were permanent. Hammocks for the complement of 500 men were to be slung on the rest of the gun deck. The ship drew 10 feet 4 inches, with the port sills about 5/2 feet above the loadline. Burning wood, the vessel could carry about 4 days’ supply of fuel; burning coal, she carried 12 days’ supply.

Montgéry said that the vessel would be vulnerable to bombshells and hot shot, and that furthermore she could be boarded. The displacement of the ship, at service draft, was 1,450 tons, a figure Montgéry obtained from a copy of the original plan given him by Noah Brown.

Figure 6.—French sketch, in Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen, of inboard profile and arrangement of Fulton’s Steam Battery, showing details of the Fulton engine, probably taken from one of his preliminary designs.

In 1935, Lieutenant Ralph R. Gurley, USN, attempted a reconstruction in sketches of the vessel published in his article “The U.S.S. Fulton the First” in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. This reconstruction was based on the Patent Office drawing prepared for Fulton, and published by Stuart and Bennett, and the foregoing French sources. The Patent Office drawing showed the engine was an inclined cylinder and Lt. Gurley shows this in his sketch; in his text (p. 323) he says, “The engine was an inclined, single-cylinder affair with a 4-foot base and a 5-foot stroke.” Gurley’s attempt to reconstruct the Steam Battery is the only one known to the author.

Copenhagen Plans

In 1960, Kjeld Rasmussen, naval architect of the Danish Greenland Company, was requested by the author to inspect in the Danish Royal Archives at Copenhagen a folio of American ship plans, the index of which had listed some Civil War river monitors. Mr. Rasmussen found the monitor plans had been withdrawn but discovered that three plans of Fulton’s Steam Battery existed, as well as plans of the first Princeton, a screw sloop-of-war.

Copies of the Steam Battery’s plans were obtained at Copenhagen in September 1960 through the courtesy of the archivist, and were found to consist of the lines, copied in 1817, an inboard profile and arrangement, and a sail and rigging plan. From these the reconstruction for a scale model was drawn and is presented here with reproductions of the original drawings upon which the reconstruction is based.

It is apparent that Montgéry’s description is generally accurate. The vessel is a catamaran, made of two hulls, double-ended and exactly alike. The outboard sides are “moulded,” with round bilges, the inboard sides are straight and flat, as though a hull had been split along the middle line and then planked up flat where split. The hulls are separated by the race, in which the paddle wheel is placed at mid-length. The topsides are made elliptical at the ends, and the midsection shows a marked tumble-home over the thick topside planking but less on the moulded lines.

The lines plan agreed rather closely to Montgéry’s description of the hull. After careful fairing it was found the lines drawing would produce a vessel 153 feet 2 inches overall outside the stems, or about 151 feet over the planked rabbets, with a moulded beam of 56 feet and extreme beam of 58 feet. The moulded depth was 22 feet 9 inches and the width of the race was 14 feet 10 inches, plank to plank. The room and space of framing shown was 2 feet. The designed draft appears to be 13 feet and this would bring the port sills 5 feet 6 inches above the loadline and the underside of the gun-deck beams about 2 feet 9 inches above the loadline.

The lines plan is a Danish copy, probably of the building plan by Noah Brown, and may be based on the plan Montgéry obtained from Brown. The spar deck has the iron stanchions (Gurley translated these as “chandeliers”) which are set inboard 4 feet from the plank-sheer. This gives room for cotton bales, outboard the stanchions, to form a barricade. As will be seen by comparing the original Danish drawing with the model drawing, the construction indicates that the iron stanchions should be carried around the ends of the hull in the same manner as along the sides, since the lower ends of the iron stanchions pass through the spar deck and are secured to the inside of the inner ceiling of the gun deck. The rudders are as shown in the Danish drawing, and it is supposed that they were operated ferryboat fashion, one at each end of the vessel. Hence, each pair of rudders was toggled together by a cross-yoke. This was probably operated by a tiller (possibly the cross-yokes and tillers were of iron) pivoted under the beams of the gun deck close to the ends of the ship. Tiller ropes led from a tackle under the gun-deck through trunks to the spar deck, where the wheels were placed. This allowed proper sweep to the tillers and operation of each pair of rudders. The paddle wheel was apparently of iron, with wooden blades, and agrees with Montgéry’s description. In the plan for the model it is shown raised 18 inches above the original design position, to agree with trial requirements.

It should be observed that the close CL-to-CL frame spacing created a hull having frames touching one another, at least to above the turn of the bilge, so the vessel was almost solid timber, before being planked and ceiled, from keel to about the loadline. The sides are not only heavily planked but, after the frames were ceiled with extraordinarily heavy, square timbering, a supplementary solid, vertical framing was introduced inboard and another ceiling added. The sides scale about 5 feet from outside the plank to the inboard face of the inner ceiling at the level of the gunports.

The hulls were tied together athwartship by the deck beams of the gun deck and spar deck, except in the wake of the paddle wheel. Knees were placed along the sides of the race at alternate gun-deck beams. In addition, the 12 1-foot-square timbers, crossing the race at the rabbets of the hulls, (mentioned by Montgéry) are shown. These must have created extraordinary resistance, even at the low speed of this steamer. The deck details shown are the results of reconstruction of the inboard works.

Figure 7.—Original lines of Robert Fulton’s Steam Battery, a Danish copy dated September 12, 1817; found in Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen.

History of Double-Hull Craft

The use of catamaran hulls, or “double-hulls,” has been periodically popular with ship designers since the time of Charles II of England. The earliest of such vessels known in the present day were four sloops or shallops designed 1673-1687 by Sir William Petty, who was an inventor in the field of naval architecture and received some attention from Charles II and from the Royal Society.

The first Petty experiment, the Simon & Jude, later called Invention I, was launched October 28, 1662. She was designed with two hulls cylindrical in cross section, each 2 feet in diameter, and 20 feet long. A platform connected the hulls, giving the boat a beam of a little over 9 feet. She had a 20-foot mast stepped on one of the crossbeams connecting the hulls, with a single gaff sail. In sailing trials she beat three fast boats: the King’s barge, a large pleasure boat, and a man-of-war’s boat. This “double-bottom,” also called a “sluiceboat” or “cylinder,” was later lengthened at the stern to make her 30 feet overall.

The King did not support Petty, to the latter’s great disappointment, and Petty next built a larger double-bottom, Invention II. This catamaran was lapstrake construction. Not much is known of this boat except that she beat the regular Irish packet boat, running between Holyhead and Dublin, in a race each way, winning a £20 wager. She was launched in July 1663; what became of her was not recorded.

A third and still larger boat, the Experiment, launched December 22, 1664, appears to have been a large sloop. This vessel sailed by way of the Thames in April 1665 and went to Oporto, Portugal. She left Portugal October 20, 1665, for home, but apparently went down with all hands in a severe storm.

Figure 8.—Danish copy of original sail plan of Robert Fulton’s Steam Battery, dated September 12, 1817, in Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen.

Figure 9.—Lines of Fulton’s Steam Battery, as reconstructed for a model in the Museum of History and Technology.

Figure 10.—A reconstruction of inboard works of the Steam Battery, for construction of the model in the Museum of History and Technology.

For 18 years Petty did no more with the type, but finally, in July 1684, he laid down a still larger sloop with two decks and a mast standing 55 feet above her upper deck. She was named St. Michael the Archangel and is probably the design in Pepys’ Book of Miscellaneous Illustrations in Magdalene College, Cambridge, England. This vessel proved unmanageable and was a complete failure.

Figure 11.—Model lines redrawn to outside of plank to show hydrodynamic form of the Steam Battery.

Though the double canoes of the Pacific Islands were probably known to some in Europe in 1662, there is no evidence that Petty based his designs on such craft. He appears to have produced his designs spontaneously from independent observations and resulting theories. Before Petty concluded his experiments, a number of double-hull craft had been produced by others; however, some “double” craft, such as “double shallops” may have been “double-enders,” as shown by a “double-moses boat” of the 18th century and later.

The use of two canoes, joined by a platform or by poles was common in colonial times; in Maryland and Virginia, dugouts so joined were used to transport tobacco down the tidal creeks to vessels’ loading. Such craft were also used as ferries. M. V. Brewington’s Chesapeake Bay Log Canoes and Paul Wilstack’s Potomac Landings illustrate canoes used in this manner. A catamaran galley, two round-bottom hulls, flat on the inboard side (a hull split along the centerline and the inboard faces planked up), 113 feet long and each hull a 7-foot moulded beam, 6-foot 6 inches moulded depth, and placed 13 feet apart, was proposed by Sir Sidney Smith, R.N., in the 1790’s, and built by the British Admiralty. Named Taurus, she is shown by the Admiralty draught to have been a double-ender, with cabins amidships on the platform, an iron rudder at each end (between the hulls) steered with tillers (to unship), and with a ramp at one end. The plans are undated, signed by Captain Sir Sidney Smith, and a field-carriage gun is shown at the ramp end of the boat. This, and the heavy rocker in the keels, suggests the Taurus was intended for a landing boat. No sailing rig is indicated, but tholes for 12 oars or sweeps on each side are shown. The oarsmen apparently sat on deck, or on low seats, with stretchers in hatches between each pair of tholes (Admiralty Collection of Draughts, The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England).

Figure 12.—General plan of the Taurus, a catamaran galley gunboat proposed by Sir Sidney Smith, R.N., to the British Admiralty in the early years of the French Revolution. From the Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Another experimenter with the double-hull type of vessel was a wealthy Scot named Patrick Miller who was particularly interested in manual propulsion of vessels, employing geared capstans to operate paddle wheels. In a letter dated June 9, 1790, Miller offered Gustav III of Sweden a design for a double-hulled 144-gun ship-of-the-line (rating as a 130-gun ship) propelled by manually operated capstans connected to a paddle wheel between the hulls. She was rigged to sail, with five masts and was to be 246 feet long, 63 feet beam, and 17 feet draft; the hulls were 16 feet apart.

This project was submitted by the King to Fredrik Henrik af Chapman, the great Swedish naval architect, who made an adverse report. Chapman pointed out in great detail that the weight of the armament, the necessary hull structure, the stores, crew, ammunition, spars, sails, rigging and gear, would greatly exceed Miller’s designed displacement. He also pointed out the prime fault of catamarans under sail—slow turning in stays. He suggested that the speed under sail would be disappointing. He doubted that a double-hull ship of such size could be built strong enough to stand a heavy sea. He remarked that English records showed that a small vessel of the catamaran type had been built between 1680 and 1700 which had sailed well (this may have been one of Petty’s boats), and that “36 years ago” he had seen 8 miles from London, a similar boat that had been newly built by Lord Baltimore and was about 50 feet long; this was a failure and was discarded after one trial. Therefore, said Chapman, the Miller project was not new but rather an old idea. Chapman’s final remark is perhaps the best illustration of his opinion of the catamaran, “Despite all this, two-hull vessels are completely sound when the theory can be properly applied; that is in vessels of very light weight, and of small size, with crews of one or two men.”

A “model” of such a double-hull ship—the Experiment, built at Leith, Scotland, in 1786 by J. Laurie—was sent to Sweden by Miller. She was 105 feet long, 31 feet beam, and cost £3000. This vessel arrived in the summer of 1790 and King Gustav in a letter dated July 26 ordered Col. Michael Anckerswärd to welcome the vessel at Stockholm. The King presented Miller with a gold snuffbox and a painting was made of the vessel. The Experiment had five paddle wheels in tandem between her hulls, operated by geared capstans on deck. These gave her a speed of 5 knots but caused the crew to suffer from exhaustion in a short time. The vessel was badly strained in a storm and was finally abandoned at St. Petersburg, Russia.

Miller later turned to the idea of employing steam instead of manual power and built a 25-foot double-hulled pleasure boat of iron fitted with a steam engine built by William Symington. Also named Experiment, she was an apparent success, so Miller had a 60-foot boat built of the double-hull design and fitted with an engine built by Symington. She reached a speed of 7 mph on the Forth and Clyde Canal. However, Miller lost interest when he found that the Symington engine was unreliable and that Great Britain showed very little public support for such projects.

Fulton was acquainted with Symington’s work and probably had heard of Miller’s vessels. At any rate, he employed the double-hull principle in his steam ferryboats, the first of which was the Jersey, a 188-ton vessel built by Charles Browne, which began service July 2, 1812. The next year he had a sister ship built, the York. These vessels were based on his patent drawing of 1809. In 1814 he had another vessel of this type built, the Nassau. It was, therefore, logical that he should apply this design to the Steam Battery. The double-hull design had worked well in these ferries, and the design would give protection from shot to the paddle wheel. The Battery would have the ability to run forward or astern so as not to be exposed to a raking fire from the enemy while maneuvering in action. The application of this “ferryboat” principle to the Battery reduced the need for extreme maneuverability, the catamaran’s weakest point, even at low speed.

The resistance factors in the design are of relatively small importance, for the speed possible under steam in this period was very low. However, the plans show an apparently efficient hull form for the power available, aside from the drag of the beams across the race in the vicinity of the keel. The displacement was adequate. The height of the gun-deck above the water at the race made the Battery unsuitable for rough-water operation, but there is no evidence that Fulton or the sponsors of the vessel considered the Battery as a coastwise or seagoing steamer. However, the clearance of the gun deck above the water and the dip of the paddle wheel would have made the additional weight of an upper- or spar-deck battery prohibitive even had experience in action proven it desirable.

Sail and Inboard Plans

Figure 13.—Lines of Taurus. From the Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

The sail and rigging plan is likewise a Danish copy and shows the two-masted lateen rig employed. The hull is shown with bulwarks and gunports on the spar deck but no other evidence that the Battery was finished in this manner has been found. The rig resembles that of some of Josiah Fox’s designs for Jeffersonian gunboats—double-enders designed to sail in either direction but without the jibs. The topmasts do not appear to be more than signal poles and apparently were not fitted with sails; however, some European lateeners did have triangular topsails over a lateen and it is possible the Battery may have carried such sails. Considering the stability and displacement of the Battery, the rig is very small and not sufficiently effective. Shrouds were not required; the masts were supported by runners that were shifted when the yards were reversed, and in tacking. Apparently the jibstays also could be slacked off so that the lateen yards would not have to be dipped under them.

Figure 14.—Rudder detail of Taurus. From the Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

The inboard profile is on tracing paper and the notes are in French. This drawing is of a simplified hull form having flat-bottom hulls with chines. It is possible that this is a tracing of a preliminary drawing obtained by Marestier or Montgéry, but no documentation can be found. Its importance is that it shows in some detail the engine and boilers, as well as the wheelbox, and another drawing of the paddle wheel, more or less duplicating the wheel shown in the Danish plan. No details of the deck arrangements are shown in any of the plans, except for the dome skylight over the fireroom in the boiler hull.

Both the lines plan and the inboard drawing show construction midsections and hull connections. These plans show that the engine was not inclined, but rather was vertical, contrary to Fulton’s patent drawing. The piston rod and the crosshead obviously passed through its gun deck in a large hatch. Also it is plain that there must have been large hatches afore and abaft the wheelbox to make the stepped wheelbox construction desirable. There also must have been a hatch in the gun deck under the domed skylight. It is improbable that the engine and skylight hatches were used for ladderways, passing scuttles, or companionways.

The boilers are shown in the inboard profile about as described and drawn by Marestier but with two stacks on each boiler, one to each flue; Marestier’s sketch in his report on American steamships shows the flues of each boiler trunked into a single stack. The battery had two boilers and the stacks are at the boilers’ fire-door end. The steam lines came off the crown of the boilers and probably passed through the ends of the wheelbox to the engine; a trunk for the steam lines would undoubtedly have been necessary.

Figure 15.—Sketch of 130-gun ship proposed by Patrick Miller to King Gustav III of Sweden in 1790. In Statens Sjöhistoriska Museum, Stockholm.

Figure 16.—Patrick Miller’s manually propelled (paddle-wheel) catamaran ship Experiment, built at Leith, Scotland, 1786. Scale drawing in Statens Sjöhistoriska Museum, Stockholm

The engine is shown to have had counterbalanced side levers, one on each side, and a single flywheel on the outboard side. The cylinder is over the condenser or “cistern,” connected by the steam line and valve box on the side. The cylinder crosshead is shown in the inboard profile to have reached the underside of the beams of the upper deck. The crosshead was connected by two connecting rods to the side levers. These levers operated the paddle wheel by connecting rods to cranks on the paddle-wheel shaft. There is another pair of connecting rods from the side levers to the crosshead of the air pump. All connecting rods are on one arm of the side levers, the other end having only a counterbalance weight beyond the fulcrum bearing. The flywheel has a shaft fitted with two gears, and is driven through idler gears from gears on the paddle-wheel shaft; it turns at about twice the speed of the paddle wheel. No other pumps or fittings are shown in the engine hull, although manual pumps were probably fitted to fill and empty the boilers. Piping is not shown.

Figure 17.—Painting of the Experiment in the Statens Sjöhistoriska Museum, Stockholm.

The four rudders, toggled in pairs, are shown in both the lines and inboard drawings, but the shape is different in the two plans. Operation must have been by a tiller under the gun-deck beams. The outer end of the tiller may have been pivoted on the toggle bar and the inboard end fitted, as previously described, with steering cable or chain tackles. This seems to be the only practical interpretation of the evidence.

Reconstructing the Plans

In the model it was necessary to reconstruct the deck arrangements without enough contemporary description. The outboard appearance and hull form, rig, and arrangement of armament require no reconstruction, for all that is of importance is shown in the lines and rig drawings, or in the inboard profile. The masts are shown to have been stepped over the race on the gun deck. The iron stanchions are shown in the lines drawing and in the construction section. However, their position at the ends of the Battery are apparently incorrectly shown in the original lines plan. The construction section shows these stanchions to have been stepped on the inside face of the inner ceiling and, as the ceiling structure was carried completely around the ship, the stanchions in the ends must have been placed inboard, as along the sides. The bowsprit was above deck and would probably be secured in the knighthead timbers at the ends of the hull, as well as by the heel bitts shown in the Danish lines drawing. With the riding bitts shown inboard of the heel bitts at each end of the vessel, it is obvious that she would work her ground tackle at both ends and would therefore require two capstans; the wheelbox would prevent effective use of a single one. The capstans might be doubleheaded, as in some large frigates and ships-of-the-line.

Figure 18.—Sail plan of Fulton’s Steam Battery as reconstructed for model in the Museum of History and Technology.

As to the remaining deck fixtures, hatches and fittings, these must be entirely a matter of speculation. Ladderways, passing scuttles, hatches, trunks, galley, heads and cabins were obviously required in a fighting ship and can only be located on the theory that, when completed, the Battery was a practical vessel.

It has been stated that the officers’ cabins were over the race; the logical place for the heads, galley, wardroom and mess also would be over the race, giving the remaining part of the gun deck for the necessary hatches, ladderways, trunks, etc., in the two hulls, space required for armament, and to sling the hammocks of a watch below. As the vessel was never fully manned, apparently, the space for hammocks is not a serious problem in a reconstruction. If the vessel had been manned as proposed by 500 men, hammocks for over 200 would have been required, which would give very crowded quarters in view of the limited space available.

Though no specific requirements were stated in the reports of the trials, it seems reasonable to suppose that additional hatches were cut in the decks to improve the fireroom ventilation. In the reconstruction drawings, these hatchways as well as the other deck openings and deck fittings—such as bilge pumps, companionways, skylights, binnacles, wheels and wheel-rope trunks, cable trunks, steampipe casings, and stack fiddleys—have been located in an effort to meet the imagined requirements of the working of a ship of this unusual form.

Figure 19.—Model of Steam Battery in the Museum of History and Technology. (Smithsonian photo 63990-E.)

Figure 20.—Lines of steamer Congo, built in 1815-1816 for the British Admiralty and converted to a sailing survey vessel. From Admiralty Collection of Draughts, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

There are some unanswered questions that arose in the preparation of the reconstruction drawings. As has been shown, the original inboard arrangement plan found in Copenhagen shows four smokestacks, while Marestier’s sketch of the vessel’s boilers shows trunked flues indicating that two stacks were used. It is possible that the boilers were first fitted so that four stacks were required; alterations made as a result of steaming trials may well have included the introduction of trunked flues and the final use of two stacks in line fore-and-aft. This would have required a rearrangement of the fiddley hatches amidships.

Another troublesome question was the doubtful arrangement of the four companionways on the spar deck. Perhaps only two were fitted, one on each side of the officers’ staterooms while the ladderways at the crew’s end of the ship were simple ladder hatches.

The decision to use four bilge pumps is based upon the lack of drag in the keel of the hulls, which would prevent accumulation of bilge water at one end of the hull. The use of four single-barrel pumps instead of four double-barrel pumps may be questioned, for chain pumps requiring two barrels would have been practical.

Allowance for stores was made by use of platforms in the hold. It is known from statements made to the Court of Inquiry, that the magazines were amidships and that a part of these was close to the boilers. Fuel and water would be in the lower hold under the platforms; hatches and ladderways are arranged to permit fueling the ship.

A few prints or drawings of the ship, aside from the patent drawing, have been found. There are two prints that show the launch of the vessel. One, a print of 1815, is in possession of the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Va., and is reproduced in Alexander Crosby Brown’s Twin Ships, Notes on the Chronological History of the Use of Multiple Hulled Vessels. A poor copy of this print appears on page 13 of Bennett’s Steam Navy of the United States, and another and inaccurate sketch is shown on page 8. These pictures were of no use in the reconstruction as they show no details that are not in the Copenhagen plans. The patent drawing does not show deck details and in fact does not represent the vessel as built in any respect other than in being a catamaran with paddle wheel amidships between the hulls.

The Steam Battery did not have any particular influence on the design of men-of-war that followed her. In the first place, steampower was not viewed with favor by naval officers generally. This was without doubt due to prejudice, but engines in 1820-30 were still unreliable when required to run for long periods, as experienced by the early ocean-going steamers. The great weight of the early steam engines and their size in relation to power were important, and also important were practical objections that prevented the design of efficient naval ocean steamers until about 1840; even then, the paddle wheels made them very vulnerable in action. Until the introduction of the screw propellor it was not possible to design a really effective ocean-going naval steamer; hence until about 1840-45, sail remained predominant in naval vessels for ocean service, and steamers were accepted only in coast defense and towing services, or as dispatch vessels.

No immediate use of the double hull in naval vessels of the maritime powers resulted from the construction of the Steam Battery. The flat-bottom chine-built design employed by Fulton in North River, Raritan, and other early steamboats was utilized in the design for a projected steamer by the British Admiralty in 1815-16. This vessel was about 76 feet overall, 16-foot beam, and 8-foot 10 inches depth in hold. Her design was for a flat-bottom, chine-built hull with no fore-and-aft camber in the bottom, a sharp entrance, and a square-tuck stern with slight overhang above the cross-seam. Her side frames were straight and vertical amidships, but curved as the bow and stern were approached. She was to be a side-paddle-wheel steamer, and her hull was diagonally braced; the wheel and engine were to be about amidships where she was dead flat for about 14 feet. However, the engine and boilers were not installed; the engine was utilized ashore for pumping, and the vessel was completed in the Deptford Yard as a sailing ship. Under the name Congo she was employed in the African coast survey. Her plan is in the Admiralty Collection of Draughts, at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.

The double hull continued to be employed in both steam and team ferryboats in the United States and in England and France. A few river and lake steamers were also built with this design of hull. Continued efforts to obtain fast sailing by use of the double hull produced a number of sailing catamarans; of these the Herreshoff catamarans of the 1870’s showed high speed when reaching in a fresh breeze.

Designs for double-hulled steamers appeared during the last half of the 19th century; in 1874 the Castalia, a large, double-hull, iron, cross-channel steamer, was built by the Thames Iron-works Company at Blackwall, England. She was 290 feet long, and each hull had a beam of 17 feet. The paddle wheel was placed between the hulls and, ready for sea, she drew 6/2 feet. She ran the 22 miles between Dover and Calais in 1 hour and 50 minutes, a speed much slower than that of the paddle-wheel, cross-channel steamers having one hull. Another double-hull steamer was built for this service by Hawthorn, Leslie and Company, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Scotland, in 1877. First named Express, she was renamed Calais-Douvres when she went into service in May 1878. Her length was 302 feet, her extreme beam 62 feet, and each hull had a beam of 18 feet, 3 inches. She drew 6-foot 7/2 inches ready for sea and the paddle wheel was between the hulls. On her trials she made 14 knots and burned coal excessively. Sold to France in 1880, she was taken out of service in 1889. Though popular, she was not faster than the single-hull steamers in this service and had been a comparatively expensive vessel to build and operate.

The many attempts to produce a very fast double-hull steamer and large sailing vessels have led to disappointment for their designers and sponsors. In the history of naval architecture, since Petty’s time, there have been a number of periods when the new-old idea of the double hull has become popular. Craft of this type have been commonly well publicized but, on the whole, their basic designs have followed the same principles over and over again and have not produced the sought-for increase in speed and handiness.

In very recent years there has been a revival in interest in sailing double-hull boats that is enthusiastic as to very small craft and somewhat restrained as to large boats. A few projects are under development for double-hull craft, power and sail, of over 90-foot length, including an oceanographic research vessel. In general, however, the performance of double-hull boats has shown that Chapman’s estimate of the type was reasonably correct and that there are limitations, particularly in maneuverability in the double-hull craft that could have been found by reference to the history of past experiments with the type.

NAVAL STEAMERS.

THE DEMOLOGOS; OR, FULTON THE FIRST.

At the close of the year eighteen hundred and thirteen, Robert Fulton exhibited to the President of the United States, the original drawing from which the engraving on Plate One is sketched, being a representation of the proposed war-steamer or floating-battery, named by him, the Demologos. This sketch possesses more than ordinary interest, from the circumstance that it is, doubtless, the only record of the first war-steamer in the world, designed and drawn by the immortal Fulton, and represented by him to the Executive, as capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red hot shot, and being propelled by the power of steam, at the rate of four miles an hour.

It was contemplated that this vessel, besides carrying her proposed armament on deck, should also be furnished with submarine guns, two suspended from each bow, so as to discharge a hundred pound ball into an enemy’s ship at ten or twelve feet below her water-line. In addition to this, her machinery was calculated for the addition of an engine which would discharge an immense column of water upon the decks, and through the port-holes of an enemy, making her the most formidable engine for warfare that human ingenuity has contrived.

The estimated cost of the vessel was three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, nearly the sum requisite for a frigate of the first class.

The project was zealously embraced by the Executive, and the national legislature in March, eighteen hundred and fourteen, passed a law, authorizing the President of the United States to cause to be built, equipped, and employed, one or more floating batteries, for the defense of the waters of the United States.

The building of the vessel was committed by the Coast and Harbor Defense Association, to a sub-committee of five gentlemen, who were recognized by the Government as their agents for that purpose, and whose interesting history of the Steam Frigate is copied in Note A, of the Appendix to this volume.

Robert Fulton, whose soul animated the enterprise, was appointed the engineer; and on the twentieth day of June, eighteen hundred and fourteen, the keel of this novel steamer was laid at the ship-yard of Adam and Noah Brown, her able and active constructors, in the city of New York, and on the twenty-ninth of the following October, or in little more than four months, she was safely launched, in the presence of multitudes of spectators who thronged the surrounding shores, and were seen upon the hills which limited the beautiful prospect around the bay of New York.

The river and bay were filled with steamers and vessels of war, in compliment to the occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous floating mass, whose bulk and unwieldy form seemed to render her as unfit for motion, as the land batteries which were saluting her.

In a communication from Captain David Porter, U. S. Navy, to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy, dated New York, October 29, 1814, he states,—“I have the pleasure to inform you that the “Fulton the First,” was this morning safely launched. No one has yet ventured to suggest any improvement that could be made in the vessel, and to use the words of the projector, ‘I would not alter her if it were in my power to do so.’

“She promises fair to meet our most sanguine expectations, and I do not despair in being able to navigate in her from one extreme of our coast to the other. Her buoyancy astonishes every one, she now draws only eight feet three inches water, and her draft will only be ten feet with all her guns, machinery, stores, and crew, on board. The ease with which she can now be towed with a single steamboat, renders it certain that her velocity will be sufficiently great to answer every purpose, and the manner it is intended to secure her machinery from the gunner’s shot, leaves no apprehension for its safety. I shall use every exertion to prepare her for immediate service; her guns will soon be mounted, and I am assured by Mr. Fulton, that her machinery will be in operation in about six weeks.”

On the twenty-first of November, the Steam Frigate was moved from the wharf of Messrs. Browns, in the East River, to the works of Robert Fulton, on the North River, to receive her machinery, which operation was performed by fastening the steamboat “Car of Neptune,” to her larboard, and the steamboat “Fulton,” to her starboard side; they towed her through the water from three and a-half to four miles per hour.

The dimensions of the “Fulton the First” were:—

Length, one hundred and fifty-six feet.

Breadth, fifty-six feet.

Depth, twenty feet.

Water-wheel, sixteen feet diameter.

Length of bucket, fourteen feet.

Dip, four feet.

Engine, forty-eight inch cylinder, and five feet stroke.

Boiler, length, twenty-two feet; breath, twelve feet; and depth, eight feet.

Tonnage, two thousand four hundred and seventy-five.

By June, eighteen hundred and fifteen, her engine was put on board, and she was so far completed as to afford an opportunity of trying her machinery. On the first of June, at ten o’clock in the morning, the “Fulton the First,” propelled by her own steam and machinery, left the wharf near the Brooklyn ferry, and proceeded majestically into the river; though a stiff breeze from the south blew directly ahead, she stemmed the current with perfect ease, as the tide was a strong ebb. She sailed by the forts and saluted them with her thirty-two pound guns. Her speed was equal to the most sanguine expectations; she exhibited a novel and sublime spectacle to an admiring people. The intention of the Commissioners being solely to try her enginery, no use was made of her sails. After navigating the bay, and receiving a visit from the officers of the French ship of war lying at her anchors, the Steam Frigate came to at Powles’ Hook ferry, about two o’clock in the afternoon, without having experienced a single unpleasant occurrence.

On the fourth of July, of the same year, she made a passage to the ocean and back, and went the distance, which, in going and returning, is fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes, without the aid of sails; the wind and tide were partly in her favor and partly against her, the balance rather in her favor.

In September, she made another trial trip to the ocean, and having at this time the weight of her whole armament on board, she went at an average of five and a half miles an hour, with and against the tide. When stemming the tide, which ran at the rate of three miles an hour, she advanced at the rate of two and a-half miles an hour. This performance was not more than equal to Robert Fulton’s expectations, but it exceeded what he had premised to the Government, which was that she should be propelled by steam at the rate of from three to four miles an hour.

The English were not uninformed as to the preparations which were making for them, nor inattentive to their progress. It is certain that the Steam Frigate lost none of her terrors in the reports or imaginations of the enemy. In a treatise on steam vessels, published in Scotland at that time, the author states that he has taken great care to procure full and accurate information of the Steam Frigate launched in New York, and which he describes in the following words:—

“Length on deck, three hundred feet; breadth, two hundred feet; thickness of her sides, thirteen feet of alternate oak plank and cork wood—carries forty-four guns, four of which are hundred pounders; quarter-deck and forecastle guns, forty-four pounders; and further to annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute, and by mechanism, brandishes three hundred cutlasses with the utmost regularity over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron pikes of great length, darting them from her sides with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute”!!

The war having terminated before the “Fulton the First” was entirely completed, she was taken to the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, and moored on the flats abreast of that station, where she remained, and was used as a receiving-ship until the fourth of June, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, when she was blown up. The following letters from Commodore Isaac Chauncey (then Commandant of the New York Navy Yard) to the Honorable Secretary of the Navy, informing him of the distressing event, concludes this brief history of the first steam vessel of war ever built.

U. S. Navy Yard, New York,
June 5th, 1829.

Sir:

It becomes my painful duty to report to you a most unfortunate occurrence which took place yesterday, at about half past two o’clock, P. M., in the accidental blowing up of the Receiving Ship Fulton, which killed twenty-four men and a woman, and wounded nineteen; there are also five missing. Amongst the killed I am sorry to number Lieutenant S. M. Brackenridge, a very fine, promising officer, and amongst the wounded are, Lieutenants Charles F. Platt, and A. M. Mull, and Sailing-Master Clough, the former dangerously, and the two last severely; there are also four Midshipmen severely wounded. How this unfortunate accident occurred I am not yet able to inform you, nor have I time to state more particularly; I will, as soon as possible, give a detailed account of the affair.

I have the honor to be, Sir,
Very respectfully,
J. CHAUNCEY.

Hon. John Branch,
Secretary of the Navy, Washington.

U.S. Navy Yard, New York,
June 8th, 1829.

Sir:

I had been on board the “Fulton” all the morning, inspecting the ship and men, particularly the sick and invalids, which had increased considerably from other ships, and whom I had intended to ask the Department permission to discharge, as being of little use to the service. I had left the ship but a few moments before the explosion took place, and was in my office at the time. The report did not appear to me louder than a thirty-two pounder, although the destruction of the ship was complete and entire, owing to her very decayed state, for there was not on board, at the time, more than two and a-half barrels of damaged powder, which was kept in the magazine for the purpose of firing the morning and evening gun. It appears to me that the explosion could not have taken place from accident, as the magazine was as well, or better secured, than the magazines of most of our ships, yet it would be difficult to assign a motive to those in the magazine for so horrible an act, as voluntarily to destroy themselves and those on board. If the explosion was not the effect of design, I am at a loss to account for the catastrophe.

I have the honor to be, Sir,
Very respectfully,
J. CHAUNCEY.

Hon. John Branch,
Secretary of the Navy, Washington.

APPENDIX.

Note A.

STEAM FRIGATE.

Report of Henry Rutgers, Samuel L. Mitchel, and Thomas Morris, the Commissioners superintending the construction of a steam vessel of war, to the Secretary of the Navy.

New York, December 28th, 1815.

Sir:

The war which was terminated by the treaty of Ghent, afforded, during its short continuance, a glorious display of the valor of the United States by land and by sea—it made them much better known to foreign nations, and, what is of much greater importance, it contributed to make them better acquainted with themselves—it excited new enterprises—it educed latent talents—it stimulated to exertions unknown to our people before.

A long extent of coast was exposed to an enemy, powerful above every other on the ocean. His commanders threatened to lay waste our country with fire and sword, and, actually, in various instances, carried their menaces into execution. It became necessary, for our defense, to resist, by every practicable method, such a formidable foe.

It was conceived, by a most ingenious and enterprising citizen, that the power of Steam could be employed to propel a floating battery, carrying heavy guns, to the destruction of any hostile force that should hover on the shores, or enter the ports of our Atlantic frontier. The perfect and admirable success of his project for moving boats containing travelers and baggage by the same elastic agent, opened the way to its employment for carrying warriors and the apparatus for fighting.

The plan was submitted to the consideration of the executive of an enlightened government. Congress, influenced by the most liberal and patriotic spirit, appropriated money for the experiment, and the Navy Department, then conducted by the honorable William Jones, appointed commissioners to superintend the construction of a convenient vessel under the direction of Robert Fulton, the inventor, as engineer, and Messrs. Adam and Noah Brown, as naval constructors. The enterprise, from its commencement, and during a considerable part of its preparatory operations, was aided by the zealous co-operation of Major General Dearborn, then holding his head-quarters at the city of New York, as the officer commanding the third military district. The loss of his valuable counsel in conducting a work which he had maturely considered, and which he strongly recommended, was the consequence of his removal to another section of the Union, where his professional talents were specially required.

The keels of this steam-frigate were laid on the twentieth day of June, eighteen hundred and fourteen. The strictest blockade the enemy could enforce interrupted the coasting trade, and greatly enhanced the price of timber. The vigilance with which he guarded our coast against intercourse with foreign nations, rendered difficult the importation of copper and iron. The same impediment attended the supplies of coal heretofore brought to New York from Richmond and Liverpool. Lead, in like manner, was procured under additional disadvantages. These attempts of the enemy to frustrate the design, were vain and impotent. All the obstacles were surmounted. Scarcity of the necessary woods and metals were overcome by strenuous exertions; and all the blockading squadron could achieve, was not a disappointment in the undertaking, but merely an increase of the expense.

So, in respect to tradesmen and laborers, there was an extraordinary difficulty. Shipwrights had repaired to the lakes, for repelling the enemy, in such numbers, that, comparatively speaking, few were left on the seaboard. A large portion of the men who had been engaged in daily work, had enlisted as soldiers, and had marched under the banners of the nation to the defense of its rights—yet amidst the scarcity of hands, a sufficient number were procured for the purpose which the Commissioners had in charge. An increase of wages was the chief impediment, and this they were enabled practically to overcome.

By the exemplary combination of diligence and skill, on the part of the Engineer and Constructors, the business was so accelerated, that the vessel was launched on the twenty-ninth day of October, amidst the plaudits of an unusual number of citizens.

Measures were immediately taken to complete her equipment; the boiler, the engine, and the machinery were put on board with all possible expedition. Their weight and size far surpassed any thing that had been witnessed before among us.

The stores of artillery in New York not furnishing the number and kind of cannon which she was destined to carry, it became necessary to transport guns from Philadelphia. A prize, taken from the enemy, put some fit and excellent pieces at the disposal of the Navy Department. To avoid the danger of capture by the enemy’s cruisers, these were carted over the miry roads of New Jersey. Twenty heavy cannon were thus conveyed by the strength of horses. Carriages of the most approved model were constructed, and every thing done to bring her into prompt action, as an efficient instrument of war.

About this time, an officer, pre-eminent for bravery and discipline, was commissioned by the government to her command. Prior to this event, it had been intended by the Commissioners to finish her conformably to the plan originally submitted to the Executive. She is a structure resting upon two boats and keels, separated from end to end by a canal fifteen feet wide, and sixty-six long. One boat contained the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam. The vast cylinder of iron, with its piston, levers, and wheels, occupied a part of its fellow; the great water-wheel revolved in the space between them; the main or gun-deck supported her armament, and was protected by a bulwark four feet ten inches thick, of solid timber. This was pierced by thirty port-holes, to enable as many thirty-two pounders to fire red hot balls; her upper or spar deck was plain, and she was to be propelled by her enginery alone.

It was the opinion of Captain Porter and Mr. Fulton, that the upper deck ought to be surrounded with a bulwark and stanchions—that two stout masts should be erected to support latteen sails—that there should be bowsprits for jibs, and that she should be rigged in a corresponding style. Under authorities so great, and with the expectation of being able to raise the blockade of New London, by destroying, taking, or routing the enemy’s ships, all these additions were adopted and incorporated with the vessel.

It must here be observed, that during the exhaustion of the treasury, and the temporary depression of public credit, the Commissioners were exceedingly embarrassed—their payments were made in treasury notes, which they were positively instructed to negotiate at par. On several occasions even these were so long withheld, that the persons who had advanced materials and labor were importunate for payment, and silently discontented. To a certain extent, the Commissioners pledged their private credit. Notwithstanding all this, the men, at one time, actually broke off. The work was retarded, and her completion unavoidably deferred, to the great disappointment of the Commissioners, until winter rendered it impossible for her to act.

Under all this pressure, they, nevertheless, persevered in the important object confided to them. But their exertions were further retarded by the premature and unexpected death of the Engineer. The world was deprived of his invaluable labors before he had completed this favorite undertaking. They will not inquire, wherefore, in the dispensations of Divine Providence, he was not permitted to realize his grand conception. His discoveries, however, survive for the benefit of mankind, and will extend to unborn generations.

At length all matters were ready for a trial of the machinery to urge such a bulky vessel through the water. This essay was made on the first day of June, eighteen hundred and fifteen. She proved herself capable of opposing the wind, and of stemming the tide, of crossing currents, and of being steered among vessels riding at anchor, though the weather was boisterous and the water rough. Her performance demonstrated that the project was successful—no doubt remained that a floating battery, composed of heavy artillery, could be moved by steam. The Commissioners returned from the exercise of the day, satisfied that the vessel would answer the intended purpose, and consoled themselves that their care had been bestowed upon a worthy object.

But it was discovered, that various alterations were necessary. Guided by the light of experience, they caused some errors to be corrected, and some defects to be supplied. She was prepared for a second voyage with all practicable speed.

On the fourth of July she was again put in action. She performed a trip to the ocean, eastward of Sandy Hook, and back again, a distance of fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes. A part of this time she had the tide against her, and had no assistance whatever from sails. Of the gentlemen who formed the company invited to witness the experiment, not one entertained a doubt of her fitness for the intended purpose.

Additional expedients were, notwithstanding, necessary to be sought for quickening and directing her motion. These were devised and executed with all possible care.

Suitable arrangements having been made, a third trial of her powers was attempted on the eleventh day of September, with the weight of twenty-six of her long and ponderous guns, and a considerable quantity of ammunition and stores on board; her draft of water was short of eleven feet. She changed her course by inverting the motion of the wheel, without the necessity of putting about. She fired salutes as she passed the forts, and she overcame the resistance of the wind and tide in her progress down the bay. She performed beautiful manœuvres around the United States’ Frigate Java, then at anchor near the light-house. She moved with remarkable celerity, and she was perfectly obedient to her double helm. It was observed that the explosion of powder produced very little concussion. The machinery was not affected by it in the smallest degree. Her progress, during the firing, was steady and uninterrupted. On the most accurate calculations, derived from heaving the log, her average velocity was five and a-half miles per hour. Notwithstanding the resistance of currents, she was found to make headway at the rate of two miles an hour against the ebb of the East River, running three and a-half knots. The day’s exercise was satisfactory to the respectable company who attended, beyond their utmost expectations. It was universally agreed that we now possessed a new auxiliary against every maratime invader. The City of New York, exposed as it is, was considered as having the means of rendering itself invulnerable. The Delaware, Chesapeake, Long Island Sound, and every other bay and harbor in the nation, may be protected by the same tremendous power.

Among the inconveniences observable during the experiment, was the heat endured by the men who attended the fires. To enable a correct judgment to be formed on this point, one of the Commissioners (Dr. Mitchel) descended and examined, by a thermometer, the temperature of the hold, between the two boilers. The quicksilver, exposed to the radiant heat of the burning fuel, rose to one hundred and sixteen degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale. Though exposed thus to its intensity, he experienced no indisposition afterwards. The analogy of potteries, forges, glass-houses, kitchens, and other places, where laborers are habitually exposed to high heats, is familiar to persons of business and of reflection. In all such occupations, the men, by proper relays, perform their services perfectly well.

The Government, however, will understand that the hold of the present vessel could be rendered cooler by other apertures for the admission of air, and that on building another steam frigate, the comfort of the firemen might be provided for, as in the ordinary steamboats.

The Commissioners congratulate the Government and the nation on the event of this noble project. Honorable alike, to its author and its patrons, it constitutes an era in warfare and the arts. The arrival of peace, indeed, has disappointed the expectations of conducting her to battle. That last and conclusive act of showing her superiority in combat, has not been in the power of the Commissioners to make.

If a continuance of tranquillity should be our lot, and this steam vessel of war be not required for the public defense, the nation may rejoice that the fact we have ascertained is of incalculably greater value than the expenditure—and that if the present structure should perish, we have the information never to perish, how, on a future emergency, others may be built. The requisite variations will be dictated by circumstances.

Owing to the cessation of hostilities, it has been deemed inexpedient to finish and equip her as for immediate and active employ. In a few weeks every thing that is incomplete could receive the proper adjustment.

After so much has been done, and with such encouraging results, it becomes the Commissioners to recommend that the steam frigate be officered and manned for discipline and practice. A discreet commander, with a selected crew, could acquire experience in the mode of navigating this peculiar vessel. The supplies of fuel, the tending of the fire, the replenishing of the expended water, the management of the mechanism, the heating of shot, the exercise of the guns, and various matters, can only become familiar by use. It is highly important that a portion of seamen and marines should be versed in the order and economy of the steam frigate. They will augment, diffuse, and perpetuate knowledge. When, in process of time, another war shall call for more structures of this kind, men, regularly trained to her tactics, may be dispatched to the several stations where they may be wanted. If, on any such disposition, the Government should desire a good and faithful agent, the Commissioners recommend Captain Obed Smith to notice, as a person who has ably performed the duties of inspector from the beginning to the end of the concern.

Annexed to the report, you will find, Sir, several statements explanatory of the subject. A separate report of our colleague, the honorable Oliver Wolcott, whose removal from New York precluded him from attending to the latter part of the business, with his accustomed zeal and fidelity, is herewith presented. A drawing of her form and appearance, by Mr. Morgan, as being like to give satisfaction to the department, is also subjoined, as are likewise an inventory of her furniture and effects, and an account of the timber and metals consolidated in her fabric.

It is hoped these communications will evince the pains taken by the Commissioners, to execute the honorable and responsible trust reposed in them by the Government.

SAMUEL L. MITCHEL.
THOMAS MORRIS.
HENRY RUTGERS.

P. : ‘the Simon & Jude, later’—was ‘the Simon & Jude, latter’.

Transcription of the text in Figure 2.

Plate No. 1.

‘DEMOLOGOS’

Figure Ist Transverse section A her Boiler. B the steam Engine. C the water wheel. E E her wooden walls 5 feet thick, diminishing to below the waterline as at F.F draught of water 9 feet D D her gun deck

Figure IId This shews her gun deck, 140 feet long 24 feet wide, mounting 20 guns. A the Water wheel

Figure IIId Side View

ROBERT FULTON November 1813.

S Mc Elroy del. "Stuart's Naval & Mail Steamers U.S." Sarony & Major. Eng. N.Y.

Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology:
Paper 40

History of Phosphorus

Eduard Farber

THE ELEMENT FROM ANIMALS AND PLANTS 178

EARLY USES 181

CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION OF PHOSPHORIC ACIDS 182

PHOSPHATES AS PLANT NUTRIENTS 185

FROM INORGANIC TO ORGANIC PHOSPHATES 187

PHOSPHATIDES AND PHOSPHAGENS 189

NUCLEIN AND NUCLEIC ACIDS 192

PHOSPHATES IN BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES 197

MEDICINES AND POISONS 198

INDEX

Eduard Farber

HISTORY OF PHOSPHORUS

The “cold light” produced by phosphorus caused it to be considered a miraculous chemical for a long time after its discovery, about 1669. During the intervening three centuries numerous other chemical miracles have been found, yet phosphorus retains a special aura of universal importance in chemistry. Many investigators have occupied themselves with this element and its diverse chemical compounds. Further enlightenment and insight into the ways of nature can be expected from these efforts.

Not only is the story of phosphorus a major drama in the history of chemistry; it also illustrates, in a spectacular example, the growth of this science through the discovery of connections between apparently unrelated phenomena, and the continuous interplay between basic science and the search for practical usage.

The Author: Eduard Farber is a research professor at American University, Washington, D.C., and has been associated with the Smithsonian Institution as a consultant in chemistry.

When phosphorus was discovered, nearly three centuries ago, it was considered a miraculous thing. The only event that provoked a similar emotion was the discovery of radium more than two centuries later. The excitement about the Phosphorus igneus, Boyle’s Icy Noctiluca, was slowly replaced by, or converted into, chemical research. Yet, if we would allow room for emotion in research, we could still be excited about the wondrous substance that chemical and biological work continues to reveal as vitally important. It is a fundamental plant nutrient, an essential part in nerve and brain substance, a decisive factor in muscle action and cell growth, and also a component in fast-acting, powerful poisons. The importance of phosphorus was gradually recognized and the means by which this took place are characteristic and similar to other developments in the history of science. This paper was written in order to summarize these various means which led to the highly complex ways of present research.

The Element from Animals and Plants

It was a little late to search for the philosophers’ stone in 1669, yet it was in such a search that phosphorus was discovered. Wilhelm Homberg (1652-1715) described it in the following manner: Brand, “a man little known, of low birth, with a bizarre and mysterious nature in all he did, found this luminous matter while searching for something else. He was a glassmaker by profession, but he had abandoned it in order to be free for the pursuit of the philosophical stone with which he was engrossed. Having put it into his mind that the secret of the philosophical stone consisted in the preparation of urine, this man worked in all kinds of manners and for a very long time without finding anything. Finally, in the year 1669, after a strong distillation of urine, he found in the recipient a luminant matter that has since been called phosphorus. He showed it to some of his friends, among them Mister Kunkel [sic].”

Neither the name nor the phenomenon were really new. Organic phosphorescent materials were known to Aristotle, and a lithophosphorus was the subject of a book published in 1640, based on a discovery made by a shoemaker, Vicenzo Casciarolo, on a mountain-side near Bologna in 1630. Was the substance new which Brand showed to his friends? Johann Gottfried Leonhardi quotes a book of 1689 in which the author, Kletwich, claims that this phosphorus had already been known to Fernelius, the court physician of King Henri II of France (1154-1189). To the same period belongs the “Ordinatio Alchid Bechil Saraceni philosophi,” in which Ferdinand Hoefer found a distillation of urine with clay and carbonaceous material described, and the resulting product named escarbuncle. It would be worth looking for this source; although Bechil would still remain an entirely unsuccessful predecessor, it does seem strange that in all the distillations of arbitrary mixtures, the conditions should never before 1669 have been right for the formation and the observation of phosphorus.

Figure 1.—The alchemist discovers phosphorus. A painting by Joseph Wright (1734-1779) of Derby, England.

For Brand’s contemporaries at least, the discovery was new and exciting. The philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) considered it important enough to devote some of his time (between his work as librarian in Hanover and Wolfenbüttel, his efforts to reunite the Protestant and the Catholic churches, and his duties as Privy Councellor in what we would call a Department of Justice) to a history of phosphorus. This friend of Huygens and Boyle tried to prove that Kunckel was not justified in claiming the discovery for himself. Since then, it has been shown that Johann Kunckel (1630-1703) actually worked out the method which neither Brand nor his friend Kraft wanted to disclose. Boyle also developed a method independently, published it, and instructed Gottfried Hankwitz in the technique. Later on, Jean Hellot (1685-1765) gave a meticulous description of the details and a long survey of the literature.

Figure 2.—Galley-oven, 1869. The picture is a cross section through the front of the oven showing one of the 36 retorts, the receivers for the distillate, and the space in the upper story used for evaporating the mixture of acid solution of calcium phosphate and coal. (According to Anselme Payen, Précis de Chimie industrielle, Paris, 1849; reproduced from Hugo Fleck, Die Fabrikation chemischer Produkte aus thierischen Abfällen, Vieweg, Braunschweig, 1862, page 80 of volume 2, 2nd group, of P. Bolley’s Handbuch der chemischen Technologie.)

To obtain phosphorus, a good proportion of coal (regarded as a type of phlogiston) was added to urine, previously thickened by evaporation and preferably after putrefaction, and the mixture was heated to the highest attainable temperature. It was obvious that phlogiston entered into the composition of the distillation product. The question remained whether this product was generated de novo. In his research of 1743 to 1746, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf (1709-1782) provided the answer. He found the new substance in edible plant seeds, and he concluded that it enters the human system through the plant food, to be excreted later in the urine. He did not convince all the chemists with his reasoning. In 1789, Macquer wrote: “There are some who, even at this time, hold that the phosphorical (‘phosphorische’) acid generates itself in the animals and who consider this to be the ‘animalistic acid.’”

Although Marggraf was more advanced in his arguments than these chemists, yet he was a child of his time. The luminescent and combustible, almost wax-like substance impressed him greatly. “My thoughts about the unexpected generation of light and fire out of water, fine earth, and phlogiston I reserve to describe at a later time.” These thoughts went so far as to connect the new marvel with alchemical wonder tales. When Marggraf used the “essential salt of urine,” also called sal microcosmicum, and admixed silver chloride (“horny silver”) to it for the distillation of phosphorus, he expected “a partial conversion of silver by phlogiston and the added fine vitrifiable earth, but no trace of a more noble metal appeared.”

Robert Boyle had already found that the burning of phosphorus produced an acid. He identified it by taste and by its influence on colored plant extracts serving as “indicators.” Hankwitz described methods for obtaining this acid, and Marggraf showed its chemical peculiarities. They did not necessarily establish phosphorus as a new element. To do that was not as important, at that time, as to conjecture on analogies with known substances. Underlying all its unique characteristics was the analogy of phosphorus with sulfur. Like sulfur, phosphorus can burn in two different ways, either slowly or more violently, and form two different acids. The analogy can, therefore, be extended to explain the results in both groups in the same way. In the process of burning, the combustible component is removed, and the acid originally combined with the combustible is set free. Whether the analogy should be pursued even further remained doubtful, although some suspicion lingered on for a while that phosphoric acid might actually be a modified sulfuric acid. Analogies and suspicions like these were needed to formulate new questions and stimulate new experiments. They are cited here for their important positive value in the historical development, and not for the purpose of showing how wrong these chemists were from our point of view, a point of view which they helped to create.

The widespread interest in the burning of sulfur and of phosphorus, naturally, caught Lavoisier’s attention. In his first volume of Opuscules Physiques et Chimiques (1774), he devoted 20 pages to his experiments on phosphorus. He amplified them a few years later when he attributed the combustion to a combination of phosphorus with the “eminently respirable” part of air. In the Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique of 1787, the column of “undecomposed substances” lists sulfur as the “radical sulfurique,” and phosphorus, correspondingly, as the “radical phosphorique.” The acids are now shown to be compounds of the “undecomposed” radicals, the complete reversion of the previous concept of this relationship. A part of the old analogy remained as far as the acids are concerned: sulfuric acid corresponds to phosphoric; sulfurous acid to phosphorous acid with less oxygen than in the former.

Early Uses

In the 18th century, phosphorus was a costly material. It was produced mostly for display and to satisfy curiosity. Guillaume François Rouelle (1703-1770) demonstrated the process in his lectures, and, as Macquer reports, he “very often” succeeded in making it. Robert Boyle had the idea of using phosphorus as a light for underwater divers. A century later, “instant lights” were sold, with molten phosphorus as the “igniter,” but they proved cumbersome and unreliable. Because white phosphorus is highly poisonous, an active development of the use in matches occurred only after the conversion of the white modification into the red had been studied by Émile Kopp (1844), by Wilhelm Hittorf (1824-1914) and, in its practical application, by Anton Schrötter (1802-1875).

Figure 3.—Distillation apparatus (1849) for refining crude phosphorus. The crude phosphorus is mixed with sand under hot water, cooled, drained, and filled into the retort. The outlet of the retort, at least 6 cm. in diameter, is partially immersed in the water contained in the bucket. A small dish, made from lead, with an iron handle, receives the distilled phosphorus. (From Hugo Fleck, Die Fabrikation chemischer Produkte … page 90.)

The most exciting early use, however, was in medicine. It is not surprising that such a use was sought at that time. Any new material immediately became the hope of ailing mankind—and of striving inventors. Phosphorus was prescribed, in liniments with fatty oils or as solution in alcohol and ether, for external and internal application. A certain Dr. Kramer found it efficient against epilepsy and melancholia (1730). A Professor Hartmann recommended it against cramps. However, in the growing production of phosphorus for matches, the workers experienced the poisonous effects. In the plant of Black and Bell at Stratford, this was prevented by inhaling turpentine. Experiments on dogs were carried out to show that poisoning by phosphorus could be remedied through oil of turpentine.

Figure 4.—Apparatus for converting white phosphorus into the red allotropic form, 1851. Redistilled phosphorus is heated in the glass or porcelain vessel (g) which is surrounded by a sandbath (e) and a metal bath (b). Vessel (j) is filled with mercury and water; together with valve (k), it serves as a safety device. The alcohol lamp (l) keeps the tube warm against clogging by solidified vapors. Because of hydrogen phosphides, the operation, carried out at 260° C., had to be watched very carefully. (According to Arthur Albright, 1851; reproduced from Hugo Fleck, Die Fabrikation chemischer Produkte …, page 112.)

Chemical Constitution of Phosphoric Acids

In a long article on phosphorus, Edmond Willm wrote in 1876: “For a century, urine was the only source from which phosphorus was obtained. After Gahn, in 1769, recognized the presence of phosphoric acid in bones, Scheele indicated the procedure for making phosphorus from them.” Actually, Gahn used at first hartshorn (Cornu cervi ustum), and Scheele doubted, until he checked it himself, that his esteemed friend was right. A few years later, Scheele corrected Gahn’s assumption that the sal microcosmicum was an ammonia salt; instead, it is “a tertiary neutral salt, consisting of alkali mineralifixo (i.e., sodium), alkali volatili, and acido phosphori.”

In the years after 1770, phosphorus was discovered in bones and many other parts of various animals. Treatment with sulfuric acid decomposed these materials into a solid residue and dissolved phosphoric acid. Many salts of this acid were produced in crystalline form. Heat resistance had been considered one of the outstanding characteristics of phosphoric acid. Now, however, in the processes of drying and heating certain phosphates, it became clear that three kinds of phosphoric acids could be produced: ortho, pyro, and meta.

Berzelius cited these acids as examples of compounds which are ISOMERIC. This word was intended to designate compounds which contain the same number of atoms of the same elements but combined in different manners, thereby explaining their different chemical properties and crystal forms. It was in 1830 that Berzelius propounded this companion of the concept, ISOMORPHISM, which was to collect all cases of equal crystal form in compounds in which equal numbers of atoms of different elements are put together in the same manner. Together, the two concepts of isomerism and isomorphism seemed to cover all the known exceptions from the simplest assumption as to specificity and chemical composition.

However, only a few years later Thomas Graham (1805-1869) proved that the three phosphoric acids are not isomeric. He used the proportion of 2 P to 5 O in the oxide which Berzelius had thought justified at least until “an example of the contrary could be sufficiently established.” Refining the techniques of Gay-Lussac (1816) and several other investigators, Graham characterized the three phosphoric acids as “a terphosphate, a biphosphate, and phosphate of water.” Actually, this was the wrong terminology for what he meant and formulated as trihydrate, bihydrate, and monohydrate of phosphorus oxide. In his manner of writing the formulas, each dot over the symbol for the element was to indicate an atom of oxygen; thus, he wrote:

… :: . . … . .

H P H P and H P.

Figure 5.—Oven for the calcination of bones, about 1870. “The operation is carried out in a rather high oven, such as shown…. The fresh bones are thrown in at the top of the oven, B. First, fuel in chamber F is lighted, and a certain quantity of bones is burnt on the grid D. When these bones are burning well, the oven is gradually filled with bones, and the combustion maintains itself without addition of other fuel. A circular gallery, C, surrounds the bottom of the oven and carries the products of combustion into the chimney, H. The calcined bones are taken out at the lower opening, G, by removing the bars of grid B.” (Translation of the description from Figuier, Merveilles de l’industrie, volume 3, 1874, page 537.)

Figure 6.—An advertisement with view of plant for manufacturing superphosphate about 1867. (From E. T. Freedley, Philadelphia and its Manufacturers in 1867, page 288.)

Figure 7.—Florida hard-rock phosphate mining. (From Carroll D. Wright, The Phosphate Industry of the United States, sixth special report of the Commissioner of Labor, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893, plate facing page 43.)

Graham had come to this understanding of the phosphoric acids through his previous studies of “Alcoates, definite compounds of Salts and Alcohol analogous to the Hydrates” (1831). Liebig started from analogies he saw with certain organic acids when he formulated the phosphoric acids with a constant proportion of water (aq.) and varying proportions of “phosphoric acid” (P) as follows:

2 P 3 aq. phosphoric acid

3 P 3 aq. pyrophosphoric acid

6 P 3 aq. metaphosphoric acid.

Salts are formed when a “basis,” i.e., a metal oxide, replaces water. When potassium-acid sulfate is neutralized by sodium base, the acid-salt divides into Glauber’s salt and potassium sulfate, which proves the acid-salt to be a mixture of the neutral salt with its acid. Sodium-acid phosphate behaves quite differently. After neutralization by a potassium “base” (hydroxide), the salt does not split up; a uniform sodium-potassium phosphate is obtained. Therefore, phosphoric acid is truly three-basic!

This result has later been confirmed, but the analogy by means of which it had been obtained was very weak, in certain parts quite wrong.

The acids from the two lower oxides of phosphorus were also considered as three-basic. Adolphe Wurtz (1817-1884) formulated them in 1846, according to the theory of chemical types:

(PO) · · ·
O phosphoric acid
H

(PHO) · ·
O phosphorus acid
H

(PHO) ·
O hypophosphorous acid.
H

Further proof for these constitutions was sought in the study of the esters formed when the acids react with alcohols.

Among the analogies and generalizations by which the research on phosphoric acid was supported, and to the results of which it contributed a full share, was the new theory of acids. Not oxygen, Lavoisier’s general acidifier, but reactive hydrogen determines the character of acids. In this brief survey, it seems sufficient just to mention this connection without describing it in detail.

The study of phosphoric acids led to important new concepts in theoretical chemistry. The finding of polybasicity was extended to other acids and formed the model that helped to recognize the polyfunctionality in other compounds, like alcohols and amines. The hydrogen theory of acids was fundamental for further advance. In another dimension, it is particularly interesting to see that large-scale applications followed almost immediately and directly from the new theoretical insight. The first and foremost of these applications was in agriculture.

Phosphates as Plant Nutrients

One hundred years after the discovery of “cold light,” the presence of phosphorus in plants and animals was ascertained, and its form was established as a compound of phosphoric acid. This knowledge had little practical effect until the “nature” of the acid, in its various forms, was explained through the work of Thomas Graham. From it, there started a considerable technical development.

At about that time (1833), the Duke of Richmond proved that the fertilizing value of bones resided not in the gelatin, nor in the calcium, but in the phosphoric acid. Thus, he confirmed what Théodore de Saussure had said in 1804, that “we have no reason to believe” that plants can exist without phosphorus. Unknowingly at first, the farmer had supplied this element by means of the organic fertilizers he used: manure, excrements, bones, and horns. Now, with the value of phosphorus known, a search began for mineral phosphates to be applied as fertilizers. Jean Baptiste Boussingault (1802-1887), an agricultural chemist in Lyons, traveled to Peru to see the guano deposits. Garcilaso de la Vega (ca. 1540 to ca. 1616) noted in his history of Peru (1604) that guano was used by the Incas as a fertilizer. Two hundred years later, Alexander von Humboldt revived this knowledge, and Humphry Davy wrote about the benefits of guano to the soil. Yet, the application of this fertilizer developed only slowly, until Justus Liebig sang its praise. Imports into England rose and far exceeded those into France where, between 1857 and 1867, about 50,000 tons were annually received.

The other great advance in the use of phosphatic plant nutrients started with Liebig’s recommendation (1840) to treat bones with sulfuric acid for solubilization. This idea was not entirely new; since 1832, a production of a “superphosphate” from bones and sulfuric acid had been in progress at Prague. At Rothamsted in 1842, John Bennet Lawes obtained a patent on the manufacture of superphosphate. Other manufactures in England followed and were successful, although James Muspratt (1793-1886) at Newton lost much time and “some thousands of pounds” on Liebig’s idea of a “mineral manure.”

Figure 8.—Florida land-pebble phosphate mining. (From Carroll D. Wright, The Phosphate Industry of the United States …, plate facing page 58.)

It was difficult enough to establish the efficacy of bones and artificially produced phosphates in promoting the growth of plants under special conditions of soils and climate; therefore, the question as to the action of phosphates in the growing plant was not even seriously formulated at that time. The beneficial effects were obvious enough to increase the use of phosphates as plant nutrients and to call for new sources of supply. Active developments of phosphate mining and treating started in South Carolina in 1867, and in Florida in 1888.

In a reciprocal action, more phosphate application to soils stimulated increasing research on the conditions and reactions obtaining in the complex and varying compositions called soil. The findings of bacteriologists made it clear that physics and chemistry had to be amplified by biology for a real understanding of fertilizer effects. After 1900, for example, Julius Stoklasa (1857-1936) pointed out that bacterial action in soil solubilizes water-insoluble phosphates and makes them available to the plants.

Figure 9.—Florida river-pebble phosphate mining. (From Carroll D. Wright, The Phosphate Industry of the United States …, plate facing page 64.)

The insight into the importance of phosphorus in organisms, especially since Liebig’s time, is reflected in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). This “re-valuator of all values” who modestly said of himself: “I am dynamite!” once explained the human temperaments as caused by the inorganic salts they contain: “The differences in temperament are perhaps caused more by the different distribution and quantities of the inorganic salts than by everything else. Bilious people have too little sodium sulfate, the melancholics are lacking in potassium sulfate and phosphate; too little calcium phosphate in the phlegmatics. Courageous natures have an excess of iron phosphate.” (See volume 12 of Nietzsche’s Works, edit. Naumann-Kröner, Leipzig, 1886.) In this strange association of inorganic salts with human temperaments, the role of iron phosphate as a producer of courage is particularly interesting. What would a modern philosopher conclude if he followed the development of insight into the composition and function of complex phosphate compounds in organisms?

From Inorganic to Organic Phosphates

By the middle of the 19th century, the source of phosphorus in natural phosphates and the chemistry of its oxidation products had been established. The main difficulty that had to be overcome was that these oxidation products existed in so many forms, not only several stages of oxidation, but, in addition, aggregations and condensations of the phosphoric acids. Once the fundamental chemistry of these acids was elucidated, the attention of chemists and physiologists turned to the task of finding the actual state in which phosphorus compounds were present in the organisms. It had been a great advance when it had been shown that plants need phosphates in their soil. This led to the next question concerning the materials in the body of the plant for which phosphates were being used and into which they were incorporated. Similarly, the knowledge that animals attain their phosphates from the digested plant food called, in the next step of scientific inquiry, for information on the nature of phosphates produced from this source.

The method used in this inquiry was to subject anatomically separated parts of the organisms to chemical separations. The means for such separations had to be more gentle than the strong heat and destructive chemicals that had been considered adequate up to then. The interpretation of the new results naturally relied on the general advance of chemistry, the development of new methods for isolating substances of little stability, of new concepts concerning the arrangements of atoms in the molecules, and of new apparatus to measure their rates of change.

Figure 10.—Electric furnace for producing elemental phosphorus, invented by Thomas Parker of Newbridge, England, and assigned to The Electric Construction Corporation of the same place. The drawing is part of United States patent 482,586 (September 13, 1892). The furnace was patented in England on October 29, 1889 (no. 17,060); in France on June 23, 1890 (no. 206,566); in Germany on June 17, 1890 (no. 55,700); and in Italy on October 23, 1890 (no. 431). The following explanation is cited from the U.S. patent:

Figure 1 [shown here] is a vertical section of the furnace, and Fig. 2 is a diagram to illustrate the means for regulating the electro-motive force or quantity of current across the furnace.

F is the furnace containing the charge to be treated. It has an inlet-hopper at a, with slides AA, by which the charge can be admitted without opening communication between the interior of the furnace and the outer air.

B is a screw conveyer by which the charge is pushed forward into the furnace.

c´c´ are the electrodes, consisting of blocks or cylinders or the like of carbon fixed in metal socket-pieces c c, to which the electric-circuit wires d from the dynamo D are affixed. The current, as aforesaid, may be either continuous or alternating. cc are rods of metal or carbon, which are used to establish the electric circuit through the furnace, the said rods being inserted into holes in conductors c (in contact with the socket-pieces c) and in the furnace, as shown.

g is the outlet for the gas or vapor, h the slag-tap hole, and x the opening for manipulating the charge, the said openings being closed by clay or otherwise when the furnace is at work.

I use coke or other form of carbon in the charge between the electrodes c´, the said coke being in contact with the said electrodes, so that complete incandescence is insured.

A means for varying the electro-motive force or quantity of current across the furnace with the varying resistance of the charge is illustrated by the diagram, Fig. 2. c´ c indicate the electrodes in the furnace, as in Fig. 1, and D is the dynamo and T its terminals. E represents the exciting-circuit. R R are resistances, and R S is the resistance-switch, which is operated to put in more or less resistance at R as the resistance of the charge in the furnace lessens or increases. This switch may be automatically operated, and a suitable arrangement for the purpose is a current-regulator such as is described in the specification of English Letters Patent No. 14,504, of September 14, 1889, granted to William Henry Douglas and Thomas Hugh Parker.

Figure 11.—Dipping of matchsticks in France, about 1870. The frame which holds the matches so that one end protrudes at the bottom, is lowered over a pan containing molten sulfur. The sulfur-covered matches are then dropped into a phosphorous paste. See figure 12. (From Figuier, Merveilles de l’industrie, volume 3, 1874, page 575.)

Figure 12.—Pan for dipping matchsticks into phosphorus paste, about 1870. The letters on the picture are: A, matches; B, water bath; C, frame; D, plate; E, phosphorus paste; F, oven. The phosphorus paste of Böttger, 1842, contained 10 phosphorus, 25 antimony sulfide, 12.5 manganese dioxide, 15 gelatin. According to Figuier (page 579), R. Wagner substituted lead dioxide for the manganese dioxide. (From Figuier, volume 3, 1874, page 576.)

In the system of chemistry, as it developed in the first half of the 19th century, the new development can be characterized as the turn from inorganic to organic phosphates, from the substance of minerals and strong chemical interactions to the components in which phosphate groups remained combined with carbon-containing substances.

Phosphatides and Phosphagens

The important phosphorus compounds in organisms are much more complex than the simple salts, to which Nietzsche attributed such influence on man’s character. Long before he wrote, it was known that phosphoric acid combines not only with inorganic bases to form salts, but with alcohols to form esters. In the middle of the 19th century, Théophile Juste Pelouze (1807-1867) extended this knowledge to an ester of glycerol. This proved to be significant in several respects. Glycerol had been shown by Michel Chevreul (1786-1889) as the substance in fats that is released in the process of soap boiling, when the fatty acids are converted into their salts. That it has the nature of an alcohol had been demonstrated by Marcellin Berthelot. Instead of one “alcoholic” hydroxyl group, OH, like ethanol (the alcohol of fermentation), or two hydroxyl groups (like ethylene glycol), glycerol contains three such groups. It was the only “natural” alcohol known at that time. That this alcohol would combine with phosphoric acid could be predicted, but that the ester, as obtained by Pelouze, still contained free acidic functions and formed a water-soluble barium salt was a new experience.

Figure 13.—Survey of alcoholic fermentation, 1951. The “well-known scheme of alcoholic fermentation” according to Albert Jan Kluyver (1888-1956), presented before the Society of Chemical Industry in the Royal Institution, March 7, 1951. In Chemistry & Industry, 1952, page 136 ff., Kluyver restates that “… the fermentation of one molecule of glucose is indissolubly connected with the formation of two molecules of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) out of two molecules of adenosine diphosphate (ADP).”

Shortly after this experience had been gained, it became valuable for understanding the chemical nature of a new substance extracted from a natural organ. This substance was named lecithin by its discoverer, Nicolas Théodore Gobley (1811-1876), because he obtained it from egg yolk (in Greek, lékidos). He used ether and alcohol for this extraction. Had he used water and mineral acid instead, he would not have found lecithin, but only its components. As Gobley and, slightly later, Oscar Liebreich (1839-1908), subjected lecithin to treatment with boiling water and acid, they separated it into three parts. One of them was the glycerophosphoric acid of Pelouze, the second was the well-known stearic acid of Chevreul, but the third was somewhat mysterious. This third substance was the same as one previously noticed when nerves had been subjected to an extraction by boiling water and acid and, therefore, called nerve-substance or neurine. Adolf Friedrich Strecker (1822-1871) established the identity of this neurine with a product he had extracted from bile and which went under the name of choline. Adolphe Wurtz (1817-1884) succeeded in synthesizing this substance from ethylene oxide, CH2.O.CH2 and trimethylamine N(CH3)3. Thus, all three parts were identified, and Strecker put them together to construct a chemical formula for lecithin, glycerophosphoric acid combined with a fatty acid and with choline (a hydrate of neurine).

{ OH }

N (CH3)3 Choline

C2H4O

C18H33O2 } HO }

PO

C16H31O2 C3H5O

Fatty Acids Glycerophosphate

'—————v————'

Lecithin

according to Strecker

This formula was not quite correct. Richard Willstätter showed that an internal neutralization takes place between the amino group and the free acidic residue. This is expressed in his lecithin formula of 1918.

When the aim was to distill elementary phosphorus out of an organic material, it did not matter whether this was fresh or putrified. For obtaining lecithin out of egg yolk and similar materials, it was essential to use it in fresh condition. Otherwise, enzymes would have decomposed it. Through more recent work, four enzymes have been separated, which act specifically in decomposing lecithin. Enzyme A removes one fatty acid and leaves a complex residue, called lysolecithin, intact. Enzyme B attacks this residue and splits off the remaining fatty acid group from it, enzyme C liberates only the choline from lecithin, and enzyme D opens lecithin at the ester bond between glycerol and phosphoric acid. This is shown in the following diagram.

Enzymatic Splitting of Lecithins

Enzyme Substrate Products

A Lecithin Lysolecithin and fatty acids.

B Lysolecithin Glycero-phospho-choline and fatty acids.

C Lecithin Phosphatidic acid and choline.

D Lecithin Phosphoryl choline and diglyceride.

Several fatty acids can be present in lecithin from various sources: palmitic and oleic acid, besides the stearic acid which at first had been thought the only one involved. In another group of extracts from brain or nerve tissue, amino-ethanol H2NCH2CH2OH is found instead of the choline of lecithin. The variations include the alcohol, to which the fatty acids and choline phosphate are attached. For example, glycerol can be replaced by the so-called meat-sugar, inositol, which has six hydroxyl groups in its hexagon-shaped molecule C6H6(OH)6.

Figure 14.—Eduard Buchner (1860-1917) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of cell-free fermentation, the first step in finding the role of phosphate in fermentations (1907).

The generally similar behavior of these phosphate-and fat-containing substances was emphasized by Ludwig Thudichum (1829-1901). He coined the name phosphatides for this group of substances from seeds and nerves. His work on the phosphates in brain substance aroused particular interest. When William Crookes drew his highly imaginative picture of an “evolution” of the chemical elements, he put into it “phosphorus for the brain, salt for the sea, clay for the solid earth….” But phosphatides occur in many places of organisms, in bacteria, in leaves and roots of plants, in fat and tissues of animals. And where phosphatides are found, there are also enzymes that specifically act on them. They are called phosphatases to imply that they split the phosphatides. In addition, enzymes are present, which transfer phosphate groups from one compound to another. They are more abundant in seeds of high fat content than in the more starch-containing seeds, but even potatoes and orange juice have phosphatases.

Thus, from phosphatides, phosphoric acid is generated, and they could also be called phosphagens. Since 1926, however, the name phosphagens has been reserved for a group of organic substances that release their phosphoric acid very readily. The link between phosphorus and carbon is provided by oxygen in the phosphatides, by nitrogen in the phosphagens. In vertebrates, the basis for the phosphoric acid is creatine, whereas invertebrates have arginine instead.

Nuclein and Nucleic Acids

All parts of an organism are essential for life. Only with this in mind does it make sense to say that the most important part of the cell is its nucleus. From the nuclei of cells in pus and in salmon sperm, Johann Friedrich Miescher (1811-1887) obtained a peculiar kind of substance, which he named nuclein (1868). Its phosphate content was easily discovered, but to find the exact proportions and the nature of the other components required special methods of separation from phosphatides and other proteins. It was difficult to develop such methods at a time when little was known about the properties, and particularly the stability, of a nuclein. For preparing nuclein from yeast cells, Felix Hoppe-Seyler (1825-1895) described the following details: Yeast is dispersed in water to extract soluble materials, like salts or sugars. After a few hours, the insoluble material is separated, washed once more with water, and then extracted with a very dilute solution of sodium hydroxide. The slightly alkaline solution, freed from insoluble residues, is slowly added to a weak hydrochloric acid. A precipitate forms which is separated by filtration, washed with dilute acid, then with cold alcohol, and finally extracted by boiling alcohol. The dried residue is the nuclein. It contains six percent phosphorus. A little more washing with water, a slightly longer treatment with acid or alcohol gives products of lower phosphorus content. Many experimental variations were necessary to establish the procedure that leads to purification without alteration of the natural substance.

This was also true for the methods of chemical degradation, carried out in order to find the components of nucleins in their highest state of natural complexity. It was learned for example, that the special kind of carbohydrate present in nucleins was very susceptible to change under the conditions of hydrolysis by acids. Phoebus Aaron Theodor Levine (1869-1940), therefore, used the digestion by a living organism. With E. S. London, he introduced a solution of nucleic acid into, e.g., the gastrointestinal segment of a dog through a gastric fistula and withdrew the product of digestion through an intestinal fistula. Fortunately, the products obtained in such degradations were not new in themselves. The carbohydrate in this nucleic acid proved to be identical with D-ribose, which Emil Fischer had artificially made from arabinose and named ribose to indicate this relationship (1891). The nitrogenous products of the degradation were identical with substances previously prepared in the long study of uric acid. In the course of this study, Emil Fischer established uric acid and a number of its derivatives as having the elementary skeleton of what he called “pure uric acid,” abbreviated to purine. Out of Adolf Baeyer’s work on barbituric acid came the knowledge of pyrimidine and its derivatives.

Figure 15.—Albrecht Kossel (1853-1927) received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1910 for his work on nucleic substances, which contain a high proportion of phosphorus. The chemical bonds of this phosphorus in the molecules of nucleic substances were determined in later work. (Photo courtesy National Library of Medicine, Washington, D.C.)

From these findings, together with what Oswald Schmiedeberg (1838-1921) had established concerning the presence of four phosphate groups in the molecule (1899), Robert Feulgen (1884-1955) constructed the following scheme of a nucleic acid. Feulgen’s formula of 1918 is:

Phosphoric acid—Carbohydrate—Guanine

Phosphoric acid—Carbohydrate—Cytosine

Phosphoric acid—Carbohydrate—Thymine

Phosphoric acid—Carbohydrate—Adenine

Of the four basic components on the right, thymine occurs in the nucleic acid from the thymus gland. Yeast contains uracil instead. The difference between these two bases is one methyl group: thymine is a 5-methyluracil. In all of these basic substances, the structure of urea is involved, and they form pairs of oxidized and reduced states:

Purine Pyrimidine

(reduced) Adenine + (oxidized) Thymine

(oxidized) Guanine + (reduced) Cytosine

Pyrimidine

Purine

Adenine

Guanine

Uracil

Cytosine

The carbohydrate is ribose or deoxyribose.

Arabinose

l-Ribose

Fischer and Piloty, 1891

Deoxyribose

The exact position of phosphoric acid was established after long work and verified by synthesis.

A compound of adenine, ribose, and phosphoric acid was found in yeast, blood, and in skeletal muscle of mammals. From 100 grams of such muscle, 0.35-0.40 grams of this compound were isolated. If the muscle is at rest, the compound contains three molecules of phosphoric acid, linked through oxygen atoms. It was named adenosine triphosphate or adenyltriphosphoric acid, usually abbreviated by the symbol ATP. It releases one phosphoric acid group very easily and goes over in the diphosphate, ADP, but it can also lose 2 P-groups as pyrophosphoric acid and leave the monophosphate, AMP.

This change of ATP was considered to be the main source of energy in muscle contraction by Otto Meyerhof. The corresponding derivatives of guanine, cytosine, and uracil were also found, and they are active in the temporary transfer of phosphoric acid groups in biological processes.

Thus, the study of organic phosphates progressed from the comparatively simple esters connected with fatty substances of organisms to the proteins and the nuclear substances of the cell. The proportional amount of phosphorus in the former was larger than in the latter; the actual importance and function in the life of organisms, however, is not measured by the quantity but determined by the special nature of the compounds.

Figure 16.—Otto Meyerhof (1884-1951) received one-half of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1922 for his discovery of the metabolism of lactic acid in muscle, which involves the action of phosphates, especially adenosine duophosphates. (Photo courtesy National Library of Medicine, Washington, D.C.)

Figure 17.—Arthur Harden (1865-1940), left, and Hans A. S. von Euler-Chelpin (b. 1875), right, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1929. Harden received it for his research in fermentation, which showed the influence of phosphate, particularly the formation of a hexose diphosphate. Euler-Chelpin received his award for his research in fermentation. He found coenzyme A which is a nucleotide containing phosphoric acid.

Figure 18.—George de Hevesy (b. 1885) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1943 for his research with isotopic tracer elements, particularly radiophosphorus of weight 32 (ordinary phosphorus is 31).

Figure 19.—Carl F. Cori (b. 1896) and his wife, Gerty T. Cori (1896-1957) received part of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1947 for their study on glycogen conversion. In the course of this study, they identified glucose 1-phosphate, now usually referred to as “Cori ester,” and its function in the glycogen cycle. (Photo courtesy National Library of Medicine, Washington, D.C.)

The study of this function is the newest phase in the history of phosphorus and represents the culmination of the previous efforts. This newest phase developed out of an accidental discovery concerning one of the oldest organic-chemical industries, the production of alcohol by the fermentative action of yeast on sugar. A transition of carbohydrates through phosphate compounds to the end products of the fermentation process was found, and it gradually proved to be a kind of model for a host of biological processes.

Specific phosphates were thus found to be indispensable for life. In reverse, the wrong kind of phosphates can destroy life. As a result, an important part of the new phase in phosphorus history consisted in the study—and use—of antibiotic phosphorus compounds.

Phosphates in Biological Processes

The first indication that phosphorus is important for life came from the experience that plants take it up from the substances in the soil. They incorporate it in their body substance. What makes phosphorus so important that they cannot grow without it? The next insight was that animals acquire it from their plant food. It is then found in bones, in fat and nerve tissue, in all cells and particularly in the cell nuclei. What are its functions there?

The answers to such questions were developed from the study of a long-known process, the conversion of carbohydrates into carbon dioxide and alcohol by yeast. It started with Eduard Buchner’s discovery of 1890, that fermentation is produced by a preparation from yeast in which all living cells have been removed. When yeast is dead-ground and pressed out, the juice still has the ability to produce fermentation.

It is strange, but in many ways characteristic for the process of science, that the “riddle” of phosphorus in life was solved by first eliminating life. In such “lifeless” fermentations, Arthur Harden found that the conversion of sugar begins with the formation of a hexose phosphate (1904). The “ferment” of yeast, called zymase, proved to be a composite of several enzymes. Hans von Euler-Chelpin isolated one part of zymase, which remains active even after heating its solution to the boiling point. From 1 kilogram of yeast, he obtained 20 milligrams of this heat-stable enzyme, which he called cozymase and identified as a nucleotide composed of a purine, a sugar, and phosphoric acid. In the years between the two World Wars, zymase was further resolved into more enzymes, one of them the coenzyme I, which was shown to be ADP connected with another molecule of ribose attached to the amide of nicotinic acid, or diphosphopyridine nucleotide:

Figure 20.—Fritz A. Lipmann (b. 1899) shared with Hans Adolf Krebs the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1953 for his work on coenzyme A. He discovered acetyl phosphate as the substance in bacteria, which transfers phosphate to adenylic acid.

Figure 21.—Alexander R. Todd (b. 1907) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1957 for his research on nucleotides. He determined the position of the phosphate groups in the molecule and confirmed it by synthesis of dinucleotide phosphates.

Its function is connected with the transfer of hydrogen between intermediates formed through phosphate-transferring enzymes. Fermentation proceeds by a cascade of processes, in which phosphate groups swing back and forth, and equilibria between ATP with ADP play a major role.

Many of the enzymes are closely related to vitamins. Thus, cocarboxylase A, which takes part in the separation of carbon dioxide from an intermediate fermentation product, is the phosphate of vitamin B1. Others of the B vitamins contain phosphate groups, for example those of the B2 and B6 group, and in B12, one lonely phosphate forms a bridge in the large molecule that contains one atom of cobalt: C63H90N14O14PCo. The formation of vitamin A from carotine occurs under the influence of ATP.

The first stages in fermentation are like those in respiration, which ends with carbon dioxide and water. These two are the materials for the reverse process in photosynthesis. When light is absorbed by the chlorophyll of green plants, one of the initial reactions is a transfer of hydrogen from water to a triphosphopyridine nucleotide, which later acts to reduce the carbon dioxide. Under the influence of ATP, phosphoglyceric acid is synthesized and further built up by way of carbohydrate phosphates to hexose sugars and finally to starch. In many starchy fruits, a small proportion of phosphate remains attached to the end product.

The synthesis of proteins is under the control of deoxyribonucleic acid or ribonucleic acid, abbreviated by the symbols DNA and RNA. The genes in the nucleus are parts of a giant DNA molecule. RNA is a universal constituent of all living cells. Where protein synthesis is intense, the content in RNA is high. Thus, the spinning glands of silkworms are extraordinarily rich in RNA.

In his research on the radioactive isotope P, George de Hevesy gained some insight into the surprising mobility of phosphates in organisms: “A phosphate radical taken up with the food may first participate in the phosphorylation of glucose in the intestinal mucose, soon afterwards pass into the circulation as free phosphate, enter a red corpuscle, become incorporated with an adenosine triphosphoric-acid molecule, participate in a glycolytic process going on in the corpuscle, return to circulation, penetrate into the liver cells, participate in the formation of a phosphatide molecule, after a short interval enter the circulation in this form, penetrate into the spleen, and leave this organ after some time as a constituent of a lymphocyte. We may meet the phosphate radical again as a constituent of the plasma, from which it may find its way into the skeleton.” Much has been added in the last 30 years to complete this picture in many details and to extend it to other biochemical processes, including even the changes of the pigments in the retina in the visual process, or in the conversion of chemical energy to light by bacteria and insects.

Medicines and Poisons

In the delicate balance of these processes, disturbances may occur which can be remedied by specific phosphate-containing medicines. Thus, adenosine phosphate has been recommended in cases of angina pectoris and marketed under trade names like sarkolyt, or in compounds named angiolysine. A considerable number of physiologically active organic phosphates can be found in the patent literature. Yeast itself is considered to be a valuable food additive.

On the other hand, there are phosphate compounds that act as poisons. One group of such compounds was discovered in 1929 by W. Lange, who wrote: “Of interest is the strong action of mono-fluorophosphate esters on the human body—the effect is produced by very small quantities.” Diisopropyl fluorophosphate has since become a potential agent for chemical warfare. It inactivates an enzyme which controls the transmission of nerve impulses to muscle, acetylcholine esterase.

Organic esters of phosphoric acids are used as insecticides. The hexa-ethylester of tetraphosphoric acid, prepared by Gerhard Schrader by heating triethylphosphate with phosphorus oxychloride, actually contains tetraethylpyrophosphate (TEPP) among others. Bayer’s Dipterex, the dimethyl ester of 2,2,2-trichloro-1-hydroxyethyl-phosphonate, has been modified to dimethyl-2,2-dichlorovinyl-phosphate and is especially active against the oriental fruit fly.

Schradan
Octamethylpyrophosphoramide

Figure 22.—Arthur Kornberg (b. 1918) and Severo Ochoa (b. 1905) shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1959. Kornberg received it for research on the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid. In particular, he found that four triphosphate components and a small amount of the end product as a “template” had to be present for the enzymatic synthesis. Ochoa received his share of the prize for research in ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid. In particular, Ochoa synthesized polyribonucleotides and used the radioactive isotope, P. The synthetic polyribonucleotides were found to resemble the natural substances in all essentials.

Figure 23.—Melvin Calvin (b. 1911) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1961 for his research in photosynthesis, in which he specified the function of phosphoglyceric acid as an intermediate in the synthesis of carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water by green plants.

The story of phosphorus, which began 300 years ago, has acquired new importance in this century. Many scientists have contributed to it: 13 of them have received Nobel Prizes for work directly bearing on the chemical and biological importance of phosphorus compounds. In chronological order, they are: Eduard Buchner, Albrecht Kossel, Otto Meyerhof, Arthur Harden, Hans von Euler-Chelpin, George de Hevesy, Carl F. Cori, Gerty T. Cori, Fritz Lipmann, Lord Alexander Todd, Arthur Kornberg, Severo Ochoa, and Melvin Calvin. The developers of industrial production and commercial utilization of phosphate compounds have had other rewards.

Some impression of the continuing growth in this field can be gained from the following data.

Phosphate Rock
annually “sold or used by producer” in the United States
in million long tons (2,240 lbs.)

1880 0. 2

1890 0. 5

1900 1. 5

1910 2. 655

1920 4. 104

1930 3. 926

1940 4. 003

1945 5. 807

1950 11. 114

1955 12. 265

1955 (world: about 56)

1960 17. 202

1962 19. 060

Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States 1789-1945 (1949); Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Elemental Phosphorus
annually produced in the United States
in short tons (2,000 lbs.)

1939 43,000

1944 85,679

1950 153,233

1956 312,200

1958 335,750

1959 366,350

1960 409,096

1961 430,617

1962 451,970

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce.

The following typographical errors have been corrected:

Page “Abfällen, Vieweg, Braunschweig,” - had “Viewig”.

Page “But phosphatides occur” - had “phosphatide soccur”.

Page “the nucleic acid from the thymus” - had “nucleidic”.

Page “acetylcholine esterase.” - had “acetylcholin”.

Page “George de Hevesy, Carl F. Cori,” - comma added after Hevesy.

Footnote : “See, e.g., Chemical Week, vol. 77” - had “See. e.g.”

The spelling of “Bertholet” [Claude Louis Berthollet] is as given on the original title page of the work referenced in this paper.

Inconsistent hyphenation of chemical names has been retained.

Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology.
Paper 41

Tunnel Engineering—A Museum Treatment

Robert M. Vogel

INTRODUCTION 203

ROCK TUNNELING 206

SOFT-GROUND TUNNELING 215

BIBLIOGRAPHY 239

FOOTNOTES

INDEX

Figure 1.—Mining by early European civilizations, using fire setting and hand chiseling to break out ore and rock. MHT model—/4" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-H.)

Robert M. Vogel

TUNNEL ENGINEERING—A MUSEUM TREATMENT

During the years from 1830 to 1900, extensive developments took place in the field of tunneling, which today is an important, firmly established branch of civil engineering. This paper offers a picture of its growth from the historical standpoint, based on a series of models constructed for the Hall of Civil Engineering in the new Museum of History and Technology. The eight models described highlight the fundamental advances which have occurred between primitive man’s first systematic use of fire for excavating rock in mining, and the use in combination of compressed air, an iron lining, and a movable shield in a subaqueous tunnel at the end of the 19th century.

The Author: Robert M. Vogel is curator of heavy machinery and civil engineering, in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of History and Technology.

Introduction

With few exceptions, civil engineering is a field in which the ultimate goal is the assemblage of materials into a useful structural form according to a scientifically derived plan which is based on various natural and man-imposed conditions. This is true whether the result be, for example, a dam, a building, a bridge, or even the fixed plant of a railroad. However, one principal branch of the field is based upon an entirely different concept. In the engineering of tunnels the utility of the “structure” is derived not from the bringing together of elements but from the separation of one portion of naturally existing material from another to permit passage through a former barrier.

In tunneling hard, firm rock, this is practically the entire compass of the work: breaking away the rock from the mother mass, and, coincidently, removing it from the workings. The opposite extreme in conditions is met in the soft-ground tunnel, driven through material incapable of supporting itself above the tunnel opening. Here, the excavation of the tunneled substance is of relatively small concern, eclipsed by the problem of preventing the surrounding material from collapsing into the bore.

Figure 2.—Hoosac Tunnel. Method of working early sections of the project; blast holes drilled by hand jacking. MHT model—/2" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-L.)

In one other principal respect does tunnel engineering differ widely from its collateral branches of civil engineering. Few other physical undertakings are approached with anything like the uncertainty attending a tunnel work. This is even more true in mountain tunnels, for which test borings frequently cannot be made to determine the nature of the material and the geologic conditions which will be encountered.

The course of tunnel work is not subject to an overall preliminary survey; the engineer is faced with not only the inability to anticipate general contingencies common to all engineering work, but with the peculiar and often overwhelming unpredictability of the very basis of his work.

Subaqueous and soft-ground work on the other hand, while still subject to many indeterminates, is now far more predictable than during its early history, simply because the nature of the adverse condition prevailing eventually was understood to be quite predictable. The steady pressures of earth and water to refill the excavated area are today overcome with relative ease and consistency by the tunneler.

In tunneling as in no other branch of civil engineering did empiricism so long resist the advance of scientific theory; in no other did the “practical engineer” remain to such an extent the key figure in establishing the success or failure of a project. The Hoosac Tunnel, after 25 years of legislative, financial, and technical difficulties, in 1875 was finally driven to successful completion only by the efforts of a group who, while in the majority were trained civil engineers, were to an even greater extent men of vast practical ability, more at home in field than office.

DeWitt C. Haskin (see p. 234), during the inquest that followed the death of a number of men in a blowout of his pneumatically driven Hudson River Tunnel in 1880, stated in his own defense: “I am not a scientific engineer, but a practical one … I know nothing of mathematics; in my experience I have grasped such matters as a whole; I believe that the study of mathematics in that kind of work [tunneling] has a tendency to dwarf the mind rather than enlighten it….” An extreme attitude perhaps, and one which by no means adds to Haskin’s stature, but a not unusual one in tunnel work at the time. It would not of course be fair to imply that such men as Herman Haupt, Brunel the elder, and Greathead were not accomplished theoretical engineers. But it was their innate ability to evaluate and control the overlying physical conditions of the site and work that made possible their significant contributions to the development of tunnel engineering.

Tunneling remained largely independent of the realm of mathematical analysis long after the time when all but the most insignificant engineering works were designed by that means. Thus, as structural engineering has advanced as the result of a flow of new theoretical concepts, new, improved, and strengthened materials, and new methods of fastening, the progress of tunnel engineering has been due more to the continual refinement of constructional techniques.

A NEW HALL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

In the Museum of History and Technology has recently been established a Hall of Civil Engineering in which the engineering of tunnels is comprehensively treated from the historical standpoint—something not previously done in an American museum. The guiding precept of the exhibit has not been to outline exhaustively the entire history of tunneling, but rather to show the fundamental advances which have occurred between primitive man’s first systematic use of fire for excavating rock in mining, and the use in combination of compressed air, iron lining, and a movable shield in a subaqueous tunnel at the end of the 19th century. This termination date was selected because it was during the period from about 1830 to 1900 that the most concentrated development took place, and during which tunneling became a firmly established and important branch of civil engineering and indeed, of modern civilization. The techniques of present-day tunneling are so fully related in current writing that it was deemed far more useful to devote the exhibit entirely to a segment of the field’s history which is less commonly treated.

Figure 3.—Hoosac Tunnel. Working of later stages with Burleigh pneumatic drills mounted on carriages. The bottom heading is being drilled in preparation for blasting out with nitroglycerine. MHT model—/2" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-M.)

The major advances, which have already been spoken of as being ones of technique rather than theory, devolve quite naturally into two basic classifications: the one of supporting a mass of loose, unstable, pressure-exerting material—soft-ground tunneling; and the diametrically opposite problem of separating rock from the basic mass when it is so firm and solid that it can support its own overbearing weight as an opening is forced through it—rock, or hard-ground tunneling.

To exhibit the sequence in a thorough manner, inviting and capable of easy and correct interpretation by the nonprofessional viewer, models offered the only logical means of presentation. Six tunnels were selected, all driven in the 19th century. Each represents either a fundamental, new concept of tunneling technique, or an important, early application of one. Models of these works form the basis of the exhibit. No effort was made to restrict the work to projects on American soil. This would, in fact, have been quite impossible if an accurate picture of tunnel technology was to be drawn; for as in virtually all other areas of technology, the overall development in this field has been international. The art of mining was first developed highly in the Middle Ages in the Germanic states; the tunnel shield was invented by a Frenchman residing in England, and the use of compressed air to exclude the water from subaqueous tunnels was first introduced on a major work by an American. In addition, the two main subdivisions, rock and soft-ground tunneling, are each introduced by a model not of an actual working, but of one typifying early classical methods which were in use for centuries until the comparatively recent development of more efficient systems of earth support and rock breaking. Particular attention is given to accuracy of detail throughout the series of eight models; original sources of descriptive and graphic information were used in their construction wherever possible. In all cases except the introductory model in the rock-tunneling series, representing copper mining by early civilizations, these sources were contemporary accounts.

The plan to use a uniform scale of reduction throughout, in order to facilitate the viewers’ interpretation, unfortunately proved impractical, due to the great difference in the amount of area to be encompassed in different models, and the necessity that the cases holding them be of uniform height. The related models of the Broadway and Tower Subways represent short sections of tunnels only 8 feet or so in diameter enabling a relatively large scale, 1/2 inches to the foot, to be used. Conversely, in order that the model of Brunel’s Thames Tunnel be most effective, it was necessary to include one of the vertical terminal shafts used in its construction. These were about 60 feet in depth, and thus the much smaller scale of /4 inch to the foot was used. This variation is not as confusing as might be thought, for the human figures in each model provide an immediate and positive sense of proportion and scale.

Careful thought was devoted to the internal lighting of the models, as this was one of the critical factors in establishing, so far as is possible in a model, an atmosphere convincingly representative of work conducted solely by artificial light. Remarkable realism was achieved by use of plastic rods to conduct light to the tiny sources of tunnel illumination, such as the candles on the miners’ hats in the Hoosac Tunnel, and the gas lights in the Thames Tunnel. No overscaled miniature bulbs, generally applied in such cases, were used. At several points where the general lighting within the tunnel proper has been kept at a low level to simulate the natural atmosphere of the work, hidden lamps can be operated by push-button in order to bring out detail which otherwise would be unseen.

The remainder of the material in the Museum’s tunneling section further extends the two major aspects of tunneling. Space limitations did not permit treatment of the many interesting ancillary matters vital to tunnel engineering, such as the unique problems of subterranean surveying, and the extreme accuracy required in the triangulation and subsequent guidance of the boring in long mountain tunnels; nor the difficult problems of ventilating long workings, both during driving and in service; nor the several major methods developed through the years for driving or constructing tunnels in other than the conventional manner.

Rock Tunneling

While the art of tunneling soft ground is of relatively recent origin, that of rock tunneling is deeply rooted in antiquity. However, the line of its development is not absolutely direct, but is more logically followed through a closely related branch of technology—mining. The development of mining techniques is a practically unbroken one, whereas there appears little continuity or relationship between the few works undertaken before about the 18th century for passage through the earth.

The Egyptians were the first people in recorded history to have driven openings, often of considerable magnitude, through solid rock. As is true of all major works of that nation, the capability of such grand proportion was due solely to the inexhaustible supply of human power and the casual evaluation of life. The tombs and temples won from the rock masses of the Nile Valley are monuments of perseverance rather than technical skill. Neither the Egyptians nor any other peoples before the Middle Ages have left any consistent evidence that they were able to pierce ground that would not support itself above the opening as would firm rock. In Egypt were established the methods of rock breaking that were to remain classical until the first use of gun-powder blasting in the 17th century which formed the basis of the ensuing technology of mining.

Notwithstanding the religious motives which inspired the earliest rock excavations, more constant and universal throughout history has been the incentive to obtain the useful and decorative minerals hidden beneath the earth’s surface. It was the miner who developed the methods introduced by the early civilizations to break rock away from the primary mass, and who added the refinements of subterranean surveying and ventilating, all of which were later to be assimilated into the new art of driving tunnels of large diameter. The connection is the more evident from the fact that tunnelmen are still known as miners.

COPPER MINING, B.C.

Therefore, the first model of the sequence, reflecting elemental rock-breaking techniques, depicts a hard-rock copper mine (fig. 1). Due to the absence of specific information about such works during the pre-Christian eras, this model is based on no particular period or locale, but represents in a general way, a mine in the Rio Tinto area of Spain where copper has been extracted since at least 1000 B.C. Similar workings existed in the Tirol as early as about 1600 B.C. Two means of breaking away the rock are shown: to the left is the most primitive of all methods, the hammer and chisel, which require no further description. At the right side, the two figures are shown utilizing the first rock-breaking method in which a force beyond that of human muscles was employed, the age-old “fire-setting” method. The rock was thoroughly heated by a fierce fire built against its face and then suddenly cooled by dashing water against it. The thermal shock disintegrated the rock or ore into bits easily removable by hand.

Figure 4.—Hoosac Tunnel. Bottom of the central shaft showing elevator car and rock skip; pumps at far right. In the center, the top bench is being drilled by a single column-mounted Burleigh drill. MHT model—/2" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-N.)

The practice of this method below ground, of course, produced a fearfully vitiated atmosphere. It is difficult to imagine whether the smoke, the steam, or the toxic fumes from the roasting ore was the more distressing to the miners. Even when performed by labor considered more or less expendable, the method could be employed only where there was ventilation of some sort: natural chimneys and convection currents were the chief sources of air circulation. Despite the drawbacks of the fire system, its simplicity and efficacy weighed so heavily in its favor that its history of use is unbroken almost to the present day. Fire setting was of greatest importance during the years of intensive mining in Europe before the advent of explosive blasting, but its use in many remote areas hardly slackened until the early 20th century because of its low cost when compared to powder. For this same reason, it did have limited application in actual tunnel work until about 1900.

Direct handwork with pick, chisel and hammer, and fire setting were the principal means of rock removal for centuries. Although various wedging systems were also in favor in some situations, their importance was so slight that they were not shown in the model.

HOOSAC TUNNEL

It was possible in the model series, without neglecting any major advancement in the art of rock tunneling, to complete the sequence of development with only a single additional model. Many of the greatest works of civil engineering have been those concerned directly with transport, and hence are the product of the present era, beginning in the early 19th century. The development of the ancient arts of route location, bridge construction, and tunnel driving received a powerful stimulation after 1800 under the impetus of the modern canal, highway, and, especially, the railroad.

The Hoosac Tunnel, driven through Hoosac Mountain in the very northwest corner of Massachusetts between 1851 and 1875, was the first major tunneling work in the United States. Its importance is due not so much to this as to its being literally the fountainhead of modern rock-tunneling technology. The remarkable thing is that the work was begun using methods of driving almost unchanged during centuries previous, and was completed twenty years later by techniques which were, for the day, almost totally mechanized. The basic pattern of operation set at Hoosac, using pneumatic rock drills and efficient explosives, remains practically unchanged today.

The general history of the Hoosac project is so thoroughly recorded that the briefest outline of its political aspects will suffice here. Hoosac Mountain was the chief obstacle in the path of a railroad projected between Greenfield, Massachusetts, and Troy, New York. The line was launched by a group of Boston merchants to provide a direct route to the rapidly developing West, in competition with the coastal routes via New York. The only route economically reasonable included a tunnel of nearly five miles through the mountain—a length absolutely without precedent, and an immense undertaking in view of the relatively primitive rock-working methods then available.

Figure 5.—Burleigh rock drill, improved model of about 1870, mounted on frame for surface work. (Catalog and price list: The Burleigh Rock Drill Company, 1876.)

The bore’s great length and the desire for rapid exploitation inspired innovation from the outset of the work. The earliest attempts at mechanization, although ineffectual and without influence on tunnel engineering until many years later, are of interest. These took the form of several experimental machines of the “full area” type, intended to excavate the entire face of the work in a single operation by cutting one or more concentric grooves in the rock. The rock remaining between the grooves was to be blasted out. The first such machine tested succeeded in boring a 24-foot diameter opening for 10 feet before its total failure. Several later machines proved of equal merit. It was the Baltimore and Ohio’s eminent chief engineer, Benjamin H. Latrobe, who in his Report on the Hoosac Tunnel (Baltimore, Oct. 1, 1862, p. 125) stated that such apparatus contained in its own structure the elements of failure, “ … as they require the machines to do too much and the powder too little of the work, thus contradicting the fundamental principles upon which all labor-saving machinery is framed … I could only look upon it as a misapplication of mechanical genius.”

Figure 6.—Hoosac Tunnel. Flash-powder photograph of Burleigh drills at the working face. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

Latrobe stated the basic philosophy of rock-tunnel work. No mechanical agent has ever been able to improve upon the efficiency of explosives for the shattering of rock. For this reason, the logical application of machinery to tunneling was not in replacing or altering the fundamental process itself, but in enabling it to be conducted with greater speed by mechanically drilling the blasting holes to receive the explosive.

Actual work on the Hoosac Tunnel began at both ends of the tunnel in about 1854, but without much useful effect until 1858 when a contract was let to the renowned civil engineer and railroad builder, Herman Haupt of Philadelphia. Haupt immediately resumed investigations of improved tunneling methods, both full-area machines and mechanical rock drills. At this time mechanical rock-drill technology was in a state beyond, but not far beyond, initial experimentation. There existed one workable American machine, the Fowle drill, invented in 1851. It was steam-driven, and had been used in quarry work, although apparently not to any commercial extent. However, it was far too large and cumbersome to find any possible application in tunneling. Nevertheless, it contained in its operating principle, the seed of a practical rock drill in that the drill rod was attached directly to and reciprocated by a double-acting steam piston. A point of great importance was the independence of its operation on gravity, permitting drilling in any direction.

While experimenting, Haupt drove the work onward by the classical methods, shown in the left-hand section of the model (fig. 2). At the far right an advance heading or adit is being formed by pick and hammer work; this is then deepened into a top heading with enough height to permit hammer drilling, actually the basic tunneling operation. A team is shown “double jacking,” i.e., using two-handed hammers, the steel held by a third man. This was the most efficient of the several hand-drilling methods. The top-heading plan was followed so that the bulk of the rock could be removed in the form of a bottom bench, and the majority of drilling would be downward, obviously the most effective direction. Blasting was with black powder and its commercial variants. Some liberty was taken in depicting these steps so that both operations might be shown within the scope of the model: in practice the heading was kept between 400 and 600 feet in advance of the bench so that heading blasts would not interfere with the bench work. The bench carriage simply facilitated handling of the blasted rock. It was rolled back during blasts.

Figure 7.—Hoosac Tunnel. Group of miners descending the west shaft with a Burleigh drill. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

The experiments conducted by Haupt with machine drills produced no immediate useful results. A drill designed by Haupt and his associate, Stuart Gwynn, in 1858 bored hard granite at the rate of /8 inch per minute, but was not substantial enough to bear up in service. Haupt left the work in 1861, victim of intense political pressures and totally unjust accusations of corruption and mismanagement. The work was suspended until taken over by a state commission in 1862. Despite frightful ineptitude and very real corruption, this period was exceedingly important in the long history both of Hoosac Tunnel and of rock tunneling in general.

The merely routine criticism of the project had by this time become violent due to the inordinate length of time already elapsed and the immense cost, compared to the small portion of work completed. This served to generate in the commission a strong sense of urgency to hurry the project along. Charles S. Storrow, a competent engineer, was sent to Europe to report on the progress of tunneling there, and in particular on mechanization at the Mont Cenis Tunnel then under construction between France and Italy. Germain Sommeiller, its chief engineer, had, after experimentation similar to Haupt’s, invented a reasonably efficient drilling machine which had gone into service at Mont Cenis in March 1861. It was a distinct improvement over hand drilling, almost doubling the drilling rate, but was complex and highly unreliable. Two hundred drills were required to keep 16 drills at work. But the vital point in this was the fact that Sommeiller drove his drills not with steam, but air, compressed at the tunnel portals and piped to the work face. It was this single factor, one of application rather than invention, that made the mechanical drill feasible for tunneling.

All previous effort in the field of machine drilling, on both sides of the Atlantic, had been directed toward steam as the motive power. In deep tunnels, with ventilation already an inherent problem, the exhaust of a steam drill into the atmosphere was inadmissible. Further, steam could not be piped over great distances due to serious losses of energy from radiation of heat, and condensation. Steam generation within the tunnel itself was obviously out of the question. It was the combination of a practical drill, and the parallel invention by Sommeiller of a practical air compressor that resulted in the first workable application of machine rock drilling to tunneling.

Figures 8 & 9.—Hoosac Tunnel. Contemporary engravings. As such large general areas could not be sufficiently illuminated for photography, the Museum model was based primarily on artists' versions of the work. (Science Record, 1872; Leslie's Weekly, 1873.)

The Sommeiller drills greatly impressed Storrow, and his report of November 1862 strongly favored their adoption at Hoosac. It is curious however, that not a single one was brought to the U.S., even on trial. Storrow does speak of Sommeiller’s intent to keep the details of the machine to himself until it had been further improved, with a view to its eventual exploitation. The fact is, that although workable, the Sommeiller drill proved to be a dead end in rock-drill development because of its many basic deficiencies. It did exert the indirect influence of inspiration which, coupled with a pressing need for haste, led to renewed trials of drilling machinery at Hoosac. Thomas Doane, chief engineer under the state commission, carried this program forth with intensity, seeking and encouraging inventors, and himself working on the problem. The pattern of the Sommeiller drill was generally followed; that is, the drill was designed as a separate, relatively light mechanical element, adapted for transportation by several miners, and attachable to a movable frame or carriage during operation. Air was of course the presumed power. To be effective, it was necessary that a drill automatically feed the drill rod as the hole deepened, and also rotate the rod automatically to maintain a round, smooth hole. Extreme durability was essential, and usually proved the source of a machine’s failure. The combination of these characteristics into a machine capable of driving the drill rod into the rock with great force, perhaps five times per second, was a severe test of ingenuity and materials. Doane in 1864 had three different experimental drills in hand, as well as various steam and water-powered compressors.

Success finally came in 1865 with the invention of a drill by Charles Burleigh, a mechanical engineer at the well-known Putnam Machine Works of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The drills were first applied in the east heading in June of 1866. Although working well, their initial success was limited by lack of reliability and a resulting high expense for repairs. They were described as having “several weakest points.” In November, these drills were replaced by an improved Burleigh drill which was used with total success to the end of the work. The era of modern rock tunneling was thus launched by Sommeiller’s insight in initially applying pneumatic power to a machine drill, by Doane’s persistence in searching for a thoroughly practical drill, and by Burleigh’s mechanical talent in producing one. The desperate need to complete the Hoosac Tunnel may reasonably be considered the greatest single spur to the development of a successful drill.

The significance of this invention was far reaching. Burleigh’s was the first practical mechanical rock drill in America and, in view of its dependability, efficiency, and simplicity when compared to the Sommeiller drill, perhaps in the world. The Burleigh drill achieved success almost immediately. It was placed in production by Putnam for the Burleigh Rock Drill Company before completion of Hoosac in 1876, and its use spread throughout the western mining regions and other tunnel works. For a major invention, its adoption was, in relative terms, instantaneous. It was the prototype of all succeeding piston-type drills, which came to be known generically as “burleighs,” regardless of manufacture. Walter Shanley, the Canadian contractor who ultimately completed the Hoosac, reported in 1870, after the drills had been in service for a sufficient time that the techniques for their most efficient use were fully understood and effectively applied, that the Burleigh drills saved about half the drilling costs over hand drilling. The per-inch cost of machine drilling averaged 5.5 cents, all inclusive, vs. 11.2 cents for handwork. The more important point, that of speed, is shown by the reports of average monthly progress of the tunnel itself, before and after use of the air drills.

Year Average monthly
progress in feet

1865 55

1866 48

1867 99

1868 —

1869 138

1870 126

1871 145

1872 124

Figure 10.—Trinitroglycerine blast at Hoosac Tunnel. (Leslie's Weekly, 1873.)

The right portion of the model (fig. 3) represents the workings during the final period. The bottom heading system was generally used after the Burleigh drills had been introduced. Four to six drills were mounted on a carriage designed by Doane. These drove the holes for the first blast in the center of the heading in about six hours. The full width of the heading, the 24-foot width of the tunnel, was then drilled and blasted out in two more stages. As in the early section, the benches to the rear were later removed to the full-tunnel height of about 20 feet. This operation is shown by a single drill (fig. 4) mounted on a screw column. Three 8-hour shifts carried the work forward: drilling occupied half the time and half was spent in running the carriage back, blasting, and mucking (clearing the broken rock).

The tunnel’s 1028-foot central shaft, completed under the Shanley contract in 1870 to provide two additional work faces as well as a ventilation shaft is shown at the far right side of this half of the model. Completed so near the end of the project, only 15 percent of the tunnel was driven from the shaft.

The enormous increase in rate of progress was not due entirely to machine drilling. From the outset of his jurisdiction, Doane undertook experiments with explosives as well as drills, seeking an agent more effective than black powder. In this case, the need for speed was not the sole stimulus. As the east and west headings advanced further and further from the portals, the problem of ventilation grew more acute, and it became increasingly difficult to exhaust the toxic fumes produced by the black powder blasts.

In 1866, Doane imported from Europe a sample of trinitroglycerine, the liquid explosive newly introduced by Nobel, known in Europe as “glonoïn oil” and in the United States as “nitroglycerine.” It already had acquired a fearsome reputation from its tendency to decompose with heat and age and to explode with or without the slightest provocation. Nevertheless, its tremendous power and characteristic of almost complete smokelessness led Doane to employ the chemist George W. Mowbray, who had blasted for Drake in the Pennsylvania oil fields, to develop techniques for the bulk manufacture of the new agent and for its safe employment in the tunnel.

Figure 11.—Hoosac Tunnel survey crew at engineering office. The highest accuracy of the aboveground and underground survey work was required to insure proper vertical and horizontal alignment and meeting of the several separately driven sections. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

Mowbray established a works on the mountain and shortly developed a completely new blasting practice based on the explosive. Its stability was greatly increased by maintaining absolute purity in the manufacturing process. Freezing the liquid to reduce its sensitivity during transport to the headings, and extreme caution in its handling further reduced the hazard of its use. At the heading, the liquid was poured into cylindrical cartridges for placement in the holes. As with the Burleigh drill, the general adoption of nitroglycerine was immediate once its qualities had been demonstrated. The effect on the work was notable. Its explosive characteristics permitted fewer blast holes over a given frontal area of working face, and at the same time it was capable of effectively blowing from a deeper drill hole, 42 inches against 30 inches for black powder, so that under ideal conditions 40 percent more tunnel length was advanced per cycle of operations. A new fuse and a system of electric ignition were developed which permitted simultaneous detonation and resulted in a degree of effectiveness impossible with the powder train and cord fusing used with the black powder. Over a million pounds of nitroglycerine were produced by Mowbray between 1866 and completion of the tunnel.

Figure 12.—Works at the central shaft, Hoosac Tunnel, for hoisting, pumping and air compressing machinery, and general repair, 1871. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

Figure 13.—Hoosac Tunnel. Air-compressor building on Hoosac River near North Adams. The compressors were driven partially by waterpower, derived from the river. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

Figure 14.—West portal of Hoosac Tunnel before completion, 1868, showing six rings of lining brick. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

When the Shanleys took the work over in 1868, following political difficulties attending operation by the State, the period of experimentation was over. The tunnel was being advanced by totally modern methods, and to the present day the overall concepts have remained fundamentally unaltered: the Burleigh piston drill has been replaced by the lighter hammer drill; the Doane drill carriage by the more flexible “jumbo”;nitroglycerine by its more stable descendant dynamite and its alternatives; and static-electric blasting machines by more dependable magnetoelectric. But these are all in the nature of improvements, not innovations.

Unlike the preceding model, there was good documentation for this one. Also, the Hoosac was apparently the first American tunnel to be well recorded photographically. Early flashlight views exist of the drills working at the heading (fig. 6) as well as of the portals, the winding and pumping works at the central shaft, and much of the machinery and associated aspects of the project. These and copies of drawings of much of Doane’s experimental apparatus, a rare technological record, are preserved at the Massachusetts State Library.

Soft-Ground Tunneling

So great is the difference between hard-rock and soft-ground tunneling that they constitute two almost separate branches of the field. In penetrating ground lacking the firmness or cohesion to support itself above an opening, the miner’s chief concern is not that of removing the material, but of preventing its collapse into his excavation. The primitive methods depending upon brute strength and direct application of fire and human force were suitable for assault on rock, but lacked the artifice needed for delving into less stable material. Roman engineers were accomplished in spanning subterranean ways with masonry arches, but apparently most of their work was done by cut-and-cover methods rather than by actual mining.

Not until the Middle Ages did the skill of effectively working openings in soft ground develop, and not until the Renaissance was this development so consistently successful that it could be considered a science.

RENAISSANCE MINING

From the earliest periods of rock working, the quest for minerals and metals was the primary force that drove men underground. It was the technology of mining, the product of slow evolution over the centuries, that became the technology of the early tunnel, with no significant modification except in size of workings.

Every aspect of 16th century mining is definitively detailed in Georgius Agricola’s remarkable De re Metallica, first published in Basel in 1556. During its time of active influence, which extended for two centuries, it served as the authoritative work on the subject. It remains today an unparalleled early record of an entire branch of technology. The superb woodcuts of mine workings and tools in themselves constitute a precise description of the techniques of the period, and provided an ideal source of information upon which to base the first model in the soft-ground series.

Figure 15.—Centering for placement of finished stonework at west portal, 1874. At top-right are the sheds where the lining brick was produced. (Photo courtesy of State Library, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

The model, representing a typical European mine, demonstrates the early use of timber frames or “sets” to support the soft material of the walls and roof. In areas of only moderate instability, the sets alone were sufficient to counteract the earth pressure, and were spaced according to the degree of support required. In more extreme conditions, a solid lagging of small poles or boards was set outside the frames, as shown in the model, to provide absolute support of the ground. Details of the framing, the windlass, and all tools and appliances were supplied by Agricola, with no need for interpretation or interpolation.

The basic framing pattern of sill, side posts and cap piece, all morticed together, with lagging used where needed, was translated unaltered into tunneling practice, particularly in small exploratory drifts. It remained in this application until well into the 20th century.

The pressure exerted upon tunnels of large area was countered during construction by timbering systems of greater elaboration, evolved from the basic one. By the time that tunnels of section large enough to accommodate canals and railways were being undertaken as matter-of-course civil engineering works, a series of nationally distinguishable systems had emerged, each possessing characteristic points of favor and fault. As might be suspected, the English system of tunnel timbering, for instance, was rarely applied on the Continent, nor were the German, Austrian or Belgian systems normally seen in Great Britain. All were used at one time or another in this country, until the American system was introduced in about 1855. While the timbering commonly remained in place in mines, it would be followed up by permanent masonry arching and lining in tunnel work.

Overhead in the museum Hall of Civil Engineering are frames representing the English, Austrian and American systems. Nearby, a series of small relief models (fig. 19) is used to show the sequence of enlargement in a soft-ground railroad tunnel of about 1855, using the Austrian system. Temporary timber support of tunnels fell from use gradually after the advent of shield tunneling in conjunction with cast-iron lining. This formed a perfect support immediately behind the shield, as well as the permanent lining of the tunnel.

Figure 16.—West portal upon completion, 1876. (Photo courtesy of New-York Historical Society.) Click on image for a color version of poster.

BRUNEL’S THAMES TUNNEL

The interior surfaces of tunnels through ground merely unstable are amenable to support by various systems of timbering and arching. This becomes less true as the fluidity of the ground increases. The soft material which normally comprises the beds of rivers can approach an almost liquid condition resulting in a hydraulic head from the overbearing water sufficient to prevent the driving of even the most carefully worked drift, supported by simple timbering. The basic defect of the timbering systems used in mining and tunneling was that there was inevitably a certain amount of the face or ceiling unsupported just previous to setting a frame, or placing over it the necessary section of lagging. In mine work, runny soil could, and did, break through such gaps, filling the working. For this reason, there were no serious attempts made before 1825 to drive subaqueous tunnels.

In that year, work was started on a tunnel under the Thames between the Rotherhithe and Wapping sections of London, under guidance of the already famous engineer Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849), father of I. K. Brunel. The undertaking is of great interest in that Brunel employed an entirely novel apparatus of his own invention to provide continuous and reliable support of the soft water-bearing clay which formed the riverbed. By means of this “shield,” Brunel was able to drive the world’s first subaqueous tunnel.

The shield was of cast-iron, rectangular in elevation, and was propelled forward by jackscrews. Shelves at top, bottom, and sides supported the tunnel roof, floor, and walls until the permanent brick lining was placed. The working face, the critical area, was supported by a large number of small “breasting boards,” held against the ground by small individual screws bearing against the shield framework. The shield itself was formed of 12 separate frames, each of which could be advanced independently of the others. The height was 22 feet 3 inches: the width 37 feet 6 inches.

The progress was piecemeal. In operation the miners would remove one breasting board at a time, excavate in front of it, and then replace it in the advanced position—about 6 inches forward. This was repeated with the next board above or below, and the sequence continued until the ground for the entire height of one of the 12 sections had been removed. The board screws for that section were shifted to bear on the adjacent frames, relieving the frame of longitudinal pressure. It could then be screwed forward by the amount of advance, the screws bearing to the rear on the completed masonry. Thus, step by step the tunnel progressed slowly, the greatest weekly advance being 14 feet.

Figure 17.—Soft-ground tunneling. The support of walls and roof of mine shaft by simple timbering; 16th century. MHT model—/4" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-J.)

In the left-hand portion of the model is the shaft sunk to begin operations; here also is shown the bucket hoist for removing the spoil. The V-type steam engine powering the hoist was designed by Brunel. At the right of the main model is an enlarged detail of the shield, actually an improved version built in 1835.

The work continued despite setbacks of every sort. The financial ones need no recounting here. Technically, although the shield principle proved workable, the support afforded was not infallible. Four or five times the river broke through the thin cover of silt and flooded the workings, despite the utmost caution in excavating. When this occurred, masses of clay, sandbags, and mats were dumped over the opening in the riverbed to seal it, and the tunnel pumped out. I. K. Brunel acted as superintendent and nearly lost his life on a number of occasions. After several suspensions of work resulting from withdrawal or exhaustion of support, one lasting seven years, the work was completed in 1843.

Despite the fact that Brunel had, for the first time, demonstrated a practical method for tunneling in firm and water-bearing ground, the enormous cost of the work and the almost overwhelming problems encountered had a discouraging effect rather than otherwise. Not for another quarter of a century was a similar project undertaken.

The Thames Tunnel was used for foot and light highway traffic until about 1870 when it was incorporated into the London Underground railway system, which it continues to serve today. The roofed-over top sections of the two shafts may still be seen from the river.

A number of contemporary popular accounts of the tunnel exist, but one of the most thorough and interesting expositions on a single tunnel work of any period is Henry Law’s A Memoir of the Thames Tunnel, published in 1845-1846 by John Weale. Law, an eminent civil engineer, covers the work in incredible detail from its inception until the major suspension in late 1828 when slightly more than half completed. The most valuable aspect of his record is a series of plates of engineering drawings of the shield and its components, which, so far as is known, exist nowhere else. These formed the basis of the enlarged section of the shield, shown to the right of the model of the tunnel itself. A vertical section through the shield is reproduced here from Law for comparison with the model (figs. and ).

Figure 18.—Soft-ground tunneling. The model of a 16th century mine in the Museum of History and Technology was constructed from illustrations in such works as G. E. von Löhneyss' Bericht vom Bergwerck, 1690, as well as the better known ones from De re Metallica.

Figure 19.—The successive stages in the enlargement of a mid-19th century railroad tunnel,
using the Austrian system of timbering. MHT model.

Figure 20.—M. I. Brunel's Thames Tunnel, 1825-1843, the first driven beneath a body of water.
MHT model—/4" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-F.)

THE TOWER SUBWAY

Figure 21.—Enlarged detail of Brunel's tunneling shield, vertical section. The first two and part of the third of the twelve frames are shown. To the left is the tunnel's completed brick lining and to the right, the individual breasting boards and screws for supporting the face. The propelling screws are seen at top and bottom, bearing against the lining. Three miners worked in each frame, one above the other. MHT model—/4" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-G.)

Various inventors attempted to improve upon the Brunel shield, aware of the fundamental soundness of the shield principle. Almost all bypassed the rectangular sectional construction used in the Thames Tunnel, and took as a starting point a sectional shield of circular cross section, advanced by Brunel in his original patent of 1818. James Henry Greathead (1844-1896), rightfully called the father of modern subaqueous tunneling, surmised in later years that Brunel had chosen a rectangular configuration for actual use, as one better adapted to the sectional type of shield. The English civil engineer, Peter W. Barlow, in 1864 and 1868 patented a circular shield, of one piece, which was the basis of one used by him in constructing a small subway of 1350 feet beneath the Thames in 1869, the first work to follow the lead of Brunel. Greathead, acting as Barlow’s contractor, was the designer of the shield actually used in the work, but it was obviously inspired by Barlow’s patents.

The reduction of the multiplicity of parts in the Brunel shield to a single rigid unit was of immense advantage and an advance perhaps equal to the shield concept of tunneling itself. The Barlow-Greathead shield was like the cap of a telescope with a sharpened circular ring on the front to assist in penetrating the ground. The diaphragm functioned, as did Brunel’s breasting boards, to resist the longitudinal earth pressure of the face, and the cylindrical portion behind the diaphragm bore the radial pressure of roof and walls. Here also for the first time, a permanent lining formed of cast-iron segments was used, a second major advancement in soft-ground tunneling practice. Not only could the segments be placed and bolted together far more rapidly than masonry lining could be laid up, but unlike the green masonry, they could immediately bear the full force of the shield-propelling screws.

Barlow, capitalizing on Brunel’s error in burrowing so close to the riverbed, maintained an average cover of 30 feet over the tunnel, driving through a solid stratum of firm London clay which was virtually impervious to water. As the result of this, combined with the advantages of the solid shield and the rapidly placed iron lining, the work moved forward at a pace and with a facility in startling contrast to that of the Thames Tunnel, although in fairness it must be recalled that the face area was far less.

The clay was found sufficiently sound that it could be readily excavated without the support of the diaphragm, and normally three miners worked in front of the shield, digging out the clay and passing it back through a doorway in the plate. This could be closed in case of a sudden settlement or break in. Following excavation, the shield was advanced 18 inches into the excavated area by means of 6 screws, and a ring of lining segments 18 inches in length bolted to the previous ring under cover of the overlapping rear skirt of the shield. The small annular space left between the outside of the lining and the clay by the thickness and clearance of the skirt—about an inch—was filled with thin cement grout. The tunnel was advanced 18 inches during each 8-hour shift. The work continued around the clock, and the 900-foot river section was completed in only 14 weeks. The entire work was completed almost without incident in just under a year, a remarkable performance for the world’s second subaqueous tunnel.

Figure 23.—Vertical section through Brunel's shield. The long lever, x, supported the wood centering for turning the masonry arches of the lining. (Law, A Memoir of the Thames Tunnel.)

Figure 24.—Thames Tunnel. Section through riverbed and tunnel following one of the break-throughs of the river. Inspection of the damage with a diving bell. (Beamish, A Memoir of the Life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel.)

The Tower Subway at first operated with cylindrical cars that nearly filled the 7-foot bore; the cars were drawn by cables powered by small steam engines in the shafts. This mode of power had previously been used in passenger service only on the Greenwich Street elevated railway in New York. Later the cars were abandoned as unprofitable and the tunnel turned into a footway (fig. 32). This small tunnel, the successful driving due entirely to Greathead’s skill, was the forerunner of the modern subaqueous tunnel. In it, two of the three elements essential to such work thereafter were first applied: the one-piece movable shield of circular section, and the segmental cast-iron lining.

The documentation of this work is far thinner than for the Thames Tunnel. The most accurate source of technical information is a brief historical account in Copperthwaite’s classic Tunnel Shields and the Use of Compressed Air in Subaqueous Works, published in 1906. Copperthwaite, a successful tunnel engineer, laments the fact that he was able to turn up no drawing or original data on this first shield of Greathead’s, but he presents a sketch of it prepared in the Greathead office in 1895, which is presumably a fair representation (fig. 33). The Tower Subway model was built on the basis of this and several woodcuts of the working area that appeared contemporaneously in the illustrated press. In this and the adjacent model of Beach’s Broadway Subway, the tunnel axis has been placed on an angle to the viewer, projecting the bore into the case so that the complete circle of the working face is included for a more suggestive effect. This was possible because of the short length of the work included.

Henry S. Drinker, also a tunnel engineer and author of the most comprehensive work on tunneling ever published, treats rock tunneling in exhaustive detail up to 1878. His notice of what he terms “submarine tunneling” is extremely brief. He does, however, draw a most interesting comparison between the first Thames Tunnel, built by Brunel, and the second, built by Greathead 26 years later:

FIRST THAMES TUNNEL SECOND THAMES TUNNEL
(TOWER SUBWAY)

Brickwork lining, 38 feet wide by 22/2 feet high. Cast-iron lining of 8 feet outside diameter.

120-ton cast-iron shield, accommodating 36 miners. 2/2-ton, wrought-iron shield, accommodating at most 3 men.

Workings filled by irruption of river five times. “Water encountered at almost any time could have been gathered in a stable pail.”

Eighteen years elapsed between start and finish of work. Work completed in about eleven months.

Cost: $3,000,000. Cost: $100,000.

Figure 25.—Transverse section through shield, after inundation. Such disasters, as well as the inconsistency of the riverbed's composition, seriously disturbed the alignment of the shield's individual sections. (Law, A Memoir of the Thames Tunnel.)

Figure 26.—Longitudinal section through Thames Tunnel after sandbagging to close a break in the riverbed. The tunnel is filled with silt and water. (Law, A Memoir of the Thames Tunnel.)

Figure 27.—Interior of the Thames Tunnel shortly after completion in 1843. (Photo courtesy of New York Public Library Picture Collection.)

Figure 28.—Thames Tunnel in use by London Underground railway. (Illustrated London News, 1869?)

Figure 29.—Placing a segment of cast-iron lining in Greathead's Tower Subway, 1869. To the rear is the shield's diaphragm or bulkhead. MHT model—1/2" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-B.)

BEACH’S BROADWAY SUBWAY

Almost simultaneously with the construction of the Tower Subway, the first American shield tunnel was driven by Alfred Ely Beach (1826-1896). Beach, as editor of the Scientific American and inventor of, among other things, a successful typewriter as early as 1856, was well known and respected in technical circles. He was not a civil engineer, but had become concerned with New York’s pressing traffic problem (even then) and as a solution, developed plans for a rapid-transit subway to extend the length of Broadway. He invented a shield as an adjunct to this system, solely to permit driving of the tunnel without disturbing the overlying streets.

An active patent attorney as well, Beach must certainly have known of and studied the existing patents for tunneling shields, which were, without exception, British. In certain aspects his shield resembled the one patented by Barlow in 1864, but never built. However, work on the Beach tunnel started in 1869, so close in time to that on the Tower Subway, that it is unlikely that there was any influence from that source. Beach had himself patented a shield, in June 1869, a two-piece, sectional design that bore no resemblance to the one used. His subway plan had been first introduced at the 1867 fair of the American Institute in the form of a short plywood tube through which a small, close-fitting car was blown by a fan. The car carried 12 passengers. Sensing opposition to the subway scheme from Tammany, in 1868 Beach obtained a charter to place a small tube beneath Broadway for transporting mail and small packages pneumatically, a plan he advocated independently of the passenger subway.

ADVANCING THE SHIELD. FITTING THE CASTINGS.

Figure 30.—Contemporary illustrations of Tower Subway works used as basis of the model in the Museum of History and Technology. (Illustrated London News, 1869.)

Figure 31.—Excavation in front of shield, Tower Subway. This was possible because of the stiffness of the clay encountered. MHT model—front of model shown in fig. 29. (Smithsonian photo 49260-A.)

Under this thin pretense of legal authorization, the sub-rosa excavation began from the basement of a clothing store on Warren Street near Broadway. The 8-foot-diameter tunnel ran eastward a short distance, made a 90-degree turn, and thence southward under Broadway to stop a block away under the south side of Murray Street. The total distance was about 312 feet. Work was carried on at night in total secrecy, the actual tunneling taking 58 nights. At the Warren Street terminal, a waiting room was excavated and a large Roots blower installed for propulsion of the single passenger car. The plan was similar to that used with the model in 1867: the cylindrical car fitted the circular tunnel with only slight circumferential clearance. The blower created a plenum within the waiting room and tunnel area behind the car of about 0.25 pounds per square inch, resulting in a thrust on the car of almost a ton, not accounting for blowby. The car was thus blown along its course, and was returned by reversing the blower’s suction and discharge ducts to produce an equivalent vacuum within the tunnel.

Figure 33.—Vertical section through the Greathead shield used at the Tower Subway, 1869. The first one-piece shield of circular section. (Copperthwaite, Tunnel Shields and the Use of Compressed Air in Subaqueous Works.)

The system opened in February of 1870 and remained in operation for about a year. Beach was ultimately subdued by the hostile influences of Boss Tweed, and the project was completely abandoned. Within a very few more years the first commercially operated elevated line was built, but the subway did not achieve legitimate status in New York until the opening of the Interborough line in 1904. Ironically, its route traversed Broadway for almost the length of the island.

Figure 32.—Interior of completed Tower Subway. (Thornbury, Old and New London, 1887, vol. 1, p. 126.)

The Beach shield operated with perfect success in this brief trial, although the loose sandy soil encountered was admittedly not a severe test of its qualities. No diaphragm was used; instead a series of 8 horizontal shelves with sharpened leading edges extended across the front opening of the shield. The outstanding feature of the machine was the substitution for the propelling screws used by Brunel and Greathead of 18 hydraulic rams, set around its circumference. These were fed by a single hand-operated pump, seen in the center of figure 34. By this means the course of the shield’s forward movement could be controlled with a convenience and precision not attainable with screws. Vertical and horizontal deflection was achieved by throttling the supply of water to certain of the rams, which could be individually controlled, causing greater pressure on one portion of the shield than another. This system has not changed in the ensuing time, except, of course, in the substitution of mechanically produced hydraulic pressure for hand.

Figure 34.—Beach's Broadway Subway. Advancing the shield by hydraulic rams, 1869. MHT model—1/2" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-E.)

Unlike the driving of the Tower Subway, no excavation was done in front of the shield. Rather, the shield was forced by the rams into the soil for the length of their stroke, the material which entered being supported by the shelves. This was removed from the shelves and hauled off. The ram plungers then were withdrawn and a 16-inch length of the permanent lining built up within the shelter of the shield’s tail ring. Against this, the rams bore for the next advance. Masonry lining was used in the straight section; cast-iron in the curved. The juncture is shown in the model.

Figure 35.—Vertical section through the Beach shield used on the Broadway Subway, showing the horizontal shelves (C), iron cutting ring (B), hydraulic rams (D), hydraulic pump (F), and rear protective skirt (H). (Scientific American, March 5, 1870.)

Figure 36.—Interior of Beach Subway showing iron lining on curved section and the pneumatically powered passenger car. View from waiting room. (Scientific American, March 5, 1870.)

Enlarged versions of the Beach shield were used in a few tunnels in the Midwest in the early 1870’s, but from then until 1886 the shield method, for no clear reason, again entered a period of disuse finding no application on either side of the Atlantic despite its virtually unqualified proof at the hands of Greathead and Beach. Little precise information remains on this work. The Beach system of pneumatic transit is described fully in a well-illustrated booklet published by him in January 1868, in which the American Institute model is shown, and many projected systems of pneumatic propulsion as well as of subterranean and subaqueous tunneling described. Beach again (presumably) is author of the sole contemporary account of the Broadway Subway, which appeared in Scientific American following its opening early in 1870. Included are good views of the tunnel and car, of the shield in operation, and, most important, a vertical sectional view through the shield (fig. 35).

It is interesting to note that optical surveys for maintenance of the course apparently were not used. The article illustrated and described the driving each night of a jointed iron rod up through the tunnel roof to the street, twenty or so feet above, for “testing the position.”

THE FIRST HUDSON RIVER TUNNEL

Despite the ultimate success of Brunel’s Thames Tunnel in 1843, the shield in that case afforded only moderately reliable protection because of the fluidity of the soil driven through, and its tendency to enter the works through the smallest opening in the shield’s defense. An English doctor who had made physiological studies of the effects on workmen of the high air pressure within diving bells is said to have recommended to Brunel in 1828 that he introduce an atmosphere of compressed air into the tunnel to exclude the water and support the work face.

This plan was first formally described by Sir Thomas Cochrane (1775-1860) in a British patent of 1830. Conscious of Brunel’s problems, he proposed a system of shaft sinking, mining, and tunneling in water-bearing materials by filling the excavated area with air sufficiently above atmospheric pressure to prevent the water from entering and to support the earth. In this, and his description of air locks for passage of men and materials between the atmosphere and the pressurized area, Cochrane fully outlined the essential features of pneumatic excavation as developed since.

Figure 37.—The giant Roots lobe-type blower used for propelling the car.

Figure 38.—Testing alignment of the Broadway Subway at night by driving a jointed rod up to street level. (Scientific American, March 5, 1870.)

In 1839, a French engineer first used the system in sinking a mine shaft through a watery stratum. From then on, the sinking of shafts, and somewhat later the construction of bridge pier foundations, by the pneumatic method became almost commonplace engineering practice in Europe and America. Not until 1879 however, was the system tried in tunneling work, and then, as with the shield ten years earlier, almost simultaneously here and abroad. The first application was in a small river tunnel in Antwerp, only 5 feet in height. This project was successfully completed relying on compressed air alone to support the earth, no shield being used. The importance of the work cannot be considered great due to its lack of scope.

In 1871 Dewitt C. Haskin (1822-1900), a west coast mine and railroad builder, became interested in the pneumatic caissons then being used to found the river piers of Eads’ Mississippi River bridge at St. Louis. In apparent total ignorance of the Cochrane patent, he evolved a similar system for tunneling water-bearing media, and in 1873 proposed construction of a tunnel through the silt beneath the Hudson to provide rail connection between New Jersey and New York City.

Figure 39.—Haskin's pneumatically driven tunnel under the Hudson River, 1880. In the engine room at top left was the machinery for hoisting, generating electricity for lighting, and air compressing. The air lock is seen in the wall of the brick shaft. MHT model—0.3" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260.)

Figure 40.—Artist's conception of miners escaping into the air lock during the blowout in Haskin's tunnel.

It would be difficult to imagine a site more in need of such communication. All lines from the south terminated along the west shore of the river and the immense traffic—cars, freight and passengers—was carried across to Manhattan Island by ferry and barge with staggering inconvenience and at enormous cost. A bridge would have been, and still is, almost out of the question due not only to the width of the crossing, but to the flatness of both banks. To provide sufficient navigational clearance (without a drawspan), impracticably long approaches would have been necessary to obtain a permissibly gentle grade.

Haskin formed a tunneling company and began work with the sinking of a shaft in Hoboken on the New Jersey side. In a month it was halted because of an injunction by, curiously, the D L & W Railroad, who feared for their vast investment in terminal and marine facilities. Not until November of 1879 was the injunction lifted and work again commenced. The shaft was completed and an air lock located in one wall from which the tunnel proper was to be carried forward. It was Haskin’s plan to use no shield, relying solely on the pressure of compressed air to maintain the work faces and prevent the entry of water. The air was admitted in late December, and the first large-scale pneumatic tunneling operation launched. A single 26-foot, double-track bore was at first undertaken, but a work face of such diameter proved unmanageable and two oval tubes 18 feet high by 16 feet wide were substituted, each to carry a single track. Work went forward with reasonable facility, considering the lack of precedent. A temporary entrance was formed of sheet-iron rings from the air lock down to the tunnel grade, at which point the permanent work of the north tube was started. Immediately behind the excavation at the face, a lining of thin wrought-iron plates was built up, to provide form for the 2-foot, permanent brick lining that followed. The three stages are shown in the model in about their proper relationship of progress. The work is shown passing beneath an old timber-crib bulkhead, used for stabilizing the shoreline.

The silt of the riverbed was about the consistency of putty and under good conditions formed a secure barrier between the excavation and the river above. It was easily excavated, and for removal was mixed with water and blown out through a pipe into the shaft by the higher pressure in the tunnel. About half was left in the bore for removal later. The basic scheme was workable, but in operation an extreme precision was required in regulating the air pressure in the work area. It was soon found that there existed an 11-psi difference between the pressure of water on the top and the bottom of the working face, due to the 22-foot height of the unlined opening. Thus, it was impossible to maintain perfect pneumatic balance of the external pressure over the entire face. It was necessary to strike an average with the result that some water entered at the bottom of the face where the water pressure was greatest, and some air leaked out at the top where the water pressure was below the air pressure. Constant attention was essential: several men did nothing but watch the behavior of the leaks and adjusted the pressure as the ground density changed with advance. Air was supplied by several steam-driven compressors at the surface.

The air lock permitted passage back and forth of men and supplies between the atmosphere and the work area, without disturbing the pressure differential. This principle is demonstrated by an animated model set into the main model, to the left of the shaft (fig. 39). The variation of pressure within the lock chamber to match the atmosphere or the pressurized area, depending on the direction of passage, is clearly shown by simplified valves and gauges, and by the use of light in varying color density. In the Haskin tunnel, 5 to 10 minutes were taken to pass the miners through the lock so as to avoid too abrupt a physiological change.

Despite caution, a blowout occurred in July 1880 due to air leakage not at the face, but around the temporary entrance. One door of the air lock jammed and twenty men drowned, resulting in an inquiry which brought forth much of the distrust with which Haskin was regarded by the engineering profession. His ability and qualifications were subjected to the bitterest attack in and by the technical press. There is some indication that, although the project began with a staff of competent engineers, they were alienated by Haskin in the course of work and at least one withdrew. Haskin’s remarks in his own defense indicate that some of the denunciation was undoubtedly justified. And yet, despite this reaction, the fundamental merit of the pneumatic tunneling method had been demonstrated by Haskin and was immediately recognized and freely acknowledged. It was apparent at the same time, however, that air by itself did not provide a sufficiently reliable support for large-area tunnel works in unstable ground, and this remains the only major subaqueous tunnel work driven with air alone.

Figure 41.—Location of Hudson River Tunnel. (Leslie's Weekly, 1879.)

After the accident, work continued under Haskin until 1882 when funds ran out. About 1600 feet of the north tube and 600 feet of the south tube had been completed. Greathead resumed operations with a shield for a British company in 1889, but exhaustion of funds again caused stoppage in 1891. The tunnel was finally completed in 1904, and is now in use as part of the Hudson and Manhattan rapid-transit system, never providing the sought-after rail link. A splendid document of the Haskin portion of the work is S. D. V. Burr’s Tunneling Under the Hudson River published in 1885. It is based entirely upon firsthand material and contains drawings of most of the work, including the auxiliary apparatus. It is interesting to note that electric illumination (arc, not incandescent, lights) and telephones were used, unquestionably the first employment of either in tunnel work.

Figure 42.—St. Clair Tunnel. View of front of shield showing method of excavation in firm strata. Incandescent electric illumination was used. 1889-90. MHT model—1" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-D.)

THE ST. CLAIR TUNNEL

The final model of the soft-ground series reflects, as did the Hoosac Tunnel model for hard-rock tunneling, final emergence into the modern period. Although the St. Clair Tunnel was completed over 70 years ago, it typifies in its method of construction, the basic procedures of subaqueous work in the present day. The Thames Tunnel of Brunel, and Haskin’s efforts beneath the Hudson, had clearly shown that by themselves, both the shield and pneumatic systems of driving through fluid ground were defective in practice for tunnels of large area. Note that the earliest successful works by each method had been of very small area, so that the influence of adverse conditions was greatly diminished.

The first man to perceive and seize upon the benefits to be gained by combining the two systems was, most fittingly, Greathead. Although he had projected the technique earlier, in driving the underground City and South London Railway in 1886, he brought together for the first time the three fundamental elements essential for the practical tunneling of soft, water-bearing ground: compressed-air support of the work during construction, the movable shield, and cast-iron, permanent lining. The marriage was a happy one indeed; the limitations of each system were almost perfectly overcome by the qualities of the others.

The conditions prevailing in 1882 at the Sarnia, Ontario, terminal of the Grand Trunk Railway, both operational and physical, were almost precisely the same as those which inspired the undertaking of the Hudson River Tunnel. The heavy traffic at this vital U.S.—Canada rail interchange was ferried inconveniently across the wide St. Clair River, and the bank and river conditions precluded construction of a bridge. A tunnel was projected by the railway in that year, the time when Haskin’s tribulations were at their height. Perhaps because of this lack of precedent for a work of such size, nothing was done immediately. In 1884 the railway organized a tunnel company; in 1886 test borings were made in the riverbed and small exploratory drifts were started across from both banks by normal methods of mine timbering. The natural gas, quicksand, and water encountered soon stopped the work.

Figure 43.—Rear view of St. Clair shield showing the erector arm placing a cast-iron lining segment. The three motions of the arm—axial, radial, and rotational, were manually powered. (Smithsonian photo 49260-C.)

It was at this time that the railway’s president visited Greathead’s City and South London workings. The obvious answer to the St. Clair problem lay in the successful conduct of this subway. Joseph Hobson, chief engineer of the Grand Trunk and of the tunnel project, in designing a shield, is said to have searched for drawings of the shields used in the Broadway and Tower Subways of 1868-9, but unable to locate any, he relied to a limited extent on the small drawings of those in Drinker’s volume. There is no explanation as to why he did not have drawings of the City and South London shield at that moment in use, unless one considers the rather unlikely possibility that Greathead maintained its design in secrecy.

Figure 44.—Opening of the St. Clair Tunnel, 1891. (Photo courtesy of Detroit Library, Burton Historical Collection.)

The Hobson shield followed Greathead’s as closely as any other, in having a diaphragm with closable doors, but a modification of Beach’s sharpened horizontal shelves was also used. However, these functioned more as working platforms than supports for the earth. The machine was 21/2 feet in diameter, an unprecedented size and almost twice that of Greathead’s current one. It was driven by 24 hydraulic rams. Throughout the entire preliminary consideration of the project there was a marked sense of caution that amounted to what seems an almost total lack of confidence in success. Commencement of the work from vertical shafts was planned so that if the tunnel itself failed, no expenditure would have been made for approach work. In April 1888, the shafts were started near both riverbanks, but before reaching proper depth the almost fluid clay and silt flowed up faster than it could be excavated and this plan was abandoned. After this second inauspicious start, long open approach cuts were made and the work finally began. The portals were established in the cuts, several thousand feet back from each bank and there the tunneling itself began. The portions under the shore were driven without air. When the banks were reached, brick bulkheads containing air locks were built across the opening and the section beneath the river, about 3,710 feet long, driven under air pressure of 10 to 28 pounds above atmosphere. For most of the way, the clay was firm and there was little air leakage. It was found that horses could not survive in the compressed air, and so mules were used under the river.

In the firm clay, excavation was carried on several feet in front of the shield, as shown in the model (fig. 42). About twelve miners worked at the face. However, in certain strata the clay encountered was so fluid that the shield could be simply driven forward by the rams, causing the muck to flow in at the door openings without excavation. After each advance, the rams were retracted and a ring of iron lining segments built up, as in the Tower Subway. Here, for the first time, an “erector arm” was used for placing the segments, which weighed about half a ton. In all respects, the work advanced with wonderful facility and lack of operational difficulty. Considering the large area, no subaqueous tunnel had ever been driven with such speed. The average monthly progress for the American and Canadian headings totaled 455 feet, and at top efficiency 10 rings or a length of 15.3 feet could be set in a 24-hour day in each heading. The 6,000 feet of tunnel was driven in just a year; the two shields met vis-a-vis in August of 1890.

The transition was complete. The work had been closely followed by the technical journals and the reports of its successful accomplishment thus were brought to the attention of the entire civil engineering profession. As the first major subaqueous tunnel completed in America and the first in the world of a size able to accommodate full-scale rail traffic, the St. Clair Tunnel served to dispel the doubts surrounding such work, and established the pattern for a mode of tunneling which has since changed only in matters of detail.

Of the eight models, only this one was built under the positive guidance of original documents. In the possession of the Canadian National Railways are drawings not only of all elements of the shield and lining, but of much of the auxiliary apparatus used in construction. Such materials rarely survive, and do so in this case only because of the foresight of the railway which, to avoid paying a high profit margin to a private contractor as compensation for the risk and uncertainty involved, carried the contract itself and, therefore, preserved all original drawing records.

While the engineering of tunnels has been comprehensively treated in this paper from the historical standpoint, it is well to still reflect that the advances made in tunneling have not perceptibly removed the elements of uncertainty but have only provided more positive and effective means of countering their forces. Still to be faced are the surprises of hidden streams, geologic faults, shifts of strata, unstable materials, and areas of extreme pressure and temperature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agricola, Georgius. De re Metallica. [English transl. H. C. and L. H. Hoover (The Mining Magazine, London, 1912).] Basel: Froben, 1556.

Beach, Alfred Ely. The pneumatic dispatch. New York: The American News Company, 1868.

Beamish, Richard. A memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel. London: Longmans, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1862.

Burr, S. D. V. Tunneling under the Hudson River. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1885.

Copperthwaite, William Charles. Tunnel shields and the use of compressed air in subaqueous works. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1906.

Drinker, Henry Sturgess. Tunneling, explosive compounds and rock drills. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1878.

Latrobe, Benjamin H. Report on the Hoosac Tunnel (Baltimore, October 1, 1862). Pp. 125-139, app. 2, in Report of the commissioners upon the Troy and Greenfield Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel. Boston, 1863.

Law, Henry. A memoir of the Thames Tunnel. Weale’s Quarterly Papers on Engineering (London, 1845-46), vol. 3, pp. 1-25 and vol. 5, pp. 1-86.

The pneumatic tunnel under Broadway, N.Y. Scientific American (March 5, 1870), pp. 154-156.

Report of the commissioners upon the Troy and Greenfield Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel to his excellency the governor and the honorable the executive council of the state of Massachusetts, February 28, 1863. Boston, 1863.

Storrow, Charles S. Report on European tunnels (Boston, November 28, 1862). Pp. 5-122, app. 1, in Report of the commissioners upon the Troy and Greenfield Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel…. Boston, 1863.

The St. Clair Tunnel. Engineering News (in series running October 4 to December 27, 1890).

FOOTNOTES

All obvious typographical errors corrected. Formatting inconsistancies and spelling were standardized. Paragraphs split by illustrations were rejoined.

Transcription of the text in Figure 22. The text was transcribed with a slight modification to the figure description portion.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC EVERY DAY (Sundays excepted)
from Seven in the Morning, until Eight in the Evening,

THE THAMES TUNNEL.

Fig. 1 shows a transverse section of the Thames, and beneath it a longitudinal section of the Tunnel, as it will be when completed; with the ascents in the inclinations in which they will be finished.

Fig. 2 shows the two arched entrances of the Tunnel from the shaft.

Fig. 3 is a representation of the iron shield, and shows a workman in each of the compartments.

The Entrance to the Tunnel is near to Rotherhithe Church, and nearly opposite to the London-Docks. The nearest landing place from the river is Church Stairs. The Greenwich and Deptford coaches which go the lower road, start hourly from Charing-cross, and Gracechurch-street, and pass close by the works at Rotherhithe.

Books relative to the Tunnel may be had at the works.

The Public may view the Tunnel every day (Sundays excepted) from Seven in the morning until Eight in the Evening, upon payment of One Shilling each Person.

The extreme northern end of the Tunnel is for the present secured by a strong wall; but visitors will find a dry, warm, and gravelled promenade, as far as to almost the centre of the river, and brilliantly lighted with oil gas.

The entrance is from Rotherhithe Street, and by a safe, commodious, and easy stair case.

H. Teape & Son, Printers, Tower-hill, London.

Contributions from
The Museum of History and Technology.
Paper 42

The “Pioneer”: Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851
In the Museum of History and Technology

John H. White

THE CUMBERLAND VALLEY RAILROAD 244

SERVICE HISTORY OF THE “PIONEER” 249

MECHANICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE “PIONEER” 251

FOOTNOTES

INDEX

Figure 1.—The “Pioneer,” built in 1851, shown here as renovated and exhibited in the Museum of History and Technology, 1964. In 1960 the locomotive was given to the Smithsonian Institution by the Pennsylvania Railroad through John S. Fair, Jr. (Smithsonian photo 63344B.)

John H. White

The “PIONEER”:
LIGHT PASSENGER LOCOMOTIVE
of 1851
In the Museum of History and Technology

In the mid-nineteenth century there was a renewed interest in the light, single-axle locomotives which were proving so very successful for passenger traffic. These engines were built in limited number by nearly every well-known maker, and among the few remaining is the 6-wheel “Pioneer,” on display in the Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution. This locomotive is a true representation of a light passenger locomotive of 1851 and a historic relic of the mid-nineteenth century.

The Author: John H. White is associate curator of transportation in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of History and Technology.

The “Pioneer” is an unusual locomotive and on first inspection would seem to be imperfect for service on an American railroad of the 1850’s. This locomotive has only one pair of driving wheels and no truck, an arrangement which marks it as very different from the highly successful standard 8-wheel engine of this period. All six wheels of the Pioneer are rigidly attached to the frame. It is only half the size of an 8-wheel engine of 1851 and about the same size of the 4—2—0 so common in this country some 20 years earlier. Its general arrangement is that of the rigid English locomotive which had, years earlier, proven unsuitable for use on U.S. railroads.

These objections are more apparent than real, for the Pioneer, and other engines of the same design, proved eminently successful when used in the service for which they were built, that of light passenger traffic. The Pioneer’s rigid wheelbase is no problem, for when it is compared to that of an 8-wheel engine it is found to be about four feet less; and its small size is no problem when we realize it was not intended for heavy service. Figure 2, a diagram, is a comparison of the Pioneer and a standard 8-wheel locomotive.

Since the service life of the Pioneer was spent on the Cumberland Valley Railroad, a brief account of that line is necessary to an understanding of the service history of this locomotive.

Exhibits of the “Pioneer”

The Pioneer has been a historic relic since 1901. In the fall of that year minor repairs were made to the locomotive so that it might be used in the sesquicentennial celebration at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. On October 22, 1901, the engine was ready for service, but as it neared Carlisle a copper flue burst. The fire was extinguished and the Pioneer was pushed into town by another engine. In the twentieth century, the Pioneer was displayed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904, and at the Wheeling, West Virginia, semicentennial in 1913. In 1927 it joined many other historic locomotives at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s “Fair of the Iron Horse” which commemorated the first one hundred years of that company. From about 1913 to 1925 the Pioneer also appeared a number of times at the Apple-blossom Festival at Winchester, Virginia. In 1933-1934 it was displayed at the World’s Fair in Chicago, and in 1948 at the Railroad Fair in the same city. Between 1934 and March 1947 it was exhibited at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Cumberland Valley Railroad

The Cumberland Valley Railroad (C.V.R.R.) was chartered on April 2, 1831, to connect the Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers by a railroad through the Cumberland Valley in south-central Pennsylvania. The Cumberland Valley, with its rich farmland and iron-ore deposits, was a natural north-south route long used as a portage between these two rivers. Construction began in 1836, and because of the level valley some 52 miles of line was completed between Harrisburg and Chambersburg by November 16, 1837. In 1860, by way of the Franklin Railroad, the line extended to Hagerstown, Maryland. It was not until 1871 that the Cumberland Valley Railroad reached its projected southern terminus, the Potomac River, by extending to Powells Bend, Maryland. Winchester, Virginia, was entered in 1890 giving the Cumberland Valley Railroad about 165 miles of line. The railroad which had become associated with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859, was merged with that company in 1919.

By 1849 the Cumberland Valley Railroad was in poor condition; the strap-rail track was worn out and new locomotives were needed. Captain Daniel Tyler was hired to supervise rebuilding the line with T-rail, and easy grades and curves. Tyler recommended that a young friend of his, Alba F. Smith, be put in charge of modernizing and acquiring new equipment. Smith recommended to the railroad’s Board of Managers on June 25, 1851, that “much lighter engines than those now in use may be substituted for the passenger transportation and thereby effect a great saving both in point of fuel and road repairs….” Smith may well have gone on to explain that the road was operating 3- and 4-car passenger trains with a locomotive weighing about 20 tons; the total weight was about 75 tons, equalling the uneconomical deadweight of 1200 pounds per passenger. Since speed was not an important consideration (30 mph being a good average), the use of lighter engines would improve the deadweight-to-passenger ratio and would not result in a slower schedule.

The Board of Managers agreed with Smith’s recommendations and instructed him “… to examine the two locomotives lately built by Mr. Wilmarth and now in the [protection?] of Captain Tyler at Norwich and if in his judgment they are adequate to our wants … have them forwarded to the road.” Smith inspected the locomotives not long after this resolution was passed, for they were on the road by the time he made the following report to the Board on September 24, 1851:

In accordance with a resolution passed at the last meeting of your body relative to the small engines built by Mr. Wilmarth I proceeded to Norwich to make trial of their capacity—fitness or suitability to the Passenger transportation of our Road—and after as thorough a trial as circumstances would admit (being on another Road than our own) I became satisfied that with some necessary improvements which would not be expensive (and are now being made at our shop) the engines would do the business of our Road not only in a manner satisfactory in point of speed and certainty but with greater ultimate economy in Expenses than has before been practised in this Country.

Figure 2.—Diagram comparing the Pioneer (shaded drawing) with the Columbia, a standard 8-wheel engine of 1851. (Drawing by J. H. White.)

Columbia

Hudson River Railroad
Lowell Machine Shop, 1852
Wt. 27/2 tons (engine only)
Cyl. 16/2 x 22 inches
Wheel diam. 84 inches

Pioneer

Cumberland Valley Railroad
Seth Wilmarth, 1851
12/2 tons
8/2 x 14 inches
54 inches

After making the above trial of the Engines—I stated to your Hon. President the result of the trial—with my opinion of their Capacity to carry our passenger trains at the speed required which was decidedly in favor of the ability of the Engines. He accordingly agreed that the Engines should at once be forwarded to the Road in compliance with the Resolution of your Board. I immediately ordered the Engines shipped at the most favorable rates. They came to our Road safely in the Condition in which they were shipped. One of the Engines has been placed on the Road and I believe performed in such a manner as to convince all who are able to judge of this ability to perform—although the maximum duty of the Engines was not performed on account of some original defects which are now being remedied as I before stated.

Within ten days the Engine will be able to run regularly with a train on the Road where in shall be enabled to judge correctly of their merits.

An accident occurred during the trial of the Small Engine at Norwich which caused a damage of about $300 in which condition the Engine came here and is now being repaired—the cost of which will be presented to your Board hereafter. As to the fault or blame of parties connected with the accident as also the question of responsibility for Repairs are questions for your disposal. I therefore leave the matter until further called upon.

The Expenses necessarily incurred by the trial of the Engines and also the Expenses of transporting the same are not included in the Statement herewith presented, the whole amount of which will not probably exceed $400.00.

These two locomotives became the Cumberland Valley Railroad’s Pioneer (number 13) and Jenny Lind (number 14). While Smith notes that one of the engines was damaged during the inspection trials, Joseph Winters, an employee of the Cumberland Valley who claimed he was accompanying the engine enroute to Chambersburg at the time of their delivery, later recalled that both engines were damaged in transit. According to Winters a train ran into the rear of the Jenny Lind, damaging both it and the Pioneer, the accident occurring near Middletown, Pennsylvania. The Jenny Lind was repaired at Harrisburg but the Pioneer, less seriously damaged, was taken for repairs to the main shops of the Cumberland Valley road at Chambersburg.

Figure 3.—“Pioneer,” about 1901, showing the sandbox and large headlamp. Note the lamp on the cab roof, now used as the headlight. (Smithsonian photo 49272.)

While there seems little question that these locomotives were not built as a direct order for the Cumberland Valley Railroad, an article appearing in the Railroad Advocate in 1855 credits their design to Smith. The article speaks of a 2—2—4 built for the Macon and Western Railroad and says in part:

This engine is designed and built very generally upon the ideas, embodied in some small tank engines designed by A. F. Smith, Esq., for the Cumberland Valley road. Mr. Smith is a strong advocate of light engines, and his novel style and proportions of engines, as built for him a few years since, by Seth Wilmarth, at Boston, are known to some of our readers. Without knowing all the circumstances under which these engines are worked on the Cumberland Valley road, we should not venture to repeat all that we have heard of their performances, it is enough to say that they are said to do more, in proportion to their weight, than any other engines now in use.

The author believes that the Railroad Advocate’s claim of Smith’s design of the Pioneer has been confused with his design of the Utility (figs. , ). Smith designed this compensating-lever engine to haul trains over the C.V.R.R. bridge at Harrisburg. It was built by Wilmarth in 1854.

Figure 4.—Map of the Cumberland Valley Railroad as it appeared in 1919.

According to statements of Smith and the Board of Managers quoted on page 244, the Pioneer and the Jenny Lind were not new when purchased from their maker, Seth Wilmarth. Although of recent manufacture, previous to June 1851, they were apparently doing service on a road in Norwich, Connecticut. It should be mentioned that both Smith and Tyler were formerly associated with the Norwich and Worcester Railroad and they probably learned of these two engines through this former association. It is possible that the engines were purchased from Wilmarth by the Cumberland Valley road, which had bought several other locomotives from Wilmarth in previous years. It was the practice of at least one other New England engine builder, the Taunton Locomotive Works, to manufacture engines on the speculation that a buyer would be found; if no immediate buyers appeared the engine was leased to a local road until a sale was made.

Regarding the Jenny Lind and Pioneer, Smith reported to the Board of Managers at their meeting of March 17, 1852:

The small tank engines which were purchased last year … and which I spoke in a former report as undergoing at that time some necessary improvements have since that time been fairly tested as to their capacity to run our passenger trains and proved to be equal to the duty.

The improvements proposed to be made have been completed only on one engine [Jenny Lind] which is now running regularly with passenger trains—the cost of repairs and improvements on this engine (this being the one accidentally broken on the trial) amounted to $476.51. The other engine is now in the shop, not yet ready for service but will be at an early day.

Figure 6.—The “Utility” as rebuilt to an 8-wheel engine, about 1863 or 1864. It was purchased by the Carlisle Manufacturing Co. in 1882 and was last used in 1896. (Smithsonian photo 36716F.)

Figure 7.—The “Utility,” designed by Smith A. F. and constructed by Seth Wilmarth in 1854, was built to haul trains across the bridge at Harrisburg, Pa.

Figure 8.—The earliest known illustration of the Pioneer, drawn by A. S. Hull, master mechanic of the Cumberland Valley Railroad in 1876. It depicts the engine as it appeared in 1871. (Courtesy of Paul Westhaeffer.)

The Pioneer and Jenny Lind achieved such success in action that the president of the road, Frederick Watts, commented on their performance in the annual report of the Cumberland Valley Railroad for 1851. Watts stated that since their passenger trains were rarely more than a baggage car and two coaches, the light locomotives “… have been found to be admirably adapted to our business.” The Cumberland Valley Railroad, therefore, added two more locomotives of similar design in the next few years. These engines were the Boston and the Enterprise, also built by Wilmarth in 1854-1855.

Watts reported the Pioneer and Jenny Lind cost $7,642. A standard 8-wheel engine cost about $6,500 to $8,000 each during this period. In recent years, the Pennsylvania Railroad has stated the Pioneer cost $6,200 in gold, but is unable to give the source for this information. The author can discount this statement for it does not seem reasonable that a light, cheap engine of the pattern of the Pioneer could cost as much as a machine nearly twice its size.

Service History of the Pioneer

After being put in service, the Pioneer continued to perform well and was credited as able to move a 4-car passenger train along smartly at 40 mph. This tranquility was shattered in October 1862 by a raiding party led by Confederate General J. E. B. Stuart which burned the Chambersburg shops of the Cumberland Valley Railroad. The Pioneer, Jenny Lind, and Utility were partially destroyed. The Cumberland Valley Railroad in its report for 1862 stated:

The Wood-shop, Machine-shop, Black-smith-shop, Engine-house, Wood-sheds, and Passenger Depot were totally consumed, and with the Engine-house three second-class Engines were much injured by the fire, but not so destroyed but that they may be restored to usefulness.

However, no record can be found of the extent or exact nature of the damage. The shops and a number of cars were burned so it is reasonable to assume that the cab and other wooden parts of the locomotive were damaged. One unverified report in the files of the Pennsylvania Railroad states that part of the roof and brick wall fell on the Pioneer during the fire causing considerable damage. In June 1864 the Chambersburg shops were again burned by the Confederates, but on this occasion the railroad managed to remove all its locomotives before the raid. During the Civil War, the Cumberland Valley Railroad was obliged to operate longer passenger trains to satisfy the enlarged traffic. The Pioneer and its sister single-axle engines were found too light for these trains and were used only on work and special trains. Reference to table 1 will show that the mileage of the Pioneer fell off sharply for the years 1860-1865.

Table 1.—Yearly Mileage of the Pioneer
(From Annual Reports of the Cumberland Valley Railroad)

Year: Miles

1852 3,182

1853 20,722

1854 18,087

1855 14,151

1856 20,998

1857 22,779

1858 29,094

1859 29,571

1860 4,824

1861 4,346

1862

1863 5,339

1864 224

1865 2,215

1866 20,546

1867 5,709

1868 13,626

1869 1,372

1870 …

1871 2,102

1872 4,002

1873 3,721

1874 3,466

1875 636

1876 870

1877 406

1878 4,433

1879 …

1880 8,306

1881

Total 244,727

In 1871 the Pioneer was remodeled by A. S. Hull, master mechanic of the railroad. The exact nature of the alterations cannot be determined, as no drawings or photographs of the engine previous to this time are known to exist. In fact, the drawing (fig. 8) prepared by Hull in 1876 to show the engine as remodeled in 1871 is the oldest known illustration of the Pioneer. Paul Westhaeffer, a lifelong student of Cumberland Valley R. R. history, states that according to an interview with one of Hull’s descendants the only alteration made to the Pioneer during the 1871 “remodeling” was the addition of a handbrake. The road’s annual report of 1853 describes the Pioneer as a six-wheel tank engine. The report of 1854 mentions that the Pioneer used link motion. These statements are enough to give substance to the idea that the basic arrangement has survived unaltered and that it has not been extensively rebuilt, as was the Jenny Lind in 1878.

By the 1870’s, the Pioneer was too light for the heavier cars then in use and by 1880 it had reached the end of its usefulness for regular service. After nearly thirty years on the road it had run 255,675 miles. Two new passenger locomotives were purchased in 1880 to handle the heavier trains. In 1881 the Pioneer was dropped from the roster, but was used until about 1890 for work trains. After this time it was stored in a shed at Falling Spring, Pennsylvania, near the Chambersburg yards of the C.V.R.R.

Mechanical Description of the Pioneer

Figure 11.—“Pioneer,” about 1901, scene unknown. (Photo courtesy of Thomas Norrell.)

After the early 1840’s the single-axle locomotive, having one pair of driving wheels, was largely superseded by the 8-wheel engine. The desire to operate longer trains and the need for engines of greater traction to overcome the steep grades of American roads called for coupled driving wheels and machines of greater weight than the 4—2—0. After the introduction of the 4—4—0, the single-axle engine received little attention in this country except for light service or such special tasks as inspection or dummy engines.

Figure 12.—The “Pioneer” in Carlisle, Pa., 1901. (Photo courtesy of Thomas Norrell.)

There was, however, a renewed interest in “singles” in the early 1850’s because of W. B. Adams’ experiments with light passenger locomotives in England. In 1850 Adams built a light single-axle tank locomotive for the Eastern Counties Railway which proved very economical for light passenger traffic. It was such a success that considerable interest in light locomotives was generated in this country as well as in England. Nearly 100 single-axle locomotives were built in the United States between about 1845-1870. These engines were built by nearly every well-known maker, from Hinkley in Boston to the Vulcan Foundry in San Francisco. Danforth Cooke & Co. of Paterson built a standard pattern 4—2—4 used by many roads. One of these, the C. P. Huntington, survives to the present time.

The following paragraphs describe the mechanical details of the Pioneer as it appears on exhibition in the Smithsonian Institution’s new Museum of History and Technology.

BOILER

The boiler is the most important and costly part of a steam locomotive, representing one-fourth to one-third of the total cost. A poorly built or designed boiler will produce a poor locomotive no matter how well made the remainder of mechanism. The boiler of the Pioneer is of the wagon-top, crownbar, fire-tube style and is made of a /16-inch thick, wrought-iron plate. The barrel is very small, in keeping with the size of the engine, being only 27 inches in diameter. While some readers may believe this to be an extremely early example of a wagon-top boiler, we should remember that most New England builders produced few locomotives with the Bury (dome) boiler and that the chief advocates of this later style were the Philadelphia builders. By the early 1850’s the Bury boiler passed out of favor entirely and the wagon top became the standard type of boiler with all builders in this country.

Sixty-three iron tubes, 1/8 inches by 85 inches long are used. The original tubes may have been copper or brass since these were easier to keep tight than the less malleable iron tubes. The present tube sheet is of iron but was originally copper. Its thickness cannot be conveniently measured, but it is greater than that of the boiler shell, probably about /2 to /8 inch. While copper tubes and tube sheets were not much used in this country after about 1870, copper was employed as recently as 1950 by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, Ltd., on some small industrial locomotives.

The boiler shell is lagged with wooden tongue-and-groove strips about 2/2 inches wide (felt also was used for insulation during this period). The wooden lagging is covered with Russia sheet iron which is held in place and the joints covered by polished brass bands. Russia sheet iron is a planish iron having a lustrous, metallic gray finish.

Alba F. Smith

Alba F. Smith, the man responsible for the purchase of the Pioneer, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, June 28, 1817. Smith showed promise as a mechanic at an early age and by the time he was 22 had established leadpipe works in Norwich. His attention was drawn particularly to locomotives since the tracks of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad passed his shop. His attempts to develop a spark arrester for locomotives brought Smith to the favorable attention of Captain Daniel Tyler (1799-1882), president of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad. When Tyler was hired by the Cumberland Valley Railroad in 1850 to supervise the line’s rebuilding, he persuaded the managers of that road to hire Smith as superintendent of machinery. Smith was appointed as superintendent of the machine shop of the Cumberland Valley Railroad on July 22, 1850. On January 1, 1851, he became superintendent of the road.

In March of 1856 Smith resigned his position with the Cumberland Valley Railroad and became superintendent of the Hudson River Railroad, where he remained for only a year. During that time he designed the coal-burning locomotive Irvington, rebuilt the Waterman condensing dummy locomotive for use in hauling trains through city streets, and developed a superheater.

After retiring from the Hudson River Railroad he returned to Norwich and became active in enterprises in that area, including the presidency of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad. While the last years of Smith’s life were devoted to administrative work, he found time for mechanical invention as well. In 1862 he patented a safety truck for locomotives, and became president of a concern which controlled the most important patents for such devices. Alba F. Smith died on July 21, 1879, in Norwich, Connecticut.

Figure 13.—Advertisement of Seth Wilmarth appearing in Boston city directory for 1848-1849.

Click here for transcription of advertisement.

Figure 14.—The “Fury,” built for the Boston and Worcester Railroad in 1849 by Wilmarth. It was known as a “Shanghai” because of its great height. (Smithsonian Chaney photo 6443.)

Figure 15.—The “Neptune,” built for the Boston and Worcester in 1847 by Hinkley and Drury. Note the similarity of this engine and the Fury.

Figure 16.—The “Pioneer” as first exhibited in the Arts and Industries building of the Smithsonian Institution prior to restoration of the sandbox. (Smithsonian photo 48069D.)

[BOILER continued]

The steam dome (fig. 18) is located directly over the firebox, inside the cab. It is lagged and jacketed in an identical manner to the boiler. The shell of the dome is of /16-inch wrought iron, the top cap is a cast-iron plate which also serves as a manhole cover offering access to the boiler’s interior for inspection and repair.

Figure 17.—“Pioneer” locomotive. (Drawing by J. H. White.)

Figure 18.—“Pioneer” locomotive, (1) Safety valve, (2) spring balance, (3) steam jet, (4) dry pipe, (5) throttle lever, (6) throttle, (7) crown bar, (8) front tube sheet, (9) check valve, (10) top rail, (11) rear-boiler bracket, (12) pedestal, (13) rocker bearing, (14) damper, (15) grate, (16) bottom rail, (17) pump heater valve, (18) cylinder lubricator, (19) reversing lever, (20) brake shoe, (21) mud ring, (22) blowoff cock, (23) ashpan. (Drawing by J. H. White.)

A round plate, 20 inches in diameter, riveted on the forward end of the boiler, just behind the bell stand, was found when the old jacket was removed in May 1963. The size and shape of the hole, which the plate covers, indicate that a steam dome or manhole was located at this point. It is possible that this was the original location of the steam dome since many builders in the early 1850’s preferred to mount the dome forward of the firebox. This was done in the belief that there was less danger of priming because the water was less agitated forward of the firebox.

The firebox is as narrow as the boiler shell and fits easily between the frame. It is a deep and narrow box, measuring 27 inches by 28 inches by about 40 inches deep, and is well suited to burning wood. A deep firebox was necessary because a wide, shallow box suitable for coal burning, allowed the fuel to burn so quickly it was difficult to fire the engine effectively. With the deep, narrow firebox, wood was filled up to the level of the fire door. In this way, the fire did not burn so furiously and did not keep ahead of the fireman; at the same time, since it burned so freely, a good fire was always on hand. The Pioneer burned oak and hickory. For the firebox /16-inch thick sheet was used, for heavier sheet would have blistered and flaked off because of the intense heat of the fire and the fibrous quality of wrought-iron sheet of the period. Sheet iron was fabricated from many small strips of iron rolled together while hot. These strips were ideally welded into a homogeneous sheet, but in practice it was found the thicker the sheet the less sure the weld.

The fire grates are cast iron and set just a few inches above the bottom of the water space so that the water below the grates remains less turbulent and mud or other impurities in the water settle here. Four bronze mud plugs and a blowoff cock are fitted to the base of the firebox so that the sediment thus collected can be removed (figs. , ).

The front of the boiler is attached to the frame by the smokebox, which is a cylinder, bolted on a light, cast-iron saddle (not part of the cylinder castings nor attached to them, but bolted directly to the top rail of the frame; it may be a hastily made repair put on at the shops of the C.V.R.R.). The rear of the boiler is attached to the frame by two large cast-iron brackets, one on each side of the firebox (fig. 18). These are bolted to the top rail of the frame but the holes in the brackets are undoubtedly slotted, so that they may slide since the boiler will expand about /4 inch when heated. In addition to the crown bars, which strengthen the crown sheet, the boiler is further strengthened by stay bolts and braces located in the wagon top over the firebox, where the boiler had been weakened by the large hole necessary for the steam dome. This boiler is a remarkably light, strong, and compact structure.

BOILER FITTINGS

Few boiler fittings are found on the Pioneer and it appears that little was done to update the engine with more modern devices during its many years of service. With the exception of the steam gauge, it has no more boiler fitting than when it left the builder’s shop in 1851.

Figure 19.—Backhead of the Pioneer. (Smithsonian photo 48069F.)