To his great delight, so
perfectly was his theory borne out in practice, that this model, though
less than two feet long, performed its voyage about the basin at the
rate of three English miles an hour.
The next step in the invention was the construction of a boat forty
feet long, eight feet beam, and three feet draught of water, with two
propellers, each of five feet three inches in diameter. So successful
was this experiment, that, when steam was turned on the first time, the
boat at once moved at a speed of upwards of ten miles an hour, without
a single alteration being requisite in her machinery. Not only did she
attain this considerable speed, but her power to tow larger vessels was
found to be so great that schooners of one hundred and forty tons'
burden were propelled by her at the rate of seven miles an hour; and
the American packet-ship Toronto was towed in the river Thames by this
miniature steamer at the rate of more than five English miles an hour.
This feat excited no little interest among the boatmen of the Thames,
who were astonished at the sight of this novel craft moving against
wind and tide without any visible agency of propulsion, and, ascribing
to it some supernatural origin, united in giving it the name of the
_Flying Devil_.
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