The _Port Byron_ is a stern, paddle-wheel boat, with vertical or eccentric
acting paddles, and is like the _Viele_ of 1858. She has a recess the
entire length of her bottom of several square feet area, intended to
facilitate a flow of water from the bow, but the flow does not occur; the
mechanical currents of the wheel will be from the nearest water, and not
from ninety feet forward.
The _Montana_ is a similar stern-wheeler, without the recess.
The _Success_ consists of two sections, to be disconnected for passing the
locks, with paddle-wheel machinery at the bow. Her wheel, inside of the
paddles, is a drum or cylinder, filled with cork, to be buoyant, and the
hull has an easy, scow bow, for the water to pass under the boat.
Practically, the large drum makes her a horizontal, cylindrical-bowed boat,
and she mechanically throws the water therefrom against the scow-shaped
bow, and so that the cylinder displacement with the mechanical currents,
and the scow-bow displacement, combine to make her _very slow_. With her
two sections she brought one and a half cargoes of corn.
The _Excelsior_ has a horizontal, eccentric-acting paddle wheel, and was
built of light iron at Green Point. She had a recess at the bow for her
submerged wheel, and, when thus tried, found the retarding effects of the
mechanical currents at and against the bow so great, as to cause her
original bow-propulsion to be made stern-propulsion, when she was much
improved. She was tried with cargo for a short distance on the canal, and
withdrawn.
The _Fountain City_ is a common boat, with machinery at her stern. She has
two submerged horizontal, excentric-acting paddle-wheels, each of small
diameter. These are placed under her quarters, in the rudder cross-section,
and she is steered by her machinery. The characteristics of these wheels
are like the _Excelsior's_, and the eccentric variations of both--together
with the _Byron's_, _Montana's_ and _Viele's_--are known as old devices of
secondary merit on river, lake and ocean steamers.
The _Santiago_ is a scow-boat, with a recess, or flume, the whole length of
her bottom, to a stern propeller. Her steam was soon abandoned.
An endless-chain propulsion was tried upon the Western Division, without
success.
A common canal-boat has been experimented with at Brooklyn to propel her by
the reaction of a powerful blower or fan. This was driven first by a
ten-horse, and next by a forty-horse stationary engine, and afterwards by a
forty-horse oscillator. Each failed to move her from her slip, and the
conception proved an absurdity.
In addition to these, local steamers have been run between different cities
for local purposes, more or less, since 1858, and steam-tugs have been
brought into requisition occasionally.