THE STEAMBOAT

EFORE
EFORE the invention of the steam engine there were

only two methods of driving vessels through the water the one by sails and the other by oars. Men had only sailboats and rowboats, as we may say; the steamboat that is, the boat driven by steam power-s had not yet been thought of. Sailing vessels, subject to the changing winds and helpless in a calm, are loiterers at the best, and the fleetest of them lag far astern of any modern steamer. The same ocean that Columbus was so long in crossing is but a week's journey for the voyager of 1 to-day.

Soon after Watt had perfected the steam engine - that is, about one hundred years ago two Americans, John Fitch and James Rumsey, devised machinery for applying the power of the steam engine to the movement of boats. 15 Fitch's boat moved by means of a row of paddles arranged along its sides. Rumsey's plan was to take in water through an opening in the bow of his boat and then drive it out at the stern with so much force as to push the boat forward. Both Rumsey and Fitch made steamboats 20 that would travel four or five miles an hour, and both sent models and descriptions to Watt. These early steamers were never put to practical use, for to neither Fitch nor Rumsey had occurred the thought of propelling his boat by means of a revolving paddle wheel, the device 25 later employed by Fulton.

A few years after this time a Scotchman, named William

Symington, succeeded in constructing a side-wheel steamboat with a speed of five miles an hour. This boat of Symington's, with the improvements that have since been made upon it, is the river steamboat of the present day. 5 The two men who were mainly instrumental in improving Symington's steamer and bringing it into actual use were Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston, both Americans, and both for many years close students of the whole subject of steam navigation. About the beginning Io of the present century these two men made a series of experiments on the river Seine, at Paris, Fulton having made a special journey to Europe to see and examine Symington's boat. In the first of these experiments their boat broke through in the middle and sank when the 15 engines were placed on board; but a later trial was more successful. It was of this boat that Napoleon exclaimed, "It is capable of changing the face of the world."

Shortly after this Fulton returned to this country and built at New York the first American side-wheel steam20 boat. In this boat, which he had named the Clermont ("Fulton's Folly" as scoffers called her), he made a successful trip up the Hudson River to Albany, in 1807.

Fulton's own account of this first trip is very interesting. In it he says: "To me it was a most trying occasion. 25 The moment arrived when word was to be given for the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. I read nothing in their looks but disaster, and almost repented my efforts. The signal was given; the boat moved on a short distance, then stopped and became im30 movable. I could hear whispers of 'I told you so; it is a foolish scheme.' I hurried below and discovered the cause of the delay. It was quickly obviated; the boat went on

Within a few years of this trial trip on the Hudson, thousands of steamboats had been built in this country alone, while to-day they are numbered by tens of thousands. Just such a change as the railway locomotive has made in overland travel and trade, the steamboat has wrought 5 in the commerce of the world's great waterways.

It is common to speak of Robert Fulton as the inventor of the steamboat, but we should rather think of him as one of its inventors, and, in particular, as that one of them who first in our own country brought navigation by steam 10 power to a practical success.

1. Who were the early experimenters with steam-driven vessels? What was Rumsey's plan? Symington's?

2. Report on the first trip of the Clermont. Find pictures of the Clermont and later ships and compare them.

THE CORN SONG

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

HEAP high the farmer's wintry hoard!

Heap high the golden corn!

No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,

The cluster from the vine;

ΤΟ

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We better love the hardy gift

Our rugged vales bestow,

To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest fields with snow.

Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,

Our plows their furrows made,

While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain,
Beneath the sun of May,

And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.

And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest time has come,

We pluck away the frosted leaves,

And bear the treasure home.

The Huskers.

1. Explain how the ground is prepared for planting corn. When is the grain planted? When is it harvested?

2. What are our great corn-growing states? Find them on the map. What is corn used for? In what shape do you eat it?

3. What is meant by the following lines: 5-6, page 118; 11-12, 19-20, page 119?

HAV

A WORD ABOUT COTTON

BY FANNY E. COE

AVE you ever considered how important the cotton plant is? About its little black seeds, no bigger than the seeds of a lemon, is wrapped the clothing of half the world. Furthermore, three fourths of all the cotton in the world is raised in the United States. This is because s in the South we have almost perfect conditions for growth. Cotton needs great heat and abundant rainfall. Consequently it flourishes in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and other Southern states. Texas produces an enormous crop each year.

As soon as the frost is out of the ground in early spring, the plows are at work turning up the soil. Then in March the planting occurs. The brownish-black seeds are dropped into the fine mellow earth in rows about four feet apart.

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In a short time the tiny plants appear, making bright 15 green stripes across the dark plowed fields. By midsummer the upland cotton stands about three feet high. Its leaves look like those of the maple, and its flowers resemble the wild rose in shape and color. While the bushes are loaded with the exquisite blossoms the plantations are most beautiful sights. On the first day the flower petals are white; on the second day they change to a lovely pink. Soon the petals fall, leaving a tiny green pod which later develops into the cotton boll.

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When the pod, or cotton boll, has matured, it bursts 25 open, revealing within it a mass of cotton white as snow,