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EARLY STEAMBOATS.

[1807.

suddenly burst, and it was a wonder that any of the bystanders escaped with their lives.

A great impetus was given to inventors, by the discovery of a young Scotsman-James Watttowards the middle of the eighteenth century. He had always been greatly attracted by the power of steam, and as a little lad, had made models of useless little steam-engines. One Sunday afternoon, he was walking by himself in a grassy meadow near Glasgow, thinking as usual about his engine, when a new idea came into his head with regard to steam. He set to work to make an engine on this new principle, and all men acknowledged, that a great stride had been made in the world of discovery. Watt's engine worked with great power, and used less coal than any before, but it made a terrible noise, and was very far from perfection.

Meanwhile an American, named Fulton, was working at steamships. Watt's engine supplied a want. He ordered one to be fitted into his ship, and launched the "Clermont" on the river at New York in the year 1807. The boat did 150 miles in thirty-two hours-the first voyage of any considerable length made by a steamer. But she terrified those who saw her. Dry pine-wood was used for fuel, and the flames rose high into the air, while the noise of the machinery and paddles so frightened the boatmen on the river that they threw themselves on their knees to pray for protection from the horrible monster, which was moving on the

1814.]

EARLY STEAM-ENGINES.

213

waters, "breathing flames and smoke, defying wind and tide."

Great Britain and America were now shooting ahead of the other nations with their inventions. It was reserved for an Englishman, to put the first engine on a railroad. In the year 1808, Trevithick built a railroad in London, and set at work a steam-carriage, which he called "Catch-me-whocan." It made a journey of about twelve miles an hour on a circular railway, but one day it was thrown off the track by the breaking of a rail, and never started again.

Still the idea was sound, and a few years later George Stephenson made his first successful engine in the north of England. He called it the "Blücher," after the great Prussian general, who had fought against Napoleon, and was going to fight again in the course of the next year. The Blücher was clumsy and noisy enough, but it succeeded in drawing after it eight loaded carriages of coal, at the rate of four miles an hour, and worked regularly for some time.

It was yet some years later, before passengers were willing to trust themselves behind such engines or on board such steamers, as have been described. The flames, the smoke, the jerky movements, the rattling of machinery, were enough to frighten the most courageous. But the new discoveries were enough to put a new face on the commerce and industries of Great Britain. The iron

214

CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

[1814. and coal-fields of the north were worked with redoubled vigour; lines were laid from the mines to the towns and the coast, and the steam-engine proved to be the most wonderful instrument that human industry ever had at its command. Great Britain had finally achieved, what the whole world had sought for thousands of years, and by this achievement, she rose to be the greatest manufacturing country the world has yet seen.

44. THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

"All Europe's bound-lines, drawn afresh in blood."

-Mrs BROWNING.

His

NAPOLEON'S great empire had passed away. fall restored peace to the troubled nations of Europe, whose boundaries he had destroyed.

A great congress of European kings and statesmen, now met at the Austrian capital, Vienna, to readjust these boundaries and to reinstate kings to their rightful thrones. It was a wondrous meeting. There was the Emperor of Austria himself, with his thin figure and sallow face, the father of Maria Louisa, Empress of the French in name alone; there was the manly form of the Tsar of Russia, Alexander, with his wife, to whom the musician Beethoven had been playing; there was the King of Prussia, tall and very grave; the white-haired

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AT VIENNA.

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King of Denmark; and numerous other great men, including the Duke of Wellington.

Picnics, balls, and banquets were the order of the day. Hundreds of royal carriages, painted in green and silver, rolled through the streets of Vienna, carrying the Emperor's guests from place to place. Outside all these festive scenes sat Maria Louisa. Her father's guests were assembled to undo the work of Napoleon her husband, even now an exile at Elba. Right away from the gay throng, she lived at her palace, her servants still wearing the French liveries of the court of Napoleon, her little son still dressed in the embroidered uniform of a French hussar, playing with his French toys.

Meanwhile the work of the Congress was progressing. Louis XVIII. had been recalled from England-where he had lived since the death of his brother Louis XVI. to take possession of the throne of France. Ferdinand of Spain returned from exile to rule over his Spanish kingdom once more; the Pope returned to Rome; the Prince of Orange was made King of Holland.

Suddenly, one day, the news rang through Europe that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and was even now in France. The news took eight days to reach Vienna. The Congress met, and the great Powers drew up a declaration. "Napoleon," they said, was an enemy to Europe; and, as a disturber of the peace of the world, must be treated as an outlaw."