Seine Commercial craft (barges and push-tows) can use the river from Marcilly-sur-Seine, to its mouth. At Paris, there are 37 bridges. The river is only above sea level from its mouth, making it slow flowing and thus easily navigable. The Seine Maritime, from the English Channel at Le Havre to Rouen, is the only portion of the Seine used by ocean-going craft. The tidal section of the Seine Maritime is followed by a canalized section ("Basse Seine") with four large multiple locks until the mouth of the Oise at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (170 km). Smaller locks at Bougival and at Suresnes lift the
Seine River Steamers Seine River Steamers The Seine River was the scene of many early experiments with steam navigation. The steamship has a long ancestry, dating back at least to 1783 when the Marquis de Jouffray d'Abbans steamed his little boat, the Pyroscaphe, across the Seine. Robert Fulton even exhibited one to Napoleon's regime. With the success of the steam engine by the 1820s, the Second Republic embarked on a series of navigation improvements to raise weirs and locks with which to deepen the navigation channel. By the 1860s improvements had changed the riverbed from low-lying sand banks and trickle to a series