Nicholas Roosevelt (inventor) 74-gun ships. In 1797, with Robert R. Livingston and John Stevens, he agreed to build a boat on joint account, for which the engines were to be constructed by Roosevelt, and the propelling agency was to be that planned by Livingston. The experiment failed, the speed attained being only equivalent to about in still water. On September 6, 1798, Roosevelt described and earnestly recommended to Livingston a vertical wheel, which is the first practical suggestion of the combination that made steam navigation a commercial success, although four years later Robert Fulton believed that chains and floats were alone to be
History of the steam engine boiler explosions, which tended to lend weight to Watt's qualms. He founded the Pittsburgh Steam Engine Company in 1811 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company introduced high-pressure steam engines to the riverboat trade in the Mississippi watershed. The first high-pressure steam engine was invented in 1800 by Richard Trevithick. The importance of raising steam under pressure (from a thermodynamic standpoint) is that it attains a higher temperature. Thus, any engine using high-pressure steam operates at a higher temperature and pressure differential than is possible with a low-pressure vacuum engine. The high-pressure engine thus became the basis for most further development of