Army--the purpose being to build a steamboat to run on the
Mississippi. The boat was actually built in Kentucky and floated to
New Orleans. The engine was actually built in Philadelphia by Mr.
Evans and sent to New Orleans, but before the engine arrived out the
boat was destroyed by fire or hurricane. The engine was then put to
sawing timber, and it operated so successfully that Mr. Stackhouse,
the engineer who went out with it, reported on his return from the
South that for the 13 months prior to his leaving the engine had been
constantly at work, not having lost a single day!

The reader can thus see the high stage of efficiency which Oliver
Evans had imparted to his engine full 80 years ago. On this point Dr.
Ernst Alban, the German writer on the steam engine, when speaking of
the high pressure steam engine, writes: "Indeed, to such perfection
did he [Evans] bring it, that Trevithick and Vivian, who came after
him, followed but clumsily in his wake, and do not deserve the title
of either inventors or improvers of the high pressure engine, which
the English are so anxious to award to them.... When it is considered
under what unfavorable circumstances Oliver Evans worked, his merit
must be much enhanced; and all attempts made to lessen his fame only
show that he is neither understood nor equaled by his detractors."

The writer has already shown that there are bright exceptions to this
general charge brought by Dr. Alban against British writers, but the
overwhelming mass of them have acted more like envious children than
like men when speaking of the authorship of the double acting high
pressure steam engine, the locomotive, and the steam railway system.
Speaking of this class of British writers, Prof. Renwick, when
alluding to their treatment of Oliver Evans, writes: "Conflicting
national pride comes in aid of individual jealousy, and the writers of