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Steamboat

A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S (for 'Screw Steamer') or PS (for 'Paddle Steamer'); however, these designations are most often used for steamships.

The term steamboat is used to refer to smaller, insular, steam-powered boats working on lakes and rivers, particularly riverboats. As using steam became more reliable, steam power became applied to larger, ocean-going vessels.

Limitations of the Newcomen steam engine
The first steamboat designs used Newcomen steam engines. These engines were large, heavy, and produced little power, which resulted in an unfavorable power-to-weight ratio. The heavy weight of the Newcomen engine required a structurally strong boat, and the reciprocating motion of the engine beam required a complicated mechanism to produce propulsion.

Rotary motion engines
James Watt's design improvements increased the efficiency of the steam engine, improving the power-to-weight ratio, and created an engine capable of rotary motion by using a double-acting cylinder which injected steam at each end of the piston stroke to move the piston back and forth. The rotary steam engine simplified the mechanism required to turn a paddle wheel to propel a boat. Despite the improved efficiency and rotary motion, the power-to-weight ratio of Boulton and Watt steam engine was still low.

High-pressure steam engines
The high-pressure steam engine was the development that made the steamboat practical. It had a high power-to-weight ratio and was fuel efficient. High pressure engines were made possible by improvements in the design of boilers and engine components so that they could withstand internal pressure, although boiler explosions were common due to lack of instrumentation like pressure gauges. Attempts at making high-pressure engines had to wait until the expiration of the Boulton and Watt patent in 1800. Shortly thereafter high-pressure engines by Richard Trevithick and Oliver Evans were introduced.

Compound or multiple expansion steam engines
The compound steam engine became widespread in the late 19th century. Compounding uses exhaust steam from a high pressure cylinder to a lower pressure cylinder and greatly improves efficiency. With compound engines it was possible for trans ocean steamers to carry less coal than freight. Compound steam engine powered ships enabled a great increase in international trade.

Steam turbines
The most efficient steam engine used for marine propulsion is the steam turbine. It was developed near the end of the 19th century and was used throughout the 20th century.

Early designs
An apocryphal story from 1851 attributes the earliest steamboat to Denis Papin for a boat he built in 1705. Papin was an early innovator in steam power and the inventor of the steam digester, the first pressure cooker, which played an important role in James Watt's steam experiments. However, Papin's boat was not steam-powered but powered by hand-cranked paddles.

A steamboat was described and patented by English physician John Allen in 1729. In 1736, Jonathan Hulls was granted a patent in England for a Newcomen engine-powered steamboat (using a pulley instead of a beam, and a pawl and ratchet to obtain rotary motion), but it was the improvement in steam engines by James Watt that made the concept feasible. William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, having learned of Watt's engine on a visit to England, made his own engine, and put it in a boat. The boat sank, and while Henry made an improved model, he did not appear to have much success, though he may have inspired others.

The first steam-powered ship, Pyroscaphe, was a paddle steamer powered by a double-acting steam engine; it was built in France in 1783 by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy and his colleagues as an improvement of an earlier attempt, the 1776 Palmipède. At its first demonstration on 15 July 1783, Pyroscaphe travelled upstream on the river Saône for some fifteen minutes before the engine failed. Presumably this was easily repaired as the boat is said to have made several such journeys. Following this, De Jouffroy attempted to get the government interested in his work, but for political reasons was instructed that he would have to build another version on the Seine in Paris. De Jouffroy did not have the funds for this, and, following the events of the French revolution, work on the project was discontinued after he left the country.

Similar boats were made in 1785 by John Fitch in Philadelphia and William Symington in Dumfries, Scotland. Fitch successfully trialled his boat in 1787, and in 1788, he began operating a regular commercial service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, carrying as many as 30 passengers. This boat could typically make 7 to 8 mph and travelled more than 2000 mi during its short length of service. The Fitch steamboat was not a commercial success, as this travel route was adequately covered by relatively good wagon roads. The following year, a second boat made 30 mi excursions, and in 1790, a third boat ran a series of trials on the Delaware River before patent disputes dissuaded Fitch from continuing.

Meanwhile, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, near Dumfries, Scotland, had developed double-hulled boats propelled by manually cranked paddle wheels placed between the hulls, even attempting to interest various European governments in a giant warship version, 246 ft long. Miller sent King Gustav III of Sweden an actual small-scale version, 100 ft long, called Experiment. Miller then engaged engineer William Symington to build his patent steam engine that drove a stern-mounted paddle wheel in a boat in 1785. The boat was successfully tried out on Dalswinton Loch in 1788 and was followed by a larger steamboat the next year. Miller then abandoned the project.

19th century
The failed project of Patrick Miller caught the attention of Lord Dundas, Governor of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, and at a meeting with the canal company's directors on 5 June 1800, they approved his proposals for the use of "a model of a boat by Captain Schank to be worked by a steam engine by Mr Symington" on the canal.

The boat was built by Alexander Hart at Grangemouth to Symington's design with a vertical cylinder engine and crosshead transmitting power to a crank driving the paddlewheels. Trials on the River Carron in June 1801 were successful and included towing sloops from the river Forth up the Carron and thence along the Forth and Clyde Canal.

In 1801, Symington patented a horizontal steam engine directly linked to a crank. He got support from Lord Dundas to build a second steamboat, which became famous as the Charlotte Dundas, named in honour of Lord Dundas's daughter. Symington designed a new hull around his powerful horizontal engine, with the crank driving a large paddle wheel in a central upstand in the hull, aimed at avoiding damage to the canal banks. The new boat was 56 ft (17.1 m) long, 18 ft (5.5 m) wide and 8 ft (2.4 m) depth, with a wooden hull. The boat was built by John Allan and the engine by the Carron Company.

The first sailing was on the canal in Glasgow on 4 January 1803, with Lord Dundas and a few of his relatives and friends on board. The crowd were pleased with what they saw, but Symington wanted to make improvements and another more ambitious trial was made on 28 March. On this occasion, the Charlotte Dundas towed two 70 ton barges 30 km (almost 20 miles) along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow, and despite "a strong breeze right ahead" that stopped all other canal boats it took only nine and a quarter hours, giving an average speed of about 3 km/h (2 mph). The Charlotte Dundas was the first practical steamboat, in that it demonstrated the practicality of steam power for ships, and was the first to be followed by continuous development of steamboats.

The American Robert Fulton was present at the trials of the Charlotte Dundas and was intrigued by the potential of the steamboat. While working in France, he corresponded with and was helped by the Scottish engineer Henry Bell, who may have given him the first model of his working steamboat. Fulton designed his own steamboat, which sailed along the River Seine in 1803.

Fulton later obtained a Boulton and Watt steam engine, shipped to America, where his first proper steamship was built in 1807, North River Steamboat (later known as Clermont), which carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York. Clermont was able to make the 150 mi trip in 32 hours. The steamboat was powered by a Boulton and Watt engine and was capable of long-distance travel. It was the first commercially successful steamboat, transporting passengers along the Hudson River.

In 1807 Robert L. Stevens began operation of the Phoenix, which used a high-pressure engine in combination with a low-pressure condensing engine. The first steamboats powered only by high pressure were the Aetna and Pennsylvania, designed and built by Oliver Evans.

In October 1811 a ship designed by John Stevens, Little Juliana, would operate as the first steam-powered ferry between Hoboken and New York City. Stevens' ship was engineered as a twin-screw-driven steamboat in juxtaposition to Clermonts Boulton and Watt engine. The design was a modification of Stevens' prior paddle steamer Phoenix, the first steamship to successfully navigate the open ocean in its route from Hoboken to Philadelphia.

In 1812, Henry Bell's PS Comet was inaugurated. The steamboat was the first commercial passenger service in Europe and sailed along the River Clyde in Scotland.

The Margery, launched in Dumbarton in 1814, in January 1815 became the first steamboat on the River Thames, much to the amazement of Londoners. She operated a London-to-Gravesend river service until 1816, when she was sold to the French and became the first steamboat to cross the English Channel. When she reached Paris, the new owners renamed her Elise and inaugurated a Seine steamboat service.

In 1818, Ferdinando I, the first Italian steamboat, left the port of Naples, where it had been built.

Ocean-going
The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat "Experiment", an ex-French lugger; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth, arriving Yarmouth 19 July 1813. "Tug", the first tugboat, was launched by the Woods Brothers, Port Glasgow, on 5 November 1817; in the summer of 1818 she was the first steamboat to travel round the North of Scotland to the East Coast.

Steamships required carrying fuel (coal) at the expense of the regular payload. For this reason for some time sailships remained more economically viable for long voyages. However, as the steam engine technology improved, more power could be generated by the same quantity of fuel and longer distances could be traveled. A steamship built in 1855 required about 40% of its available cargo space to store enough coal to cross the Atlantic, but by the 1860s, transatlantic steamship services became cost-effective and steamships began to dominate these routes. By the 1870s, particularly in conjunction with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, South Asia became economically accessible for steamships from Europe. By the 1890s, the steamship technology so improved that steamships became economically viable even on long-distance voyages such as linking Great Britain with its Pacific Asian colonies, such as Singapore and Hong Kong. This resulted in the downfall of sailing.

United States

Origins
The era of the steamboat in the United States began in Philadelphia in 1787 when John Fitch (1743–1798) made the first successful trial of a 45-foot (14-meter) steamboat on the Delaware River on 22 August 1787, in the presence of members of the United States Constitutional Convention. Fitch later (1790) built a larger vessel that carried passengers and freight between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware. His steamboat was not a financial success and was shut down after a few months service, however this marks the first use of marine steam propulsion in scheduled regular passenger transport service.

Oliver Evans (1755–1819) was a Philadelphian inventor born in Newport, Delaware, to a family of Welsh settlers. He designed an improved high-pressure steam engine in 1801 but did not build it (patented 1804). The Philadelphia Board of Health was concerned with the problem of dredging and cleaning the city's dockyards, and in 1805 Evans convinced them to contract with him for a steam-powered dredge, which he called the Oruktor Amphibolos. It was built but was only marginally successful. Evans's high-pressure steam engine had a much higher power-to-weight ratio, making it practical to apply it in locomotives and steamboats. Evans became so depressed with the poor protection that the US patent law gave inventors that he eventually took all his engineering drawings and invention ideas and destroyed them to prevent his children wasting their time in court fighting patent infringements.

Robert Fulton constructed a steamboat to ply a route between New York City and Albany, New York on the Hudson River. He successfully obtained a monopoly on Hudson River traffic after terminating a prior 1797 agreement with John Stevens, who owned extensive land on the Hudson River in New Jersey. The former agreement had partitioned northern Hudson River traffic to Livingston and southern to Stevens, agreeing to use ships designed by Stevens for both operations. With their new monopoly, Fulton and Livingston's boat, named the Clermont after Livingston's estate, could make a profit. The Clermont was nicknamed "Fulton's Folly" by doubters. On Monday, 17 August 1807, the memorable first voyage of the Clermont up the Hudson River was begun. She traveled the 150 mile trip to Albany in a little over 32 hours and made the return trip in about eight hours.

The use of steamboats on major US rivers soon followed Fulton's 1807 success. In 1811, the first in a continuous (still in commercial passenger operation ) line of river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. In 1817 a consortium in Sackets Harbor, New York, funded the construction of the first US steamboat, Ontario, to run on Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes, beginning the growth of lake commercial and passenger traffic. In his book Life on the Mississippi, river pilot and author Mark Twain described much of the operation of such vessels.

Types of ships
By 1849 the shipping industry was in transition from sail-powered boats to steam-powered boats and from wood construction to an ever-increasing metal construction. There were basically three different types of ships being used: standard sailing ships of several different types, clippers, and paddle steamers with paddles mounted on the side or rear. River steamboats typically used rear-mounted paddles and had flat bottoms and shallow hulls designed to carry large loads on generally smooth and occasionally shallow rivers. Ocean-going paddle steamers typically used side-wheeled paddles and used narrower, deeper hulls designed to travel in the often stormy weather encountered at sea. The ship hull design was often based on the clipper ship design with extra bracing to support the loads and strains imposed by the paddle wheels when they encountered rough water.

The first paddle-steamer to make a long ocean voyage was the 320-ton 98 ft SS Savannah, built in 1819 expressly for packet ship mail and passenger service to and from Liverpool, England. On 22 May 1819, the watch on the Savannah sighted Ireland after 23 days at sea. The Allaire Iron Works of New York supplied Savannah's 's engine cylinder, while the rest of the engine components and running gear were manufactured by the Speedwell Ironworks of New Jersey. The 90 hp low-pressure engine was of the inclined direct-acting type, with a single 40 in cylinder and a 5 ft stroke. Savannah 's engine and machinery were unusually large for their time. The ship's wrought-iron paddlewheels were 16 feet in diameter with eight buckets per wheel. For fuel, the vessel carried 75 short ton of coal and 25 cord of wood.

The SS Savannah was too small to carry much fuel, and the engine was intended only for use in calm weather and to get in and out of harbors. Under favorable winds the sails alone were able to provide a speed of at least four knots. The Savannah was judged not a commercial success, and its engine was removed and it was converted back to a regular sailing ship. By 1848 steamboats built by both United States and British shipbuilders were already in use for mail and passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean—a 3000 mi journey.

Since paddle steamers typically required from 5 to 16 short ton of coal per day to keep their engines running, they were more expensive to run. Initially, nearly all seagoing steamboats were equipped with mast and sails to supplement the steam engine power and provide power for occasions when the steam engine needed repair or maintenance. These steamships typically concentrated on high value cargo, mail and passengers and only had moderate cargo capabilities because of their required loads of coal. The typical paddle wheel steamship was powered by a coal burning engine that required firemen to shovel the coal to the burners.

By 1849 the screw propeller had been invented and was slowly being introduced as iron increasingly was used in ship construction and the stress introduced by propellers could be compensated for. As the 1800s progressed the timber and lumber needed to make wooden ships got ever more expensive, and the iron plate needed for iron ship construction got much cheaper as the massive iron works at Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for example, got ever more efficient. The propeller put a lot of stress on the rear of the ships and would not see widespread use till the conversion from wood boats to iron boats was complete—well underway by 1860. By the 1840s the ocean-going steam ship industry was well established as the Cunard Line and others demonstrated.

The last sailing frigate of the US Navy, USS Santee (1855), had been launched in 1855.

West Coast
In the mid-1840s the acquisition of Oregon and California opened up the West Coast to American steamboat traffic. Starting in 1848 Congress subsidized the Pacific Mail Steamship Company with $199,999 to set up regular packet ship, mail, passenger, and cargo routes in the Pacific Ocean. This regular scheduled route went from Panama City, Nicaragua and Mexico to and from San Francisco and Oregon. Panama City was the Pacific terminus of the Isthmus of Panama trail across Panama. The Atlantic Ocean mail contract from East Coast cities and New Orleans to and from the Chagres River in Panama was won by the United States Mail Steamship Company whose first paddle wheel steamship, the SS Falcon (1848) was dispatched on 1 December 1848 to the Caribbean (Atlantic) terminus of the Isthmus of Panama trail—the Chagres River.

The SS California (1848), the first Pacific Mail Steamship Company paddle wheel steamship, left New York City on 6 October 1848 with only a partial load of her about 60 saloon (about $300 fare) and 150 steerage (about $150 fare) passenger capacity. Only a few were going all the way to California. Her crew numbered about 36 men. She left New York well before confirmed word of the California Gold Rush had reached the East Coast. Once the California Gold Rush was confirmed by President James Polk in his State of the Union address on 5 December 1848 people started rushing to Panama City to catch the SS California. The SS California (1848) picked up more passengers in Valparaiso, Chile and Panama City, Panama and showed up in San Francisco, loaded with about 400 passengers—twice the passengers it had been designed for—on 28 February 1849. She had left behind about another 400–600 potential passengers still looking for passage from Panama City. The SS California had made the trip from Panama and Mexico after steaming around Cape Horn from New York—see SS California (1848).

The trips by paddle wheel steamship to Panama and Nicaragua from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, via New Orleans and Havana were about 2600 mi long and took about two weeks. Trips across the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua typically took about one week by native canoe and mule back. The 4000 mi trip to or from San Francisco to Panama City could be done by paddle wheel steamer in about three weeks. In addition to this, travel time via the Panama route typically had a two- to four-week waiting period to find a ship going from Panama City, Panama to San Francisco before 1850. It was not before 1850 that enough paddle wheel steamers were available in the Atlantic and Pacific routes to establish regularly scheduled journeys.

Other steamships soon followed, and by late 1849, paddle wheel steamships like the SS McKim (1848) were carrying miners and their supplies the 125 mi trip from San Francisco up the extensive Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta to Stockton, California, Marysville, California, Sacramento, etc. to get about 125 mi closer to the gold fields. Steam-powered tugboats and towboats started working in the San Francisco Bay soon after this to expedite shipping in and out of the bay.

As the passenger, mail and high value freight business to and from California boomed more and more paddle steamers were brought into service—eleven by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company alone. The trip to and from California via Panama and paddle wheeled steamers could be done, if there were no waits for shipping, in about 40 days—over 100 days less than by wagon or 160 days less than a trip around Cape Horn. About 20–30% of the California Argonauts are thought to have returned to their homes, mostly on the East Coast of the United States via Panama—the fastest way home. Many returned to California after settling their business in the East with their wives, family and/or sweethearts. Most used the Panama or Nicaragua route till 1855 when the completion of the Panama Railroad made the Panama Route much easier, faster and more reliable. Between 1849 and 1869 when the first transcontinental railroad was completed across the United States about 800,000 travelers had used the Panama route. Most of the roughly $50,000,000 of gold found each year in California were shipped East via the Panama route on paddle steamers, mule trains and canoes and later the Panama Railroad across Panama. After 1855 when the Panama Railroad was completed the Panama Route was by far the quickest and easiest way to get to or from California from the East Coast of the U.S. or Europe. Most California bound merchandise still used the slower but cheaper Cape Horn sailing ship route. The sinking of the paddle steamer SS Central America (the Ship of Gold) in a hurricane on 12 September 1857 and the loss of about $2 million in California gold indirectly led to the Panic of 1857.

Steamboat traffic including passenger and freight business grew exponentially in the decades before the Civil War. So too did the economic and human losses inflicted by snags, shoals, boiler explosions, and human error.

Civil War
During the US Civil War the Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as either the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack or the Battle of Ironclads, was fought over two days with steam-powered ironclad warships, 8–9 March 1862. The battle occurred in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay adjacent to the city of Norfolk. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederate States of America to break the Union Naval blockade, which had cut off Virginia from all international trade.

The Civil War in the West was fought to control major rivers, especially the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers using paddlewheelers. Only the Union had them (the Confederacy captured a few, but were unable to use them.) The Battle of Vicksburg involved monitors and ironclad riverboats. The USS Cairo is a survivor of the Vicksburg battle. Trade on the river was suspended for two years because of a Confederate's Mississippi blockade before the union victory at Vicksburg reopened the river on 4 July 1863. The triumph of Eads ironclads, and Farragut's seizure of New Orleans, secured the river for the Union North.

Although Union forces gained control of Mississippi River tributaries, travel there was still subject to interdiction by the Confederates. The Ambush of the steamboat J. R. Williams, which was carrying supplies from Fort Smith to Fort Gibson along the Arkansas River on 16 July 1863 demonstrated this. The steamboat was destroyed, the cargo was lost, and the tiny Union escort was run off. The loss did not affect the Union war effort, however.

The worst of all steamboat accidents occurred at the end of the Civil War in April 1865, when the steamboat Sultana, carrying an over-capacity load of returning Union soldiers recently freed from a Confederate prison camp, blew up, causing more than 1,700 deaths.

Mississippi and Missouri river traffic
For most of the 19th century and part of the early 20th century, trade on the Mississippi River was dominated by paddle-wheel steamboats. Their use generated rapid development of economies of port cities; the exploitation of agricultural and commodity products, which could be more easily transported to markets; and prosperity along the major rivers. Their success led to penetration deep into the continent, where Anson Northup in 1859 became first steamer to cross the Canada–US border on the Red River. They would also be involved in major political events, as when Louis Riel seized International at Fort Garry, or Gabriel Dumont was engaged by Northcote at Batoche. Steamboats were held in such high esteem that they could become state symbols; the Steamboat Iowa (1838) is incorporated in the Seal of Iowa because it represented speed, power, and progress.

At the same time, the expanding steamboat traffic had severe adverse environmental effects, in the Middle Mississippi Valley especially, between St. Louis and the river's confluence with the Ohio. The steamboats consumed much wood for fuel, and the river floodplain and banks became deforested. This led to instability in the banks, addition of silt to the water, making the river both shallower and hence wider and causing unpredictable, lateral movement of the river channel across the wide, ten-mile floodplain, endangering navigation. Boats designated as snagpullers to keep the channels free had crews that sometimes cut remaining large trees 100 – or more back from the banks, exacerbating the problems. In the 19th century, the flooding of the Mississippi became a more severe problem than when the floodplain was filled with trees and brush.

Most steamboats were destroyed by boiler explosions or fires—and many sank in the river, with some of those buried in silt as the river changed course. From 1811 to 1899, 156 steamboats were lost to snags or rocks between St. Louis and the Ohio River. Another 411 were damaged by fire, explosions or ice during that period. One of the few surviving Mississippi sternwheelers from this period, Julius C. Wilkie, was operated as a museum ship at Winona, Minnesota, until its destruction in a fire in 1981. The replacement, built in situ, was not a steamboat. The replica was scrapped in 2008.

From 1844 through 1857, luxurious palace steamers carried passengers and cargo around the North American Great Lakes. Great Lakes passenger steamers reached their zenith during the century from 1850 to 1950. The SS Badger is the last of the once-numerous passenger-carrying steam-powered car ferries operating on the Great Lakes. A unique style of bulk carrier known as the lake freighter was developed on the Great Lakes. The St. Marys Challenger, launched in 1906, is the oldest operating steamship in the United States. She runs a Skinner Marine Unaflow 4-cylinder reciprocating steam engine as her power plant.

Women started to become steamboat captains in the late 19th century. The first woman to earn her steamboat master's license was Mary Millicent Miller, in 1884. In 1888, Callie Leach French earned her first class license. In 1892, she earned a master's license, becoming the only woman to hold both and operating on the Mississippi River. French towed a showboat up and down the rivers until 1907 and boasted that she'd never had an accident or lost a boat. Another early steamboat captain was Blanche Douglass Leathers, who earned her license in 1894. Mary Becker Greene earned her license in 1897 and along with her husband started the Greene Line.

Steamboats in rivers on the west side of the Mississippi River
Steamboats also operated on the Red River to Shreveport, Louisiana.

In April 1815, Captain Henry Miller Shreve was the first person to bring a steamboat, the Enterprise, up the Red River.

By 1839 after Captain Henry Miller Shreve broke the Great Raft log jam had been 160 miles long on the river.

In the late 1830s, the steamboats in rivers on the west side of the Mississippi River were a long, wide, shallow draft vessel, lightly built with an engine on the deck. These newer steamboats could sail in just 20 inches of water. Contemporaries claimed that they could "run with a lot of heavy dew".

Walking the steamboat over sandbars or away from reefs
Walking the boat was a way of lifting the bow of a steamboat like on crutches, getting up and down a sandbank with poles, blocks, and strong rigging, and using paddlewheels to lift and move the ship through successive steps, on the helm. Moving of a boat from a sandbar by its own action was known as "walking the boat" and "grass-hoppering". Two long, strong poles were pushed forward from the bow on either side of the boat into the sandbar at a high degree of angle. Near the end of each pole, a block was secured with a strong rope or clamp that passed through pulleys that lowered through a pair of similar blocks attached to the deck near the bow. The end of each line went to a winch which, when turned, was taut and, with its weight on the stringers, slightly raised the bow of the boat. Activation of the forward paddlewheels and placement of the poles caused the bow of the boat to raise and move the boat forward perhaps a few feet. It was laborious and dangerous work for the crew, even with a Steam donkey driven capstan winch.

Double-tripping
Double-tripping means making two voyages by leaving a cargo of a steamboat ashore to lighten boats load during times of extremely low water or when ice impedes progress. The boat had to return (and therefore make a second trip) to retrieve the cargo.

Piston Rings, Steel replaced cotton seals, 1854
1854: John Ramsbottom publishes a report on his use of oversized split steel piston rings which maintain a seal by outward spring tension on the cylinder wall. This improved efficiency by allowing much better sealing (compared to earlier cotton seals) which allowed significantly higher system pressures before "blow-by" is experienced.

Allen Steam Engine at 3 to 5 times higher speeds, 1862
1862: The Allen steam engine (later called Porter-Allen) is exhibited at the London Exhibition. It is precision engineered and balanced allowing it to operate at from three to five times the speed of other stationary engines. The short stroke and high speed minimize condensation in the cylinder, significantly improving efficiency. The high speed allows direct coupling or the use of reduced sized pulleys and belting.

20th century
The Belle of Louisville is the oldest operating steamboat in the United States, and the oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat in the world. She was laid down as Idlewild in 1914, and is currently located in Louisville, Kentucky.

Five major commercial steamboats currently operate on the inland waterways of the United States. The only remaining overnight cruising steamboat is the 432-passenger American Queen, which operates week-long cruises on the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers 11 months out of the year. The others are day boats: they are the steamers Chautauqua Belle at Chautauqua Lake, New York, Minne Ha-Ha at Lake George, New York, operating on Lake George; the Belle of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, operating on the Ohio River; and the Natchez in New Orleans, Louisiana, operating on the Mississippi River. For modern craft operated on rivers, see the Riverboat article.

Canada
In Canada, the city of Terrace, British Columbia, celebrates "Riverboat Days" each summer. Built on the banks of the Skeena River, the city depended on the steamboat for transportation and trade into the 20th century. The first steamer to enter the Skeena was Union in 1864. In 1866 Mumford attempted to ascend the river, but it was only able to reach the Kitsumkalum River. It was not until 1891 Hudson's Bay Company sternwheeler Caledonia successfully negotiated Kitselas Canyon and reached Hazelton. A number of other steamers were built around the turn of the 20th century, in part due to the growing fish industry and the gold rush. For more information, see Steamboats of the Skeena River.

Sternwheelers were an instrumental transportation technology in the development of Western Canada. They were used on most of the navigable waterways of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC (British Columbia) and the Yukon at one time or another, generally being supplanted by the expansion of railroads and roads. In the more mountainous and remote areas of the Yukon and BC, working sternwheelers lived on well into the 20th century.

The simplicity of these vessels and their shallow draft made them indispensable to pioneer communities that were otherwise virtually cut off from the outside world. Because of their shallow, flat-bottomed construction (the Canadian examples of the western river sternwheeler generally needed less than three feet of water to float in), they could nose up almost anywhere along a riverbank to pick up or drop off passengers and freight. Sternwheelers would also prove vital to the construction of the railroads that eventually replaced them. They were used to haul supplies, track and other materials to construction camps.

The simple, versatile, locomotive-style boilers fitted to most sternwheelers after about the 1860s could burn coal, when available in more populated areas like the lakes of the Kootenays and the Okanagan region in southern BC, or wood in the more remote areas, such as the Steamboats of the Yukon River or northern BC.

The hulls were generally wooden, although iron, steel and composite hulls gradually overtook them. They were braced internally with a series of built-up longitudinal timbers called "keelsons". Further resilience was given to the hulls by a system of "hog rods" or "hog chains" that were fastened into the keelsons and led up and over vertical masts called "hog-posts", and back down again.

Like their counterparts on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and the vessels on the rivers of California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, the Canadian sternwheelers tended to have fairly short life-spans. The hard usage they were subjected to and inherent flexibility of their shallow wooden hulls meant that relatively few of them had careers longer than a decade.

In the Yukon, two vessels are preserved: the SS Klondike in Whitehorse and the SS Keno in Dawson City. Many derelict hulks can still be found along the Yukon River.

In British Columbia, the Moyie, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1898, was operated on Kootenay Lake in south-eastern BC until 1957. It has been carefully restored and is on display in the village of Kaslo, where it acts as a tourist attraction right next to information centre in downtown Kaslo. The Moyie is the world's oldest intact stern wheeler. While the SS Sicamous and SS Naramata (steam tug & icebreaker) built by the CPR at Okanagan Landing on Okanagan Lake in 1914 have been preserved in Penticton at the south end of Okanagan Lake.

The SS Samson V is the only Canadian steam-powered sternwheeler that has been preserved afloat. It was built in 1937 by the Canadian federal Department of Public Works as a snagboat for clearing logs and debris out of the lower reaches of the Fraser River and for maintaining docks and aids to navigation. The fifth in a line of Fraser River snagpullers, the Samson V has engines, paddlewheel and other components that were passed down from the Samson II of 1914. It is now moored on the Fraser River as a floating museum in its home port of New Westminster, near Vancouver, BC.

The oldest operating steam driven vessel in North America is the RMS Segwun. It was built in Scotland in 1887 to cruise the Muskoka Lakes, District of Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. Originally named the S.S. Nipissing, it was converted from a side-paddle-wheel steamer with a walking-beam engine into a two-counter-rotating-propeller steamer.

The first woman steamboat captain on the Columbia River was Minnie Mossman Hill, who earned her master's and pilot's license in 1887.

Great Britain
Engineer Robert Fourness and his cousin, physician James Ashworth are said to have had a steamboat running between Hull and Beverley, after having been granted British Patent No. 1640 of March 1788 for a "new invented machine for working, towing, expediting and facilitating the voyage of ships, sloops and barges and other vessels upon the water". James Oldham, MICE, described how well he knew those who had built the F&A steamboat in a lecture entitled "On the rise, progress and present position of steam navigation in Hull" that he gave at the 23rd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement for Science in Hull, England on 7 September 1853. The first commercially successful steamboat in Europe, Henry Bell's Comet of 1812, started a rapid expansion of steam services on the Firth of Clyde, and within four years a steamer service was in operation on the inland Loch Lomond, a forerunner of the lake steamers still gracing Swiss lakes.

On the Clyde itself, within ten years of Comet's start in 1812 there were nearly fifty steamers, and services had started across the Irish Sea to Belfast and on many British estuaries. By 1900 there were over 300 Clyde steamers.

People have had a particular affection for the Clyde puffers, small steam freighters of traditional design developed to use the Scottish canals and to serve the Highlands and Islands. They were immortalised by the tales of Para Handy's boat Vital Spark by Neil Munro and by the film The Maggie, and a small number are being conserved to continue in steam around the west highland sea lochs.

From 1850 to the early decades of the 20th century Windermere, in the English Lake District, was home to many elegant steam launches. They were used for private parties, watching the yacht races or, in one instance, commuting to work, via the rail connection to Barrow in Furness. Many of these fine craft were saved from destruction when steam went out of fashion and are now part of the collection at Windermere Steamboat Museum. The collection includes SL Dolly, 1850, thought to be the world's oldest mechanically powered boat, and several of the classic Windermere launches.

Today the 1900 steamer SS Sir Walter Scott still sails on Loch Katrine, while on Loch Lomond PS Maid of the Loch is being restored, and in the English Lakes the oldest operating passenger yacht, SY Gondola (built 1859, rebuilt 1979), sails daily during the summer season on Coniston Water.

The paddle steamer Waverley, built in 1947, is the last survivor of these fleets, and the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world. This ship sails a full season of cruises every year from places around Britain, and has sailed across the English Channel for a visit to commemorate the sinking of her predecessor, built in 1899, at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940.

After the Clyde, the Thames estuary was the main growth area for steamboats, starting with the Margery and the Thames in 1815, which were both brought down from the Clyde. Until the arrival of railways from 1838 onwards, steamers steadily took over the role of the many sail and rowed ferries, with at least 80 ferries by 1830 with routes from London to Gravesend and Margate, and upstream to Richmond. By 1835, the Diamond Steam Packet Company, one of several popular companies, reported that it had carried over 250,000 passengers in the year.

The first steamboat constructed of iron, the Aaron Manby was laid down in the Horseley Ironworks in Staffordshire in 1821 and launched at the Surrey Docks in Rotherhithe. After testing in the Thames, the boat steamed to Paris where she was used on the River Seine. Three similar iron steamers followed within a few years.

There are few genuine steamboats left on the River Thames; however, a handful remain.

The SL (steam launch) Nuneham is a genuine Victorian steamer built in 1898, and operated on the non-tidal upper Thames by the Thames Steam Packet Boat Company. It is berthed at Runnymede.

SL Nuneham was built at Port Brimscombe on the Thames and Severn Canal by Edwin Clarke. She was built for Salter Bros at Oxford for the regular passenger service between Oxford and Kingston. The original Sissons triple-expansion steam engine was removed in the 1960s and replaced with a diesel engine. In 1972, the SL Nuneham was sold to a London boat operator and entered service on the Westminster Pier to Hampton Court service. In 1984 the boat was sold again – now practically derelict – to French Brothers Ltd at Runnymede as a restoration project.

Over a number of years French Brothers carefully restored the launch to its former specification. A similar Sissons triple-expansion engine was found in a museum in America, shipped back to the UK and installed, along with a new coal-fired Scotch boiler, designed and built by Alan McEwen of Keighley, Yorkshire. The superstructure was reconstructed to the original design and elegance, including the raised roof, wood panelled saloon and open top deck. The restoration was completed in 1997 and the launch was granted an MCA passenger certificate for 106 passengers. SL Nuneham was entered back into service by French Brothers Ltd, but trading as the Thames Steam Packet Boat Company.

Europe
Built in 1856, PS Skibladner is the oldest steamship still in operation, serving towns along lake Mjøsa in Norway.

In Denmark, steamboats were a popular means of transportation in earlier times, mostly for recreational purposes. They were deployed to carry passengers for short distances along the coastline or across larger lakes. Falling out of favour later on, some of the original boats are still in operation in a few places, such as Hjejlen. Built in 1861, this steamboat is running second to the Norwegian Skibladner as the oldest steamship in operation and sails the lake of Julsø near Silkeborg.

Swiss lakes are home of a number of large steamships. On Lake Lucerne, five paddle steamers are still in service: ' (built in 1901, 800 passengers), ' (1902, 800 passengers), ' (1906, 900 passengers), ' (1913, 900 passengers, fastest paddle-wheeler on European lakes) and  (1928, 1200 passengers, last steamship built for a Swiss lake). There are also five steamers as well as some old steamships converted to diesel-powered paddlewheelers on Lake Geneva, two steamers on Lake Zurich and single ones on other lakes.

In Austria the paddle-wheeler  (250 passengers) of 1871 vintage continues in service on Traunsee. The paddle-wheeler Hohentwiel of 1913 is the oldest running passenger ship on the Lake of Constance. In The Netherlands, a steamboat is used for the annual Sinterklaas celebration. According to tradition, Sinterklaas always arrives in the Netherlands by steamboat. The steamer in The Netherlands is called Pakjesboot 12.

New Zealand
The New Zealand-built 1912 steamer TSS Earnslaw still makes regular sight-seeing trips across Lake Wakatipu, an alpine lake near Queenstown.

Vietnam
Seeing the great potential of the steam-powered vessels, Vietnamese Emperor Minh Mạng attempted to reproduce a French-made steamboat. The first test in 1838 was a failure as the boiler was broken. The task supervisor was chained and two officials Nguyễn Trung Mậu, Ngô Kim Lân from the Ministry of Construction were jailed for false report. The project was assigned again to Hoàng Văn Lịch and Võ Huy Trinh. In the second test two months later, the engine performed greatly. The Emperor rewarded the two handsomely. He commented that although this machine could be purchased from the Westerner, it is important that his engineers and mechanics could acquaint themselves with modern machinery. Therefore no expense was too great. Encouraged by the success, Minh Mạng ordered the engineers to study and develop steam engines and steamers to equip his naval fleets. At the end of Minh Mạng 's reign there were 3 steamers produced named Yến Phi, Vân Phi and Vụ Phi. However, his successor could not maintain the industry due to financial problems, worsened by many years of social unrest under his rule.

Commercial operations

 * Directory of steamboats/riverboats in the U.S. and Europe
 * Steamboat Natchez, based in New Orleans, Louisiana
 * American Queen Steamboat Company – cruises on the Mississippi, Ohio, Columbia and Snake Rivers
 * Julia Belle Swain is currently laid up, but there are plans to put it back in service
 * Lake George Steamboat Company, Lake George, New York
 * Loch Katrine Steamship Sir Walter Scott, Steamer on Loch Katrine
 * Isle of Shoals, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
 * The Belle of Louisville, oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat
 * The Belle of Louisville, oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat
 * The Belle of Louisville, oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat

Museums and museum boats

 * Directory of steamboats/steamboat museums (arranged geographically).
 * . The coal-burning steam narrow-boat President is owned by the Black Country Living Museum, and tours the English canals in summer.
 * Howard Steamboat Museum, Jeffersonville, Indiana
 * Mud Island Mississippi River Museum, Mud Island Park, Memphis, TN
 * National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, Dubuque, IA
 * Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, Hannibal, MO
 * Captain Meriwether Lewis Museum of Missouri River History, Brownville, NE
 * Delta King, Sacramento, CA
 * Mud Island Mississippi River Museum, Mud Island Park, Memphis, TN
 * National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, Dubuque, IA
 * Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, Hannibal, MO
 * Captain Meriwether Lewis Museum of Missouri River History, Brownville, NE
 * Delta King, Sacramento, CA
 * Captain Meriwether Lewis Museum of Missouri River History, Brownville, NE
 * Delta King, Sacramento, CA

Historical image collections

 * Transportation Photograph Collection – University of Washington Library
 * Oliver S. Van Olinda Photographs A collection of 420 photographs depicting life on Vashon Island, Whidbey Island, Seattle and other communities of Washington State's Puget Sound from the 1880s to the 1930s. This collection provides a glimpse of early pioneer activities, industries and occupations, recreation, street scenes, ferries and boat traffic at the turn of the 20th century.
 * Images of the Saltilla Steamship at the University of Houston Digital Library
 * SSHSA Image Porthole: Thousands of digitally preserved photographs of steamships and other engine driven vessels within the collections of the Steamship Historical Society.
 * Oliver S. Van Olinda Photographs A collection of 420 photographs depicting life on Vashon Island, Whidbey Island, Seattle and other communities of Washington State's Puget Sound from the 1880s to the 1930s. This collection provides a glimpse of early pioneer activities, industries and occupations, recreation, street scenes, ferries and boat traffic at the turn of the 20th century.
 * Images of the Saltilla Steamship at the University of Houston Digital Library
 * SSHSA Image Porthole: Thousands of digitally preserved photographs of steamships and other engine driven vessels within the collections of the Steamship Historical Society.

Associations, information and other links

 * Rainer Radow's Steam Boat Page Description of his steamlaunch project Emma and a 1,000 picture collection of over 110 small still existing steamlaunches.
 * Barlow Cumberland, A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River, 2001
 * Robert H. Thurston, A history of the growth of the steam-engine, 1878 (Chapter 5)
 * The Steam Boat Association of Great Britain
 * Steamboats.org US inland rivers steamboats today and in history: pictures, sounds, videos, link directory, travel guide, expert discussion forums.
 * Finnish steamships Finnish Steam Yacht Association.
 * Steamboat on the Loire in the 1800s
 * Steamboats historical marker in Bainbridge, Georgia
 * The Steamship Historical Society of America The official website for the SSHSA, a historical society focused on engine driven vessels and maritime history since 1935.
 * North West Steam Society – Steam power association in US Pacific Northwest – many boats, cars, trains, etc.
 * The Steamboating Forum – for discussion of a variety of steam launches.
 * Dort in Stoom – Largest steam event in Europe, held semi-annually in Dordrecht, the Netherlands.

title: Steamboat


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Transculturation

Transculturation is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in 1940 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. Transculturation encompasses more than transition from one culture to another; it does not consist merely of acquiring another culture (acculturation) or of losing or uprooting a previous culture (deculturation). Rather, it merges these concepts and instead carries the idea of the consequent creation of new cultural phenomena (neoculturation) in which the blending of cultures is understood as producing something entirely new.

Although transculturation is somewhat inevitable, cultural hegemony has historically shaped this process. Particularly, Ortiz referred to the devastating effects of Spanish colonialism on Cuba's indigenous peoples as a "failed transculturation". Further, he affirmed "that when cultures encounter each other, each of the parties invariably exerts a strong influence on the other(s)." Transculturation is often the result of colonial conquest and subjugation. In a postcolonial era, the effects of this oppression remain, as native peoples struggle to regain their own sense of identity. On the other hand, new musical genres have often emerged as a result of transculturation. In reference to Cuba in particular, there exists a mixture between European and African musics as "African slaves left a major imprint on Cuban society, especially in the area of Cuban popular music."

Where transculturation affects ethnicity and ethnic issues, the term "ethnoconvergence" is sometimes used. In a general sense, transculturation covers war, ethnic conflict, racism, multiculturalism, cross-culturalism, interracial marriage, and any other of a number of contexts that deal with more than one culture. In the other general sense, transculturation is one aspect of global phenomena and human events.

The general processes of transculturation are extremely complex—steered by powerful forces at the macrosocial level, yet ultimately resolved at the interpersonal level. The driving force for conflict is simple proximity—boundaries, once separating people (providing for a measure of isolation) become the issue of a conflict when societies encroach upon one another territorially. If a means to co-exist cannot be immediately found, then conflicts can be hostile, leading to a process by which contact between individuals leads to some resolution. Often, history shows us, the processes of co-existence begins with hostilities, and with the natural passing of polarist individuals, comes the passing of their polarist sentiments, and soon some resolution is achieved. Degrees of hostile conflict vary from outright genocidal conquest, to lukewarm infighting between differing political views within the same ethnic community.

These changes often represent differences between homeland pons, and their diasporic communities abroad. Obstacles to ethnoconvergence are not great. The primary issue, language, (hence, communication and education) can be overcome within a single generation—as is evident in the easy acclimation of children of foreign parents. English, for example, is spoken by more non-Anglo-American people than by Anglo-Americans. It has become the current lingua-franca, the worldwide de facto standard international language.

Processes of transculturation become more complex within the context of globalization, given the multiple layers of abstraction that permeate everyday experiences. Elizabeth Kath argues that in the global era we can no longer consider transculturation only in relation to the face-to-face, but that we need to take into account the many layers of abstracted interactions that are interwoven through face-to-face encounters, a phenomenon that she describes as layers of transculturation. Kath draws upon the concept of constitutive abstraction as seen in the work of Australian social theorists Geoff Sharp and Paul James.

Homogenization versus ethnoconvergence
It has been observed that even in monolingual, industrial societies like urban North America, some individuals do cling to a "modernized" primordial identity, apart from others. Some intellectuals, such as Michael Ignatieff, argue that convergence of a general culture does not directly entail a similar convergence in ethnic identities. This can become evident in social situations, where people divide into separate groups, despite being of an identical "super-ethnicity", such as nationality.

Within each smaller ethnicity, individuals may tend to see it perfectly justified to assimilate with other cultures, and some others view assimilation as wrong and incorrect for their culture. This common theme, representing dualist opinions of ethnoconvergence itself, within a single ethnic group is often manifested in issues of sexual partners and marriage, employment preferences, etc. These varied opinions of ethnoconvergence represent themselves in a spectrum; assimilation, homogenization, acculturation, and cultural compromise are commonly used terms for ethnoconvegence which flavor the issues to a bias.

Often it's in a secular, multi-ethnic environment that cultural concerns are both minimised and exacerbated; Ethnic prides are boasted, hierarchy is created ("center" culture versus "periphery") but on the other hand, they will still share a common "culture", and common language and behaviours. Often the elderly, more conservative-in-association of a clan, tend to reject cross-cultural associations, and participate in ethnically similar community-oriented activities. Xenophobes tend to think of cross-cultural contact as a component of assimilation, and see this as harmful.

Obstacles to ethnoconvergence
The obstacle to ethnoconvergence is ethnocentrism, which is the view that one's culture is of greater importance than another's. Ethnocentrism often takes different forms, as it is a highly personal bias, and manifests itself in countless aspects of culture. Religion, or belief, is the prime ethnocentric divider. Second is custom, which often overlaps with religion. With the adherence to each distinct component within ones own culture, comes the repulsion of the other. In most regions, ethnic divides are binary, meaning only two distinct cultures are present, each seeing the other as foreign. Many, however make the point that the binary example is the exception, and the norm is far more dynamic.

Ethnicity can be divided into two distinct areas, as they relate to ethnoconvergence: Utilitarian traits, and traditional customs.

Religion, on the other hand, is a highly personal and attached part of culture. However, religion does not neatly correspond with ethnic identity. In many cosmopolitan societies, religion is everything—social, utilitarian, intellectual, political—from the point of view of people of immersed cultures; the very concept of ethnicity and its distinctions is incongruous to their immersed concepts.

In many societies, such as in those in Europe, languages are considered a significant component of ethnic values. This does not mean that most Europeans reject learning other languages. Quite the contrary, Europeans are often polyglots, and may label other individuals by their ethnicities; practical means of distinguishing cultures may resemble tendencies similar to ethnocentrism.

However, the political and cultural significance of regional or national languages are retained because these polyglots conform to the linguistic norms of the place they visit—doing "as the Romans do". Thus, conforming to the "ethnic integrity" of the region.

It has even become a cliché that "to learn a new language is to adopt a new soul". There are many other examples of the essential significance of language. In pre-Russian Siberia, Tatar-Mongol colonists in the Taiga often recognized indigenous speakers of Turkic languages as their "own people" and non-Turkic groups as "foreigners", despite these indigenous groups having a similar level of material culture, and sharing much of a primitive culture with tribes foreign to the Muslim-Buddhist Tatar-Mongols.

Transcultural communications
In October 2011, U.S. communications agency Bromley launched a new model/strategy utilizing transcultural sociological theory as a means to segment and 'make sense' of the changing American cultural landscape. Returning to classic social science as a solution, Bromley has embraced the anthropological approach put forward by thinkers like Fernando Ortiz as a way to account for ethnicity and language without being limited by them as a way for viewing the world.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Transculturation


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DWB

DWB may refer to:

Media

 * Deutsches Wörterbuch, the largest and most comprehensive dictionary of the German language in existence
 * Dictionary of Welsh Biography, a biographical dictionary of Welsh people who have made a significant contribution to Welsh life
 * Dreamwatch (previously Doctor Who Bulletin), British magazine covering science fiction and fantasy films, books and television programmes
 * "DWB", a ninth-season episode of the American police procedural and legal drama Law & Order
 * DW B, the oldest literary magazine in Flanders

Other

 * Deutscher Werkbund, a German Arts and Crafts Movement, founded as an association in 1907, with sister associations in Austria (Österreichischer Werkbund founded in 1912), Switzerland (Schweizerischer Werkbund since 1913), and in Italy, a predecessor to the Bauhaus
 * members of the present-day Deutscher Werkbund who are entitled to use "dwb" as post nominals
 * Driving while black, a sardonic description of racial profiling of African-American motor vehicle drivers
 * Warm summer subtype (Dwb), a category of humid continental climate
 * Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, international humanitarian organisation

title: DWB


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Pound (currency)

Pound is the name of various units of currency. It is used in some countries today and previously was used in many others. The English word "pound" derives from the Latin expression lībra pondō, in which lībra is a noun meaning 'pound' and pondō is an adverb meaning 'by weight'. The currency's symbol is `£`, a stylised form of the blackletter 'L' ($$\mathfrak{L}$$) (from libra), crossed to indicate abbreviation.

The term was adopted in England from the weight of silver used to make 240 pennies, and eventually spread to British colonies all over the world. While silver pennies were produced seven centuries earlier, the first pound coin was minted under Henry VII in 1489.

Historical currencies

 * Australian pound (until 1966, replaced by the Australian dollar). The Australian pound was also used in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Nauru, New Hebrides and Papua and New Guinea. It was replaced in the New Hebrides/Vanuatu in 1981 by the Vanuatu vatu.
 * Bahamian pound (until 1966, replaced by the Bahamian dollar)

 * Bermudian pound (until 1970, replaced by the Bermudian dollar)
 * Biafran pound (1968 to 1970, replaced by the Nigerian pound)
 * British West African pound
 * in British Cameroon replaced by the CFA franc in 1961
 * in Gambia, replaced by the Gambian pound in 1968
 * in Ghana, replaced by the Ghanaian pound in 1958
 * in Liberia, replaced by the U.S. dollar in 1943
 * in Nigeria, replaced by the Nigerian pound in 1958
 * in Sierra Leone, replaced by the leone in 1964
 * Canadian pound (until 1859, replaced by the Canadian dollar)
 * Cypriot pound (Cyprus and Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, until 1 January 2008, replaced by the euro)
 * Fijian pound (until 1969, replaced by the Fijian dollar)
 * Gambian pound (1968 to 1971, replaced by the dalasi)
 * Ghanaian pound (1958 to 1965, replaced by the cedi)
 * Irish pound (Irish: Punt na hÉireann) (until 2002, replaced by the euro)
 * Israeli pound, also known as the Israeli lira (until 1980, replaced by the shekel)
 * Jamaican pound (until 1968, replaced by the Jamaican dollar). The Jamaican pound was also used in Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands until 1968.
 * Jordanian pound; see Palestine pound, below.
 * Libyan pound (until 1971, replaced by the Libyan dinar)
 * Malawian pound (1964 to 1970, replaced by the Malawian kwacha)
 * Maltese pound (also known as the Maltese lira and replaced by the euro on 1 January 2008)
 * New Brunswick pound (until 1860, replaced by the New Brunswick dollar)
 * Newfoundland pound (until 1865, replaced by the Newfoundland dollar)
 * New Guinean pound
 * New Zealand pound (until 1967, replaced by the New Zealand dollar). The New Zealand pound was also used in the Cook Islands and the Pitcairn Islands.
 * Nigerian pound (1958 to 1973, replaced by the naira)
 * Nova Scotian pound (until 1860, replaced by the Nova Scotian dollar)
 * Oceanian pound (1942-1945 under Japanese occupation of Kiribati, Nauru, New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu)
 * Palestine pound (replaced by the Israeli pound; also served as Jordanian pound, replaced in Jordan by the Jordanian dinar)
 * Pound Scots of Scotland (until 1707 union with England)
 * Prince Edward Island pound (until 1871, replaced by the Prince Edward Island dollar)
 * Rhodesian pound (1964 until 1970 in Rhodesia, replaced by the Rhodesian dollar)
 * Rhodesia and Nyasaland pound (1955-1964, replaced in Southern Rhodesia renamed Rhodesia by the Rhodesian pound, in Northern Rhodesia renamed Zambia by the Zambian pound, and in Nyasaland renamed Malawi by the Malawian pound)
 * Samoan pound (1914–1920 provisional issue by the New Zealand Government military administration. 1920–1959 by the New Zealand Government administration (Treasury notes). 1960–1963 by the Bank of Western Samoa. Replaced 1967 by the tala ($).)
 * Scottish pound: see Pound Scots, above.
 * Solomon Islands pound (1916-1932, replaced by the Australian pound)
 * South African pound (until 1961, replaced by South African rand). The South African pound was also used in Basutoland, Bechuanaland, South West Africa and Swaziland.
 * South African Republic pond (refers to the republic in Transvaal, issued 1867–1902, replaced by the South African pound)
 * South West African pound (1930s to 1961, replaced by South African rand)
 * Southern Rhodesian pound (1896-1955, circulated also in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland; replaced by Rhodesia and Nyasaland pound)
 * Sudanese pound (until 1992 and since January 2007)
 * Tongan pound (1921–1966 Government of Tonga Treasury notes. 1967 replaced by the pa'anga ($))
 * Transvaal pound (see above, South African Republic pond)
 * West Indian pound (until 1949, replaced by East Caribbean dollar)
 * Western Samoan pound (1920-1967, replaced by Samoan tala)
 * Zambian pound (1964 to 1968, replaced by the Zambian kwacha)

Currencies of the former British colonies in America
All of the following currencies have been replaced by the US dollar.
 * Connecticut pound (Connecticut)
 * Delaware pound (Delaware)
 * Georgia pound (Georgia)
 * Maryland pound (Maryland)
 * Massachusetts pound (Massachusetts)
 * New Hampshire pound (New Hampshire)
 * New Jersey pound (New Jersey)
 * New York pound (New York)
 * North Carolina pound (North Carolina)
 * Pennsylvania pound (Pennsylvania)
 * Rhode Island pound (Rhode Island)
 * South Carolina pound (South Carolina)
 * Virginia pound (Virginia)

title: Pound (currency)


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Pound (force)

The pound of force or pound-force (symbol: lbf, sometimes lbf, ) is a unit of force used in some systems of measurement, including English Engineering units and the foot–pound–second system.

Pound-force should not be confused with pound-mass (lb), often simply called "pound", which is a unit of mass; nor should these be confused with foot-pound (ft⋅lbf), a unit of energy, or pound-foot (lbf⋅ft), a unit of torque.

Definitions
The pound-force is equal to the gravitational force exerted on a mass of one avoirdupois pound on the surface of Earth. Since the 18th century, the unit has been used in low-precision measurements, for which small changes in Earth's gravity (which varies from equator to pole by up to half a percent) can safely be neglected.

The 20th century, however, brought the need for a more precise definition, requiring a standardized value for acceleration due to gravity.

Product of avoirdupois pound and standard gravity
The pound-force is the product of one avoirdupois pound (exactly 1 lb) and the standard acceleration due to gravity, approximately 32.174049 ft/s2.

The standard values of acceleration of the standard gravitational field (gn) and the international avoirdupois pound (lb) result in a pound-force equal to $980.665 cm/s2$ (1 lbf).

$$\begin{align} 1\,\text{lbf} &= 1\,\text{lb} \times g_\text{n} \\ &= 1\,\text{lb} \times 9.80665\,\tfrac{\text{m}}{\text{s}^2} / 0.3048\,\tfrac{\text{m}}{\text{ft}}\\ &\approx 1\,\text{lb} \times 32.174049\,\mathrm{\tfrac{ft}{s^2}}\\ &\approx 32.174049\,\mathrm{\tfrac{ft {\cdot} lb}{s^2}} \\ 1\,\text{lbf} &= 1\,\text{lb} \times 0.45359237\,\tfrac{\text{kg}}{\text{lb}} \times g_\text{n} \\ &= 0.45359237\,\text{kg} \times 9.80665\,\tfrac{\text{m}}{\text{s}^2}\\ &= 4.4482216152605\,\text{N} \end{align}$$

This definition can be rephrased in terms of the slug. A slug has a mass of 32.174049 lb. A pound-force is the amount of force required to accelerate a slug at a rate of $32.174 ft⋅lb⁄s^{2}$, so:

$$\begin{align} 1\,\text{lbf} &= 1\,\text{slug} \times 1\,\tfrac{\text{ft}}{\text{s}^2} \\ &= 1\,\tfrac{\text{slug} \cdot \text{ft}}{\text{s}^2} \end{align}$$

Foot–pound–second (FPS) systems of units
In some contexts, the term "pound" is used almost exclusively to refer to the unit of force and not the unit of mass. In those applications, the preferred unit of mass is the slug, i.e. lbf⋅s2/ft. In other contexts, the unit "pound" refers to a unit of mass. The international standard symbol for the pound as a unit of mass is lb.

In the "engineering" systems (middle column), the weight of the mass unit (pound-mass) on Earth's surface is approximately equal to the force unit (pound-force). This is convenient because one pound mass exerts one pound force due to gravity. Note, however, unlike the other systems the force unit is not equal to the mass unit multiplied by the acceleration unit —the use of Newton's second law, F = m ⋅ a, requires another factor, gc, usually taken to be 32.174049 (lb⋅ft)/(lbf⋅s2). "Absolute" systems are coherent systems of units: by using the slug as the unit of mass, the "gravitational" FPS system (left column) avoids the need for such a constant. The SI is an "absolute" metric system with kilogram and meter as base units.

Pound of thrust
The term pound of thrust is an alternative name for pound-force in specific contexts. It is frequently seen in US sources on jet engines and rocketry, some of which continue to use the FPS notation. For example, the thrust produced by each of the Space Shuttle's two Solid Rocket Boosters was 14.7 MN, together 29.4 MN.

General sources

 * Obert, Edward F. (1948). Thermodynamics. New York: D. J. Leggett Book Company. Chapter I "Survey of Dimensions and Units", pp. 1-24.

title: Pound (force)


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Talk:Zhou Dynasty (690–705)

The table is a bit confusing, because during 684AD - 690AD it was still Tang Dynasty, but the title of the table is Zhou Dynasty (690AD - 705AD). Should the Tang Dynasty part of the table be removed OR go back to the original version which the table is seperated into Tang and Zhou?

I prefer removing the Tang part. After all this article is about Zhou Dynasty, and the story of the reign of Wu Zetian should be discussed in her article. --Lorenzarius 07:53 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

The page just needs more clarifications. During 684-690, it was still Tang dynasty but Wu Zetian was the empress. She did not vocally abolish the Tang dynasty until defeating opposing parties. - User:kt2

I don't think one person dynasties should get separate articles. Instead, they should be limited to whoever started it. (See Yuan Shikai). Then we can have only one Zhou Dynasty article with a disambiguation note at the very botton. --Jiang 07:47, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * I agree completely. --Lorenzarius 11:20, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Zhou Dynasty (690–705)


text:
Talk:History of Kuwait

Iraqi officials have, however, publicly indicated that they may again attempt to occupy Kuwait by force.
Because of the inflamatory nature of the above comment in present circumstances, it needs to be accompanied by credible sources. What officials said this? Eclecticology 07:56 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

And when?Vera Cruz

Cleanup
Theres a lot to be said about this article. Namely, the disorganization of references. They do exist, however they are spread out and several pieces of information cannot be verified. Furthermore, poor grammar is quite common in a few areas. -Zer0fighta 01:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Indead this article contradicts the other wikipedia articles about Kuwait. It shows one side of the story without the references one is looking for. In other words it doesn't meet the wikipedia standards! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.116.131.17 (talk) 16:21 UTC, 27 February 2007

 * Particularly the paragraph about the Uqair Protocol is contradictive: Once the Kuwait-Iraqi border is said to be established in 1923 and re-affirmed in 1927; while the last paragraph sees its origin in 1913, recognized in 1932. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.196.29.32 (talk) 09:46 UTC, 2 November 2007

 * I feel a cleanup is required in terms of bias and misinformation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Baqarah47 (talk • contribs) 18:16 UTC, 19 April 2007

What's this "watheeka magazine (third edition) second year, July 1983, p14" ? What's the article title ? By whom ? Who publishes it ? Any web link to it ? If unanswered soon, this will have to go, and what it supports will have to be tagged "reference needed". --Jerome Potts (talk) 08:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC

What's this "watheeka magazine (third edition) second year, July 1983, p14" ? What's the article title ? By whom ? Who publishes it ? Any web link to it ? If unanswered soon, this will have to go, and what it supports will have to be tagged "reference needed". --Jerome Potts (talk) 08:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC

Missing history 1961 - 1990
There is a large gap in this article regarding Kuwait's history from independence in 1961 until the Iraqi occupation in 1990. This is considered the most period of Kuwait's history and should not be neglected.

Clean up
I have tried to clean up the article but am sure there exists more things to be cleaned. Shriram (talk) 09:05, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Reference doesn't validate claims
The reference doesn't substantiate the claims, it's doesn't confirm the claims being made. The reference is useless. Incorectforma (talk • contribs) 11:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What reference? What claims? To what specific claims do you refer and what does the source say? I see you cited WP:FAKE in your removal of a reference, but that's for actual fakes and not genuine sources that happen not to support the claims they are used for. You also claimed it was "wrong format", but there is nothing wrong with the citation format that I can see. You need to clearly explain what you think is the problem here, in a precise way so that people can understand what you are saying - people reading this page can't read your mind. Squinge (talk) 11:26, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
 * PS: Apologies, I reverted a good change you made there too - you correctly changed the title of a citation. Squinge (talk) 11:29, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

In the "Founding of modern Kuwait" section, there's an entire paragraph dedicated to the Bani Utbah's sedentarization. That's unnecessary because the Bani Utbah aren't among Kuwait's earliest inhabitants (Bani Khalid and Huwala are). The Bani Ubah's pattern of sedenterization isn't relevant to the history of Kuwait. It's undue weight, Kuwait existed before the Bani Utbah (since Kuwait was a fishing village part of the Bani Khalid Emirate). Historical sources attest that Kuwait's earliest inhabitants are the Bani Khalid and Huwala. There's a lot of historical revisionism when it comes to Kuwait, undue weight given to a certain group is a violation of Wikipedia rules. The format of the citation appears as a PDF download on my computer. Incorectforma (talk) 11:29, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Change dating system to Common Era
I will be changing the dating system on this article away from the biased, Christian based AD/BC to the common era system. This will bring the article into alignment with secular usage such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India. If you object, please state why you are ok with the biased system here. Eupnevma (talk) 20:10, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Before you go changing AC BC please read Manual of Style, specifically MOS:VAR. Also, instead of hundreds of discussions regarding the changes on hundreds of different talk pages, get a conversation going here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Thanks! Masterhatch (talk) 20:26, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:History of Kuwait


text:
Talk:Manchu people

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 July 2020 and 16 August 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Chloeguoo.

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I strongly encourage everyone to look at diverse sources from all language and cultural backgrounds.Chloeguoo (talk) 12:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Abkai
The link for this word/term takes the user to the Wikipedia page for Manchu transliteration, but "Abkai" is not mentioned on this page whatsoever. Either the link needs to be corrected or a section on "Abkai" needs to be added to the linked page.

I assume "Abkai" is a method of transliterating or romanizing the Manchu language, but it may also be a separate language or dialect itself. Without a proper link, or in-article explanation, I can't be sure either way. 66.91.36.8 (talk) 02:51, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

vandalism
There is too much talk about sex and slavery in this page and resembles other han chinese user vandalism in other parts of wikipedia. Please editors remove inappropriate content focused on the sexual nature of these people which has a pro-chinese chauvanist bias and is racist in nature. Sumaiyahle (talk) 19:11, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Manchu people