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Show Seed Motion Inspired Screw Propeller Idee When a young engineer named Hlcl of Bolton, England, noticed one dav the rotary descent of a sycamore seed he examined It and applied his obser vations to the making of a screw pro peller. Some years later, In 1S23, a Kent lsh farmer, Francis Smith, who was Interested In murine engineering, constructed con-structed a model boat propelled by a screw driven with a spring. The success suc-cess of this led to further experiments on a pond In one of his fields. Experts became Interested In his Investigations, In-vestigations, and In 1SSG he built a ten-ton vessel to the design of his model. This had satisfactory trials on Uie Paddlngton canal aud the Thames, but the Inventor was not satisfied. sat-isfied. He put to sea in her, j)4 despite de-spite rough weather his craft be.inved excellently. A year later the admiralty agreed to foster the Invention If he could make a larger vessel that would travel five miles an hour on the Thames ; and in 1838 he built the Archimedes, a 237-ton 237-ton boat of 90 horse power, which he launched at Mlllwall. To the aston-j lshment of the critics this boat reached a speed of nearly ten miles an hour, and In the two years that followed nearly one hundred similar boats were built |