Patrick Miller's first steamboat, 1788.

Hand-coloured lithograph made by C Bourne in 1843 after an oil painting by Alexander Nasmyth. Miller (1731-1815) commisioned the mining engineer William Symington (1763-1831) to build a steam engine to power this experimental craft. The engine had two single-action cylinders which drove two paddle shafts. The double-hulled pleasure boat is shown here on its trial voyage on Dalswinton Loch, near Dumfries, in Scotland. The pasengers included Miller (1731-1815) and his tenant, the poet Robert Burns (1759-1796).