JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

There aren’t many illustrations of steamboats in the great physics/chemistry journal, Annalen der Physik. Rarer still is seeing a plan for such a vessel that includes something that is seldom included–can you find it? I’ve made an enlargement of it and posted it below the first image.

Here it is (“O”):

This identifies the “water closet”, the bathroom, noted as “O”, in two locations.

It seems to be little more than a tiny closet with a box with a hole in it, but, well, there it is.

I suspect that this is the first and last time a W.C. is pictured in one of the most important scientific journals in history.

Notes: 

The engraved plate is found in Annalen der Physik, series I, vol 53; vi, 446pp., 1816, in the article “Noch einige neuere Zeitungs-Nathrichten, Dampfshiffe betreffend… (with a small folding plate, with two views of the vessel), pp 110-119.  The volume also includes the following steamboat-related papers: 

• “Einige geschichtliche Nachrichten von der Erfindung der Dampf-Schisffahtr…” pp 63-70;
• Robertson Buchanan, “Ueber die sogennten Dampfboote…”, pp 70-77; 
• Isaac Weld. “Die erste Serreise mit einem von einer Dampsmachine bewegetn Schiffe, vom Glasgow in Schotland um Cap Landsend nach London”, pp 77-102;
• “Zwei schriben an Herrn Isaac Weld…die Dampf-Schiffharht und dem merkwurdigen…pp 102-110;