In the 19th century, mainly technical literature is attention paid to the use of camels in the naval world. Mostly the authors wrote that is was a Dutch invention although camels were also used in Venice , dealing with the lagoon problems, and in Russia . The texts which appeared in the literature is most of the time almost the same. For a picture of the camels see on this weblog my note The camels as used by the Dutch navy described by Cornelis van Yk in 1697.
I used a book to show what written about the camels and a second book to add some information. The A treatise of mechanics, theoretical, practical, and descriptive, published by Gregory Olinthus in 1826, supplied the following text (p. 143). CAMEL is the name given to a machine employed by the Dutch for carrying vessels heavily laden over the sand-banks in the Zuyder-Zee. In that sea, opposite to the mouth of the river Y, about six miles from the city of Amsterdam, there are two sand-banks, between which is a passage called the Pampus, sufficiently deep for small vessels, but not for those which are large and heavily laden. On this account, ships which are outward bound take in before the city only a small part of their cargo, receiving the rest when they have got through the Pampus ; and those that are homeward bound must, in a great measure, unload before they enter it. For this reason the goods are put into lighters, and in these transported to the warehouses of the merchants in the city; and the large vessels are then made fast to boats, by means of ropes, and in that manner towed through the passage to their stations.” Though measures were adopted so early as the middle of the sixteenth century, by forbidding ballast to be thrown into the Pampus, to prevent the further accumulation of sand in this passage, that inconvenience increased so much from other causes as to occasion still greater obstruction to trade; and it at length became impossible for ships of war, and others heavily laden, to get through it. About the year 1672 no other remedy was known than that of making fast to the bottoms of ships large chests filled with water, which was afterwards pumped out; so that the ships were buoyed up, and rendered sufficiently light to pass the shallow. By this method, which was attended with the utmost difficulty, the Dutch carried out their numerous fleet to sea in the above mentioned year. This plan, however, gave rise soon after to the invention of the camel, by which the labour was rendered easier. The camel consists of two half ships, constructed in such a manner as they can be applied below water, on each side of the hull of a large vessel. On the deck of each part of the camel are a great many horizontal windlasses, from which ropes proceed through apertures in the one half, and, being carried under the keel of the vessel, enter similar apertures in the other, from which they are conveyed to the windlasses on its deck. When they are to be used, as much water as may be necessary is suffered to run into them; all the ropes are cast loose, the vessel is conducted between them, and large beams are placed horizontally through the port-holes of the vessel, with their ends resting on the camel on each side. When the ropes are made fast, so that the ship is secured between the two parts of the camel, the water is pumped from them; by which means they rise, and raise the ship along with them. Each half of the camel is often about 1 27 feet in length ; the breadth at one end is 22, and at the other 13. The hold is divided into several compartments, that the machine may be kept in equilibrio while the water is flowing into it. An East India ship that draws 15 feet of water can, by the help of the camel, be made to draw only 11; and the heaviest ships of war, of QO or 100 guns, can be so lightened as to pass, without obstruction, all the sand-banks of the Zuyder Zee. Leupold, in chap. 6. of his Theatrum Machinarum, published in 1725, at Leipsick, describes this machine under the head Beschreibung der se genannten Camele zu Amsterdam , vomit die befrachten Schiffe uber dem Pampus gebracht werden, and says it was invented by Cornelius Meyer, a Dutch engineer. But the Dutch writers almost unanimously ascribe this invention to a citizen of Amsterdam , called Meuves Meindertszoon Bakker. As ships built in the Newa cannot be conveyed into harbour, on account of the sand-banks formed by the current of that river, camels are employed also by the Russians, to carry ships over these shoals: and they have them of various sizes. Bernoulli saw one, each half of which was 217 feet long, and 36 broad. Camels are used likewise at Venice . An engraving of the camel may be seen in L’Art de batir les Vaisseaux, Amsterdam , 1719, 4to. vol. ii. p. 93.”
I add a small part from the book Recreations in mathematics and natural philosophy, p. 39, published in 1814 by Jacques Ozanam, Jean Etienne Montucla and Charles Hutton. “Bakker himself, written in 1692, and still preserved, that in the month of June, when the water was at its usual height, he conveyed in the course of' 14 hours, by the help of the camel, a ship of war called the Maagt van Enkhuysen, which was 156 feet in length, from Enkhuysen Hooft, to a place where there was sufficient depth; and that this could have been done much sooner had not a perfect calm prevailed at the time. In the year 1693, he raised a ship called the Unie, 6 feet, by the help of this machine, and conducted her to a place of safety.”