y the propelling
of a boat by a machine, the power of which was to be merely manual
labor.

=Robert Fulton= was born in 1765, and at the time of Symington's
experiment in Scotland, was twenty-three years of age. He was then an
artist student of Benjamin West, in London, but, after several years
of study, felt that he was better adapted for engineering, and soon
thereafter wrote a work on canal navigation. In 1797 he went to Paris.
He resided there seven years and built a small steamboat on the Seine,
which worked well, but made very slow progress.

It is remarkable that the two most practical achievements of our
century have been consummated by artists,--the telegraph by Morse
after a score of "invented" failures, and the successful application
of steam to navigation by Fulton.

* * *

I was glad to think that among the last memorable
beauties which have glided past us were pictures traced
by no common hand, not easily to grow old or fade beneath
the dust of time--the Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy
Hollow and the Tappan Zee.

_Charles Dickens._

* * *

Soon after his return to New York he brought his idea to successful
completion. His reputation was now assured, and his invention of
"torpedoes" gave him additional fame. Congress not only purchased
these instruments of warfare, but also set apart $320,000 for a steam
frigate to be constructed under his supervision.

Through Livingston's influence the legislature passed an act granting
to Fulton the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of the
State by means of steam power. The only conditions imposed were that
he should, within a year, construct a boat of not less than "twenty
tons burthen," which should navigate the Hudson at a speed not less
than four miles an hour, and that one such boat should not fail of
running regularly between New York and Albany for the space of one
year.

="The Clermont,"= named after the ancestral home of the Livingstons,
was built for "Livingston and Fulton," by Charles Brownne in New York.
The machinery came from the works of Watt and Bolton, England. She
left the wharf of Corlear's Hook and the newspapers published with
pride that she made in speed from four to five miles an hour. She was
100 feet in length and boasted of "three elegant cabins, one for the
ladies and two for the gentlemen, with kitchen, library, and every
convenience." She averaged 100 passengers up or down the river.