1805.

1806.

1807.

60 STEAM NAVIGATION.

feet broad), with a steam engine of the power of five horses on board,to work machinery to raise mud(with a chain of buckets) intolighters..

‘“ This was a fine opportunity to show the public that my enginecould propel both land and water carriages, and I resolved to do it.When the work was finished, I put wheels under it, and though itwas equal in weight to two hundred barrels of flour, and the wheelswere fixed on wooden axletrees for this temporary purpose, in a veryrough manner, and attended with great friction of course, yet withthis small engine I transported my great burden to the Schuylkillwith ease; and when it was launched into the water, I fixed a paddle-wheel at the stern, and drove it down the Schuylkill to Delaware,and up the Delaware to the city; leaving all the vessels going upbehind me, at least half way, the wind being a-head.”

In the year 1806, Robert Fulton, an American engineer, in con-Junction with Chancellor Livingstone, commenced to build a steamboat in America, in the building yard of Charles Brown, on the east(Hudson) river: she was launched in the spring of 1807, and hermachinery was completed in August, 1807; after which a trip wasmade with her, in which she attained a speed of nearly five miles anhour. Fulton, perceiving that her paddles entered too deeply intothe water, had them removed and placed nearer to the centres of thewheels.

An announcement soon afterwards appeared in the newspapers ofthe day, that the steam boat built by Messrs. Livingstone and Fultonwould depart in the afternoon of a day fixed, from New York to Al-bany. Mr. Fulton went this voyage, and upon his return publishedan account of it as follows:——

“ T’o the Editor of the American Citizen.

“ Sır,“I ARRIVED this afternoon at four o’clock in the steam boat fromAlbany. As the success of my experiment gives me great hopes