the story of the Hudson River, was born in America before the War for Independence. According to the most approved precedents, he showed in early boyhood a promise of inventive ability, in combination with a taste for art; the latter culti- vated under the direction of the noted painter, Benja- min West. While in London, engaged in his chosen work, he became interested in canals and wrote a trea- tise on Canal Navigation. This was published, the au- thor at the same time obtaining patents on a double inclined plane designed to take the place of locks in small canals. This work, done by Fulton while sojourning in Eng- land, found its way across the ocean and attracted the attention of Albert Gallatin and others, who were the means of introducing the inventor and his ideas to the notice of Congress, which led to a fuller exposition of his views, prepared at the request of that body. Later ii8 Digitized by Microsoft® Fulton and the Hudson River Steamboat 119 we find him advocating, if he did not suggest, the Erie ' Canal scheme, upon which he reported, as one of the commissioners. Among his various inventions were a mill for sawing marble, a machine for flax-spinning, a dredging machine, several types of canal-boats, a sub- ^ marine torpedo, and a boat designed to act in conjunc- tion with it. The plans for the last invention were carried out in France. Fulton actually submerged his craft at a depth of twenty feet, and stayed under water in her for four hours and a half. He carried a supply of air compressed in a copper globe, and propelled the boat by means of a hand-engine. We have seen that Bushnell, in 1776, invented a torpedo and submarine boat to act in conjunction with it, — contrivances in which Israel Putnam seems to have placed great confidence, — but he never succeeded in making them practicable. Fulton, on the contrary, did blow up a vessel provided for the purpose, and demonstrated the destructive value of his work. Fulton never claimed to be the first to propose steam /^ navigation. Experiments in the same direction seem to have been made in 1690, or even earlier. The names of Blasco de Gary (Spanish), Papin, Jonathan Hulls, William Henry, Count d'Auxiron, M. Perier, Marquis de Jouffroy, James Rumsey, Nathan Read, John Fitch, ^ and several others are in line before we reach that of Robert Fulton. His one peculiar title to pre-eminence was in the fact that he succeeded. ^ Rumsey came very near to success. He not only Digitized by Microsoft® I20 The Hudson River completed a steamboat that was capable of moving through the water at a very moderate rate of speed, but he actually ran his steamer as a public carrier on ^ the Delaware all through the summer of 1790. Fitch sailed a screw steamer on the old collect pond in New York before the Clermont was built ; but Jjoth Rumsey and Fitch died before their tasks were accomplished. Then there were Ormsbee, Morey, and others, busy with experiments. The thing was so evidently in the air that it would have been almost a miracle if a busy brain like Fulton's had not caught the infection. When Fulton took up the problem of steam navi- gation he was fortunate in having as his coadjutor one of the remarkable men of his time. The Honourable ^Robert R. Livingston was one of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, he was a member of the committee that framed the first con- stitution of New York, was the first Chancellor of the State and forever to be remembered as having ad- ministered the oath of office to. the first President of the United States. Livingston, who had himself experimented with steam navigation, fell in with Fulton when he was in France as American Minister. They became acquainted about 1802, and were soon mutually engrossed in the plans for a steamboat which was made under Fulton's. im- mediate supervision. In the following year the con- trivance was completed. It had been built at their joint expense, but we do not find that then or after- Digitized by Microsoft® Fulton and the Hudson River Steamboat 121 wards Livingston was practically engaged in the ac- tual labour of invention or construction. His connection seems rather to have been that of a business partner or backer. Preparations for a trial of their boat in the Seine were interrupted by the collapse of the contrivance, which broke in two and sunk in the river. Fulton succeeded, however, in raising the wreck, and, having repaired the hull, proceeded to demonstrate his theory. The trial was pronounced a success and the partners agreed to construct a larger boat on the