MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 71 



few months afterwards. With a model resembling that of a skiff, it was 

 decked for a short distance at stem and stern. The engine was open to 

 view, and from the engine aft a house like that on a canal boat was raised 

 to cover the boiler, and the apartments for the officers. In these, by the 

 addition of a few berths, the passengers were accommodated. There were 

 no wheel-guards. The rudder \vas of the shape used in sailing vessels, and 

 moved by a tiller. The boiler was of the form then usual in Watt's engines, 

 and was set in masonry. The condenser was of the size habitually used in 

 land engines, and stood, as was and still is the practice in them, in a large 

 cold-water cistern. The weight of the masonry, and the great capacity of 

 the cold-water cistern, diminished most materially the buoyancy of the 

 vessel. 



At this point Fulton's ingenuity and fertility of invention were called into 

 play. The experiment was to the eye of the world successful, yet was 

 withal so imperfect as to be liable to continual accident and annoyance. 

 The rudder had so little power that the vessel could hardly be managed, and 

 could not be made to veer around even in the whole breadth of the Hudson 

 at New York. The spray from the wheels dashed over the passengers, and 

 the skippers of the river craft, taking advantage of the unwieldiness of the 

 vessel, did not fail to run foul of her as often as they thought they had the 

 law on their side. Thus, in several instances, the steamboat reached one or 

 the other of the termini of its route with but a single wheel. 



Before the season closed, the wheel was surrounded by a frame of strong 

 beams, and the paddles were covered in ; the rudder had taken the shape of 

 a rectangle, of large iron horizontal dimensions, such as is now seen in all 

 American river-boats; this rudder was worked by a wheel, the ropes from 

 which were attached to the end most distant from the pintles. The vessel, 

 by the last mentioned arrangement, became so manageable as to be capable 

 of veering at Albany; and by the first was more likely to inflict than to 

 receive injury in an encounter with a sailing vessel. I was even at that time 

 of opinion and a careful attention to the working of the patent laws has 

 confirmed me in it that, had Fulton been less sanguine in relation to his first 

 patent, and had added to it by a new instrument the improvements which 

 circumstances led him to make during the summer of 1807, but which he 

 allowed to become public property, he might have maintained his exclusive 

 privileges as patentee in all parts of the Union. To put a pair of paddle- 

 wheels on the axle of the crank of one of Boulton and Watt's engines is a 

 step almost too simple to admit of specification, and had been in some de- 

 gree indicated by Watt himself; but the practical difficulties which lay in 

 the way, and could not have been foreseen, required the application of reme- 

 dies, all of which were original. Among them, unqtiestionably, was the 

 substitution of a condenser, enlarged fourfold in its capacity, for the old 

 condenser and the cold-water cistern, together with the use of standing pipes 

 instead of the cold-water pump. These made their appearance the ensuing 

 season. 



During the winter of 1807-8, the " Clermont" for by this name the vessel 

 was now known was almost wholly rebuilt. The hull was considerably 

 lengthened, and covered from stem to stern with a flush deck. Beneath this, 

 two cabins were formed, and surrounded by double ranges of berths, fitted 

 up in a manner then unexampled for comfort. The vessel was then adver- 

 tised to run at stated periods between New York and Albany, as a packet, 

 the first time of departure being the first Wednesday (I think) of May. On 



