This was the first voyage of considerable length ever made by a steam-vessel; and Fulton, though not to be classed with James Watt as an inventor, is entitled to the great honor of having been the first to make steam-navigation an every-day commercial success, and of having thus made the first application of the steam-engine to ship-propulsion, which was not followed by the retirement of the experimenter from the field of his labors before success was permanently insured. [Illustration: FIG. 81.--Engine of the Clermont, 1808.] The engine of the Clermont (Fig. 81) was of rather peculiar form, the piston, _E_, being coupled to the crank-shaft, _O_, by a bell-crank, _I H P_, and a connecting-rod, _P Q_, the paddle-wheel shaft, _M N_, being separate from the crank-shaft, and connected with the latter by gearing, _O O_. The cylinders were 24 inches in diameter by 4 feet stroke. The paddle-wheels had buckets 4 feet long, with a dip of 2 feet. Old drawings, made by Fulton's own hand, and showing the engine as it was in 1808, and the engine of a later steamer, the Chancellor Livingston, are in the lecture-room of the author at the Stevens Institute of Technology. The voyage of the Clermont to Albany was attended by some ludicrous incidents, which found their counterparts wherever, subsequently, steamers were for the first time introduced. Mr. Colden, the biographer of Fulton, says that she was described, by persons who had seen her passing by night, "as a monster moving on the waters, defying wind and tide, and breathing flames and smoke." This first steamboat used dry pine wood for fuel, and the flames rose to a considerable distance above the smoke-pipe. When the fires were disturbed, mingled smoke and sparks would rise high in the air. "This uncommon light," says Colden, "first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and tide were averse to its approach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming toward them; and when it came so near that the noise of the machinery and paddles was heard, the crews (if what was said in the newspapers of the time be true), in some instances, shrank beneath their decks from the terrific sight, and left their vessels to go on shore; while others prostrated themselves, and besought Providence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tides, and lighting its path by the fires which it vomited." In the Clermont, Fulton used several of the now characteristic features of the American river steamboat, and subsequently introduced others. His most important and creditable work, aside from that of the introduction of the steamboat into every-day use, was the experimental determination of the magnitude and the laws of ship-resistance, and the systematic proportioning of vessel and machinery to the work to be done by them.