This, then, in brief, seems to be the story. While bearing in mind the efforts of others, yet it would seem that Miller, Taylor, and Symington invented steam navigation, utilising improvements of Watt on the steam engine; but Fulton, in America, and Bell, in Britain, seeing something of these experiments, developed them to assured success. What were Fulton’s adventures? CHAPTER II. TO THE NARROW SEAS. “I should not like to risk my money in the thing.” “Nor I, she will never pay.” “I reckon she will burst up before the day is over.” “Well, she is about to start now.” A few minutes more, and the smiles on the faces of the speakers changed to expressions of astonishment. The boat was actually “walking the waters like a thing of life,” and gathering speed as she drew away from the pier. “Why, stranger, this thing’s going to succeed.” “It does look so.” Still the speakers gazed, and still the vessel continued to glide along. And shouts and applause burst from the thronging crowd around. The “thing” was succeeding indeed. They were watching the trial trip of the first practically successful steamboat in America, the _Clermont_. Fulton had been successful, and together with his companion, Livingstone—after whose residence the vessel was named—had launched a satisfactory steamer in America, five years before the _Comet_ appeared in Britain. Yet the _Clermont’s_ engines were made in Britain by Boulton & Watt, and men from their works helped in mounting the machinery. Colden, Fulton’s biographer, describing this trial trip, says:— “The minds of the most incredulous were changed in a few minutes—before the boat had made the progress of a quarter of a mile the greatest unbeliever must have been converted. The man who, while he looked on the expensive machine, thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to waste his money on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his features as the boat moved from the wharf and gained her speed; his complacent smile gradually stiffened into an expression of wonder; the jeers of the ignorant, who had neither sense nor feeling enough to repress their contemptuous ridicule and rude jokes, were silenced for the moment by a vulgar astonishment, which deprived them of the power of utterance, till the triumph of genius extorted from the incredulous multitude which crowded the shores shouts and acclamations of congratulations and applause.” The scene of the vessel’s exploit was the famous river Hudson, and she came to make several trips between New York and Albany as a passenger boat. She performed the journey from Albany to New York in thirty-two hours, and back in thirty hours; her average speed being five miles an hour. Steamers now perform the passage in about eight hours.