In 1806 Mr. Fulton, in conjunction with Mr. Livingston, commenced building a steam-boat in America, in the yard of Charles Brown on the East (Hudson) River. She was decked for a short distance only at stem and stern. The engine was open to view, and a house, like that of a canal boat, was raised to cover the boiler and the apartments for the passengers and crew. There were no wheel-guards. The boiler was set in _masonry_. She was launched in the spring of 1807, and the engines ordered from Boulton and Watt[87] were fixed in that boat. The engine differed very little from that of the _Charlotte Dundas_, whose piston had a four-foot stroke, with a cylinder 22 inches in diameter, while that of the _Clermont_ (as the American boat was named, after the residence of Mr. Livingston on the Hudson) had also a piston with a four-foot stroke, and a cylinder 24 inches in diameter. Such similarity in the dimensions of the engines could hardly have arisen from a mere accident. But whatever information Fulton derived from Symington, he claimed no patent for the assumed discovery. On the first trial of the _Clermont_ her speed was 5 miles an hour. Fulton perceiving that her paddles entered too deep into the water had them removed, and placed nearer the centres of the wheels. He afterwards made a further trip in her, leaving New York at one o’clock on Monday, and arrived at Clermont, the seat of Mr. Livingston, at one o’clock on Tuesday, performing in twenty-four hours a distance of 110 miles. On the voyage from Clermont to Albany, a distance of 40 miles, the time was eight hours, equal on the average of both passages to nearly 5 miles an hour. [Sidenote: The _Clermont_.] The _Clermont_ was soon afterwards lengthened and considerably improved in appearance and usefulness—indeed, almost wholly rebuilt. Her hull was covered from stem to stern with a flush deck, beneath which two cabins were formed, surrounded by double ranges of berths, and fitted up for comfort in a manner then unexampled. Her dimensions now were, “Length, 130 feet; breadth, 16½ feet; with an engine of only eighteen horse-power,[88] though her burden was 160 tons, the boiler being 20 feet long, 7 feet deep, and 8 feet broad; the axle of her paddle-wheel was cast iron, but it had no outer support; the diameter of the paddle-wheels was 15 feet, and the paddles were 4 feet long, dipping into the water 2 feet.”