Her fly-wheels were outside the hull, placed forward of the paddles, and revolved the same way, and it is related that on a subsequent voyage one of the paddle-wheels becoming disabled, paddles were affixed to the fly-wheel and the voyage resumed. The _American Citizen_ of August 17, 1807, announced that: “Mr. Fulton’s ingenious Steamboat, invented with a View to the Navigation of The Mississippi from New Orleans upwards, Sails to-day from the North River near The State Prison to Albany, the Velosity of the Steamboat is calculated at four miles an hour; it is said that it will make a progress of two against The Current of The Mississippi, and if so it will certainly be a very valuable acquisition to the Commerce of the Western States.” An immense crowd assembled to witness the fiasco which was expected to mark the first experimental voyage of “Fulton’s Folly,” and jeered Fulton and his steamer unmercifully. But when the vessel moved into midstream under the power of her own engines, the crowd cheered as energetically as only a crowd can when it has been agreeably surprised and the appeal of facts to its chivalry is irresistible. “Dense volumes of smoke began to pour forth from the smokestack. The boiler began to hiss. At one o’clock the hawser was drawn in, the throttle opened, and to the accompaniment of the stertorous exhaust, the uncovered sidewheels began to quiver, then slowly to revolve. A hush fell on the spectators. Fulton’s own hand at the helm turned the bow. The _Clermont_ moved out into the stream, the steam connections hissing at the joints, the crude machinery thumping and groaning, the wheels splashing, and the smokestack belching like a volcano.... One honest countryman, after beholding the unaccountable object from the shore, ran home and told his wife he had ‘seen the devil on his way to Albany in a sawmill.’”[18] A passenger, recording the voyage, says a miller boarded the _Clermont_ at Haverstraw and said he “did not know about a mill going up stream and came to inquire about it.” [18] New York _Evening Sun_, July 1909. The boat itself was wedge-shaped at bow and stern, which were cut sharp to an angle of 60 degrees. She was almost wall-sided. She was flat-bottomed and keelless, leeway being prevented by two steering boards. Her tiller was at the back end of the after cabin so that it was difficult for the steersman to see ahead. The paddle-wheels, 15 feet in diameter, being uncovered, splashed tremendously, and drenched the passengers. A paddle-wheel had to be disconnected when it was desired to turn the vessel round.