It is only necessary for us to say, that this boiler proved a complete failure. Steam began to issue from its joints a few hours after the "Clermont" left New York. It then became impossible to keep up a proper degree of tension, and the passage was thus prolonged to forty-eight hours. These defects increased after leaving Albany on the return, and the boiler finally gave way altogether within a few miles of New York. The time of the downward passage was thus extended to fifty-six hours. Fulton was, however, thus relieved from all further interference; this fruitless experiment was decisive as to his superiority over his colleague in mechanical skill. He therefore immediately planned and directed the execution of a new boiler, which answered the purpose perfectly; and although there are many reasons why boilers of a totally different form and of subsequent invention should be preferred, it is, for its many good properties, extensively used, with little alteration, up to the present day. But a few weeks sufficed to build and set this boiler, and in the month of June the regular passages of the "Clermont" were renewed. In observing the hour appointed for departure, both from New York and Albany, Fulton determined to insist upon the utmost regularity. It required no little perseverance and resolution to carry this system of punctuality into effect. Persons accustomed to be waited for by packet-boats and stages, assented with great reluctance to what they conceived to be a useless adherence to precision of time. The benefits of this punctuality were speedily perceptible; the whole system of internal communication of the State of New York was soon regulated by the hours of arrival and departure of Fulton's steamboats; and the same system of precision was copied in all other steamboat lines. The certainty of conveyance at stated times being thus secured, the number of travellers was instantly augmented; and before the end of the second summer, the boat became far too small for the passengers, who crowded to avail themselves of this novel, punctual, and unprecedentedly rapid method of transport. Such success, however, was not without its alloy. The citizens of Albany and the river towns saw, as they thought, in the steamboat, the means of enticing their customers from their ancient marts to the more extensive market of the chief city; the skippers of the river mourned the inevitable loss of a valuable part of their business; and innumerable projectors beheld with envy the successful enterprise of Fulton.