In 1801 Symington could not afford to indulge in further efforts at his own expense, but he found a patron in Lord Dundas, who commissioned him to construct a steam-tug for dragging canal boats. A stout, serviceable tug was built; and a series of experiments entered upon to test her efficiency, which cost upwards of L3000. One bleak, stormy spring-day in 1802, the people on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal might have been seen staring with wonder, at the short, stumpy little tug pushing gallantly on at the rate of three or four miles an hour, with a strong wind right in her teeth, that no other vessel could make head against, and two loaded vessels (each of more than 70 tons burden) in tow. By itself, the tug could do six miles an hour without any great strain. The company made some objection, however, about the banks of the canal being injured, and the tug fell into disuse. It served an important end, though, in giving both Fulton and Bell a basis for their operations, and must be considered the parent of our modern steam-craft. II.--ROBERT FULTON. After Dr. Cartwright, the inventor of the power-loom, had retired penniless from his manufacturing enterprises, and had taken up his abode in London, one of the constant visitors at his modest residence in Marylebone Fields, was a thin, sharp-featured American, about twenty-eight years of age, an artist by profession, and formerly student of Benjamin West, who, however, was now much more interested in the art of engineering than the art of painting. From an early age he had shown a taste for mechanics, and was fond of spending his play-hours at school loitering about workshops and factories, watching the men at their work, and studying the machines and instruments they used. This sojourn in England had brought him into contact with the Duke of Bridgewater, the great canal projector, and Lord Stanhope, well known for his improvements in the printing press and other contrivances, in whose company his boyish bent towards mechanics was revived, and became quite a passion with him. He threw aside his brushes and palette, and applied himself to his favourite pursuit with heart and soul. Having formed the acquaintance of Cartwright, he became a daily visitor at his house, and the enthusiastic, good-natured doctor and he would sit debating for hours the great problem: "Whether it were practicable to move vessels by steam?" Fulton, eager, restless, vivacious, with pencil in hand, was perpetually sketching plans of paddle-wheels; while the doctor, calm, dignified, and earnest, equally engrossed in the subject, was contriving various modes of bringing steam to act upon them. Neither of them had any doubt that the thing could be done, but the "how" long baffled them; and even though the doctor constructed "the model of a boat, which, being wound up like a clock, moved on the water in a highly satisfactory manner," nothing practical came of their cogitations till some years after.