Stories of Great Inventors | Page 4

to blow up a vessel.
It contains one hundred and seventy pounds of powder.
The clockwork is now running.
If I should allow it to run fifteen minutes it would blow us all to
atoms."
His audience was much frightened.
They all ran away.
Mr. Fulton put the peg back in its place.
He told them it was then safe.
Not until then did they dare come back.
But now our giant, Steam, became the friend of Mr. Fulton.
Many had tried to put this giant to work.
But at first he seemed rather hard to teach.
Long before, a poet had written these lines, which show how much
people hoped to make the giant do:--
"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered Steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or
drive the rapid car."
It was a true prophecy.

Mr. Fulton married the daughter of a Mr. Walter Livingston.
This Mr. Livingston had a relative who was a great man, and a rich
man.
He was much interested in all inventions.
He often helped inventors with his money.
He had long believed that boats could be moved by steam.
At one time the state of New York gave him the right of all steam boats
for twenty years.
He was given the right if he would get one steam boat running within a
year.
But the year passed and the boat was not built.
Everybody made fun of his "grand rights."
At this time our government made him our minister to France.
There he met Robert Fulton for the first time.
And in Paris Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton made a steam boat.
When it was finished they invited their friends to come and see it tried.
Early upon the morning when they hoped to succeed, a messenger
came.
He bore sad news.
The new boat had broken in two.
The machinery was too heavy for it.
It had sunk to the bottom of the river Seine.

Mr. Fulton had not had his breakfast.
He hurried to the river.
He worked standing in the cold water.
In twenty-four hours he had saved the machinery, and some other parts
of the boat.
But it made him ill.
He never was so strong again.
Of course he felt greatly discouraged.
They went to work again.
They built another boat.
This was a success.
It was sixty-six feet long, and moved by wheels on the side.
Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton decided to try again in America upon
the Hudson River.
Mr. Livingston was given again the same privileges by the State of
New York.
But this time Mr. Fulton was his partner.
They were given two years in which to make their boat.
They were to make one which could go four miles an hour.
It took much money.
Mr. Fulton promised to ask only a certain sum of Mr. Livingston.

But this sum proved to be too small.
He went to see a friend.
He talked long and earnestly to him.
But the friend grew tired and told him he must go home or go to bed.
Mr. Fulton wanted one thousand dollars.
His friend said he would see him again.
[Illustration: THE ERUCTOR AMPHIBOLIS. A COMBINED
STEAMBOAT AND LOCOMOTIVE CONSTRUCTED BY OLIVER
EVANS A NATIVE OF NEWPORT, DELAWARE, IN 1804.]
[Illustration: PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF MACHINERY IN FULTON'S
CLERMONT. By permission of Providence & Stonington Steamship
Co.]
Mr. Fulton came again before the poor man had had any breakfast.
He gave him no peace.
But he got his money at last.
Mr. Fulton was much laughed at for trying to make such a boat.
The boat was called by people, "Fulton's Folly."
His friends would listen politely to him.
But he said he knew they did not believe in him.
He often, as he walked about, heard people laugh and sneer at him.
But at last the boat was done.
The sun rose smiling on that August morning.

The world was enjoying its morning nap.
Only a few people were on the shores.
Gracefully the boat was moved from the Jersey shore.
[Illustration: THE CLERMONT, 1807 By permission of Providence &
Stonington Steamship Co.]
Those who saw were amazed.
Old sailors were frightened.
When they saw a boat with no sails, they thought it an evil spirit.
But the long line of black smoke which they saw was only the breath of
the dear old giant, Steam.
At last he had something to do.
This boat was called the Clermont.
It passed the city of New York.
It passed the beautiful Highlands of the Hudson.
It puffed patiently on until it reached Albany.
All along the shores people watched it breathlessly.
Everybody stopped sneering and cheered.
The Clermont had gone one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours.
Except that the ocean steamships are larger, handsomer, and