seek instruction in his art at the hands of his father's friend, Benjamin West. When he left America, poor John Fitch had not yet completed his first steamboat; but his plans had been published, his company formed, and the boat begun. We may be absolutely certain that a young man like Fulton, with one of the best mechanical heads in the world, full of curiosity with regard to the mechanic arts from his childhood, must have well known what John Fitch was doing.

The great painter received the son of his father's friend with open arms, accepted him as a pupil, and lodged him at his house in London for several years. Fulton, however, never became a great artist. He was an excellent draughtsman, a good colorist, and a diligent workman; but he had not the artist's imagination or temperament. His mind was mechanical; he loved to contrive, to invent, to construct; and we find him, accordingly, withdrawing from art, and busying himself, more and more, with mechanics; until, at length, he adopted the profession of civil engineer. His last effort as an artist was the painting of a panorama, exhibited at Paris in 1797, which he afterwards sold in order to raise money to pursue his experiments with steam.

Robert Fulton was never capable of claiming to be the inventor of the steamboat. It is, nevertheless, to his knowledge of mechanics, and to his resolution and perseverance, that the world is indebted for the final triumph of that invention.

Recent investigations enable us to show the chain of events which led him to embark in the enterprise. His attention was first called to the subject in Philadelphia, by the operations of John Fitch, in 1785 and 1786. Next, fifteen years after, Fulton visited a steamboat in Scotland, which, though unsuccessful, was really propelled by the power of steam for short distances, at the rate of six miles an hour. To please the stranger, who showed an extreme curiosity to witness its operation, this boat was set in motion, and Fulton made drawings of the machinery. A year or two after, he was in France again, where he made the acquaintance of the gentleman who had in his possession the papers left in France by John Fitch, which contained full details of his plans for applying steam to the propulsion of vessels.

We have the testimony of this gentleman, that the papers and drawings of John Fitch remained in the possession of Robert Fulton for " several months." Aided thus by the knowledge and experience of previous inventors, enjoying the immense advantage of the improved steam-engine of James Watt, being himself an excellent mechanic and a very superior draughtsman, having the appearance and manners of a gentleman, and an extensive acquaintance with the leading men of his time, he began the execution of his task with advantages possessed by no previous experimenter in steamboats.

But even these would not have availed if he had not had the good fortune to find a wealthy co-operator. Chancellor Livingston, of New York, was then the American minister at the court of Napoleon. Besides being a gentleman of large estate, he was a man of public spirit, with a strong natural interest in practical improvements. Chancellor Livingston, to his immortal honor, became first the friend, then the patron, and finally the partner of Robert Fulton.

In 1803 the first steamboat of Livingston and Fulton was built in France upon the Seine. When she was almost ready for the experimental trip, a misfortune befell her which would have dampened the ardor of a man less determined than Fulton. Rising one morning after a sleepless night, a messenger from the boat, with horror and despair written upon his countenance, burst into his presence, exclaiming :

"O sir! the boat has broken in pieces and gone to the bottom!"

Never in

For a moment Fulton was utterly overwhelmed. his whole life, he used to say, was he so near despairing as then. Hastening to the river, he found, indeed, that the weight of the machinery had broken the framework of the vessel, and she lay on the bottom of the river, in plain sight, a mass of timber and iron. Instantly, with his own hands, he began the work of raising her, and kept at it, without food or rest, for twenty-four hours, an exertion which permanently injured his health. His death in the prime of life, was, in all probability, remotely caused by the excitement, exposure, and toil of that terrible day and night.

In a few weeks the boat, sixty-six feet long and eight wide, was rebuilt, and the submerged engine replaced in her. The National Institute of France and a great concourse of Parisians witnessed her trial trip in July, 1803. The result was encouraging, but not brilliant. The boat moved slowly along the tranquil Seine, amid the acclamations of the multitude; but the quick eye of Fulton at once discerned that the machinery was defective and inadequate, and that, in order to give the invention a fair trial, it was necessary to begin anew, to procure an engine far more powerful and a boat better adapted to the purpose. As Chancellor Livingston was about to return home, it was resolved that the next attempt should be made at New York; and an engine for the purpose was ordered from the manufactory at Birmingham of Watt and Bolton.

In September, 1807, the famous Clermont, one hundred and sixty tons, was completed. Monday, September the tenth, was the day appointed for a grand trial trip to Albany, and by noon a vast crowd had assembled on the wharf to witness the performance of what was popularly called "Fulton's Folly." Fulton himself declares that, at noon on that day, not thirty persons in the city had the slightest faith in the success of the steamboat; and that, as the boat was putting off, he heard many "sarcastic remarks." At one o'clock, however, she moved from the dock, — vomiting smoke and sparks from her pine-wood fires, and casting up clouds of spray from her uncovered paddle-wheels. As her speed increased, the jeers of the incredulous were silenced, and soon the departing voyagers caught the sound of cheers. In a few minutes, however, the boat was observed to stop, which gave a momentary triumph to the scoffers. Fulton perceived that the paddles, being too long, took too much hold of the water, and he stopped the boat for the purpose of shortening them. This was soon done, and the boat resumed her voyage with increased speed, and kept on her course all that day, all the succeding night, and all the next morning, until at one o'clock on Tuesday she stopped at the seat of Chancellor Livingston, one hundred and ten miles from New York. There she remained till the next morning at nine, when she continued her voyage toward Albany, where she arrived at five in the after

noon.

Her running time was thirty-two hours, which is at the rate of nearly five miles an hour. Returning immediately to New York, she performed the distance in thirty hours; exactly five miles an hour.

The Clermont was immediately put upon the river as a packetboat, and plied between New York and Albany until the close of navigation, being always crowded with passengers. Enlarged during the winter, she resumed her trips in the spring of 1808, and continued to run with great success, and with profit to her owners. It was long, however, before the river boatmen were disposed to tolerate this new and terrible rival. At first, it is said, they fled in affright from the vicinity of the monster, fearing to be set on fire or run down by her. Afterwards, regaining their courage, they made so many attempts to destroy her that the Legislature of the State passed a special act for her protection.

Fulton devoted the rest of his life to the improvement of the steamboat. He lived to see the value of his labors universally recognized, and he acquired by them a considerable fortune. He died February 24th, 1815, aged fifty years, leaving a wife and four children, two of whom are still living in New York. He was able to leave his wife an income of nine thousand dollars a year, as well as five hundred dollars a year for each of his children till they were twelve years old, and a thousand dollars a year afterward till they were twenty-one. So, at least, runs his will, written a year before his death. His remains lie in Trinity Church-yard, in the city of New York.

Robert Fulton was, in every respect, an honor to his country and his profession. Tall, handsome, and well-bred, he easily made friends, whose regard he retained by his sincerity, generosity, and good-humor. His crowning virtue was that indomitable resolution which enabled him to bear patiently the most cruel disappointments, and to hold calmly on his way till he had conquered a sublime success.

ELI WHITNEY.

ONE day, in the fall of 1792, when General Washington was President of the United States, a company of Georgia planters happened to be assembled at the house, near Savannah, of Mrs. Nathaniel Greene, widow of the famous General Greene, of the Revolution. Several of these planters had been officers under the command of the general, and they had called, naturally enough, to pay their respects to his widow.

The conversation turned upon the depressed condition of the Southern States since the close of the war. The planters were generally in debt, their lands were mortgaged, their products afforded little profit, and many of the younger and more enterprising people were moving away. The cause of this state of things, these planters agreed, was the difficulty of raising cotton with profit, owing to the great labor required in separating the fibres of the cotton from the seeds.

Many of our readers, we presume, have never seen cotton growing, nor even a boll, or pod, of cotton. This pod, which is about as large as a hen's egg, bursts when it is ripe, and the cotton gushes out at the top in a beautiful white flock. If you examine this flock closely, you discover that it contains eight or ten large seeds, much resembling, in size and shape, the seeds of a lemon. The fibres of the cotton adhere so tightly to the seeds, that to get one pound of clean cotton, without wasting any, used to require a whole day's labor. It was this fact that rendered the raising of cotton so little profitable, and kept the Southern States from sharing in the prosperity enjoyed by the States of the North, after the close of the Revolutionary war.

When the gentlemen had been conversing for some time, the