PAGE
Robert Fulton 7

Eli Whitney 41

Samuel Morse 79

Peter Cooper 121

Thomas A. Edison 147

[Illustration: FULTON.]

ROBERT FULTON.

This story is about a giant.

Do you believe in them?

He peeps out of your coffee cup in the morning.

He cheers you upon a cold day in winter.

But the boys and girls were not so well acquainted with him a
hundred years ago.

About that long ago, far to the north and east, a queer boy lived.

He sat in his grandmother's kitchen many an hour, watching the
tea-kettle.

He seemed to be idle.

But he was really very busy.

He was talking very earnestly to the giant.

The giant was a prisoner.

No one knew how to free him.

Many had often tried to do this and failed.

He was almost always invisible.

But when he did appear, it was in the form of a very old man.

This old man had long, white hair, and a beard which seemed to
enwrap him like a cloak--a cloak as white as snow.

So his name is The White Giant.

The boy's name was James Watt.

He lived in far-away Scotland.

He sat long, listening to the White Giant as he told him many
wonderful things.

The way in which the giant first showed himself to James was very
strange.

James noticed that the lid of the tea-kettle was acting very
strangely.

It rose and fell, fluttered and danced.

Now, James had lived all his life among people who believed in
witches and fairies.

So he was watching for them.

And he thought there was somebody in the kettle trying to get out.

So he said, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Space, freedom, and something to do," cried the giant.

"If you will only let me out, I'll work hard for you.

I'll draw your carriages and ships.

I'll lift all your weights.

I'll turn all the wheels of your factories.

I'll be your servant always, in a thousand other ways."

[Illustration: JOHN FITCH'S STEAMBOAT, 1788.
By permission of Providence & Stonington Steamship Co.]

If you have now guessed the common name of this giant, we will call
him Steam.

At the time James Watt lived, there were no steam boats, steam
mills, nor railways.

And this boy, though his grandmother scolded, thought mu