of the furnaces were fearful.

"Do you know Robert Fulton?" Fernando asked.

"Indade, I do. Would you like to see the greatest lunatic out of Bedlam?
Then it's mesilf as will point him out to yez."

"I should like to see him."

There were a number of men at work on the boat, all expressing the
wildest eagerness and anxiety. They were rushing forward and aft, above
and below, to those ponderous engines and boilers; but no one could see
what they did. At last Mr. Fulton, the great inventor, appeared. He was
a large, smooth-shaved gentleman, with a long head and melancholy gray
eye. On his nose was a smut spot from the machinery. Thousands were now
assembled to witness the trial voyage. Mr. Livingston gave the order to
cast off, and start the vessel. The lines were loosed and the steam
turned on. Loud hissed the confined monster; but the wheels did not
move. What was the matter?

"Failure!" was on every tongue, and the crowd assembled already began
to hoot and jeer. Mr. Fulton's face expressed the deepest anxiety. He
ran below to inspect the machinery. A bolt had caught. This was removed,
and then the ponderous wheels began to move. The great paddles churned
the water to a mass of foam, and the boat glided forward against wind
and tide at a rate of speed astonishing. Fernando saw Robert Livingston
standing in the stern waving his handkerchief at the crowd which was now
sending up cheer after cheer. The American flag was run up on the staff,
and the steamboat continued on her course up the river to Albany, making
the distance of one hundred and sixty miles in thirty-six hours against
wind and tide; and from that time until now, navigation by steam, travel
and commerce, has been steadily increasing in volume and perfection,
until such vessels may be seen on every ocean and in almost every harbor
of the globe, even among the ice packs of the polar seas. This was the
second of the great and beneficent achievements which distinguished
American inventors at that early period of our country's struggles. The
cotton-gin, invented by Eli Whitney, was the first; an implement that
could do the work of a thousand persons in cleaning cotton wool of the
seeds. That machine has been one of the most important aids in the
accumulation of our national wealth.

[Illustration]

Fernando Stevens stood on the wharf among the assembled thousands,
watching the steamer until it disappeared far up the river. He was lost
in wonder and amazem