In 1789, Mr. Miller
produced a larger vessel on the same plan, which made seven miles per
hour in the still water of the Forth and Clyde Canal, but it proved too
weak for its machinery, which had to be taken out.
It was in the face of these failures that Fulton applied himself to the
task of designing a successful steamboat. During his residence in Paris
he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Robert R. Livingston, then the
American minister in France, who had previously been connected with some
unsuccessful steamboat experiments at home. Mr. Livingston was delighted
to find a man of Fulton's mechanical genius so well satisfied of the
practicability of steam navigation, and joined heartily with him in his
efforts to prove his theories by experiments. Several small working
models made by Fulton convinced Mr. Livingston that the former had
discovered and had overcome the cause of the failure of the experiments
of other inventors, and it was finally agreed between them to build a
large boat for trial on the Seine. This experimental steamer was
furnished with paddle wheels, and was completed and launched early in
the spring of 1803.
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