and enduring influence upon the development of steam navigation
on the inland waterways of America.

Livingston already had no little experience in the same field of
invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a period of
twenty years, the right to operate steamboats on all the waters
of the State of New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing
to the death of Fitch. In the same year Livingston had built a
steamboat which had made three miles an hour on the Hudson. He
had experimented with most of the models then in existence--
upright paddles at the side, endless-chain paddles, and stern
paddle wheels. Fulton was soon inspired to resume his efforts by
Livingston's account of his own experiments and of recent
advances in England, where a steamboat had navigated the Thames
in 1801 and a year later the famous sternwheeler Charlotte Dundas
had towed boats of 140 tons' burden on the Forth and Clyde Canal
at the rate of five miles an hour. In this same year Fulton and
Livingston made successful experiments on the Seine.

It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence
did not prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was
distinctly prejudiced against paddle wheels. Although Livingston
had previously ridden as a passenger on Morey's sternwheeler at
the rate of five miles an hour, yet he had turned a deaf ear when
his partner in experimentation, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, had
insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over the sides." At the
beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with Livingston
in this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to
investigate more carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel
as used twice in America by Morey and by four or five