The word "improver" is well put. It has much to do with the
story of many inventions. The labor of Fitch was far-reaching in
many directions, and it detracts nothing from Fulton's fame that the
experiments of Fitch and Symington preceded his final triumph.
Rumsey's claim to the idea of application of steam in 1785 does not
seem to hold good. General Washington, to whom he referred as to a
conversation in 1785, replied to a correspondent that the idea of
Rumsey, as he remembered and understood it, was simply the propelling
of a boat by a machine, the power of which was to be merely manual
labor.
=Robert Fulton= was born in 1765, and at the time of Symington's
experiment in Scotland, was twenty-three years of age. He was then an
artist student of Benjamin West, in London, but, after several years
of study, felt that he was better adapted for engineering, and soon
thereafter wrote a work on canal navigation. In 1797 he went to Paris.
He resided there seven years and built a small steamboat on the Seine,
which worked well, but made very slow progress.
It is remarkable that the two most practical achievements of our
century have been consummated by artists,--the telegraph by Morse
after a score of "invented" failures, and the successful application
of steam to navigation by Fulton.
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