The wheels were fifteen feet in diameter, with buckets four feet wide, dipping two feet into the water.
It was 1806 when Fulton came home to begin her construction.

Since his luckless experience with the French Institute he had tested a steamer on the Seine; failed to interest Napoleon; tried, without success, to get the British Government to adopt his torpedo; tried and failed again with the American Government at Washington.

Fulton's thoughts seemed to have been riveted on his torpedo; but Livingston was confident of the future of the steamboat, and had had an engine built for it in England, which Fulton found lying on a wharf, freight unpaid, on his return from Europe.

The State of New York had meantime granted the two another monopoly of steam navigation, and gave them until 1807 to prove their ability and right.

The time, though brief, proved sufficient, and on the afternoon of August 7, 1807, the "Clermont" began her epoch-making voyage.