R. R. LIVINGSTON TO N. J. ROOSEVELT.

Liv’n Acknowledges the Boat to Answer & Refuses to use Vertical Wheels.

Clermont, 28 Octr., 1798.

Dear Sir,

After sending mine of yesterday I received your favor of the 21st, in which you enter more particularly into the experiments you have made, but not so fully as I would wish, as you will find by the queries I have troubled you with. If you are right as to the motion through the water, the Spanish Minister could not err much in his calculation, for it appears to me that the tide in your river is not short of 2 miles & I have found in my models that the velocity of the boat with the tide is greater in proportion than the mere difference between that and still water.

This is one of the experiments I wished you to ascertain accurately by running one hour with the tide & determining the distance and running back the same distance against the tide. Be it as it will, we now know what we can do with a sufficient power, and tho’ paddles should even do more they are too inconvenient and too liable to accidents to be used—AS FOR VERTICAL WHEELS THEY ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION.

What I principally write now for is to ask you whether it would not be better instantly to fit the boat for passengers by putting a deck over so much as you make cabbin of. This should be the whole, only leaving room for wood near the engine. This deck should be of inch pine boards & rounded so as to carry off the water and made as tight as possible. It should be raised about ten Inches so as to admit of glasses that shove past each other all round The inside only wants to be papered with any cheap common paper and to have two rows of benches the one behind the other. The rear bench so low as to admit the knees under the front one. A narrow table of one board should run through the middle. The back cabbin should be fitted for the ship’s company and have windows and shutters in case of bad weather. Some arrangement should also be made for boiling in pot and kettle. All this should be going on while you are fitting the machinery. It will I believe be best to get two or three quick hands from New York to do it as your shipwright is both slow and extravagant. We have yet one month to use and a pretty important one, because the roads will soon be bad, and tho’ we should only go 3 miles an hour we shall still be able to pick up something besides our expenses and acquire some experience of what further is necessary. I have provided a Captain at £5 a month who understands the river. You say you have a steward and fire engine hand. Tho’ I think Smallman should make the first voyage.

I am, Dr. Sir, R. R. LIVINGSTON.

Mr. N. J. Roosevelt.

The headings of the foregoing letters are copied from their respective indorsations which would seem to have been made by different hands and as though in the preparation of a case.