He made something like a duck's foot to push it through the water.
Another moved his boat by forcing a stream of water in at the bow and out at the stern.
Then came a man named John Fitch.
He made his engine run a number of oars so as to paddle the boat forward.
He grew very poor.
People laughed at him.
But he said, "When I shall be forgotten, steam boats will run up the rivers and across the seas."
Then people laughed the harder and called him "a crank."
Mr. Fitch's boat was tried in 1787.
Now, in 1765, there happened a good thing for this old world.