Vol. V

No. 7

ROBERT FULTON.

Thus far the Twin Cities have not been very successful in reviving steamboat service between the Falls of St. Anthony and the lower Mississippi. Everyone knows, however that much of the world's business and the world's travel is carried not only by the ships that go down to the sea, but by the smaller vessels on the inland waterways of this and other great countries. We cannot think of the steamboat without thinking of Robert Fulton.

Artist, painter, farmer, and the inventor of the steamboat, his genius did not stop with boats floating on the surface of the water, with ferry boats and river boats. He made in addition invaluable contributions which paved the way for the modern submarine.

Robert Fulton was born in a quiet farm house in Pennsylvania on the 14th of November, 1765. He died on the morning of February 23, 1815. From Lancaster County, having earned high honor in his life time, he sleeps near the majestic Hudson he loved so well.

What ought to make him more interesting still to Dunwoody boys is that he was a self-educated man. Throughout his entire life he was a student. Beginning work at an early age because he must earn a living, he left his desk and books before he had mastered any of the higher branches of knowledge. All the time he was busy with his inventions he spent much of his evening hours acquiring a mastery

of higher mathematics, language, chemistry, and perspective drawing.

Going to Philadelphia at 17 years of age, he became very much interested in portraits and miniatures. Having skill at this, he finally was able to go to England. to study art. There, by some chance, he became very much interested in canals.

By 1794 he had invented an inclined plane for use in canals by means of which boats could be lifted by upright hoists or rails to different levels of water. In this way he hoped to avoid the complicated system of locks. It is interesting to note that the size of boats used in canals soon became so great that they could not be handled conveniently by Fulton's method. Instead, the system of locks by which the water is changed from one level to another, floating the boat and moving it out from one lock to another, has become universal in all canals.

His success in the field of invention changed his career from art to mechanics, a turn in the tide of his thought which brought much good to the world. But he retained his love for beauty and his hand never lost its cunning; and later, in hours of leisure, he painted portraits as strong and expressive as in his younger days. Whenever his inventions lagged or failed he could always fall back upon his brush and earn his living.

No less interesting is his word of encouragement to all young men who believe that they have ideas which would lead to

His idea of the mechanic as an inventor is also an inspiring one. "The mechanic should sit down among levers, screws, wedges, wheels, etc., like a poet among the letters of the alphabet, considering them as the exhibition of his thoughts, in which a new arrangement transmits a new idea to the world."

Loyal to his own country amid foreign scenes, his thoughts dwelt upon a way in which to protect America from foreign countries. He knew that this could not be done by building a fleet to cope with the fleets of Europe. He undertook to render Europe's fleets useless. For years he had in mind a secret invention. He planned to build a boat to descend beneath the water

which should carry masses of gunpowder to be placed wherever desired. This he called a torpedo from the "torpaedo or cramp fish," so called because when the men who discovered it took it in their hands "it let forth a cold breath upon them, so they would be so frightened that they would let it go." Fulton's strange boat, like this strange fish, was to let a breath of fire upon its enemies. Did he not choose the name well?

This submarine or torpedo boat was named the Nautilus, meaning a sea shell. This he launched in July, 1800, in the city of Paris. His queer looking boat was six feet wide and twenty feet long. In it he could go down in the river Seine a distance of twenty-five feet, taking two persons with him. Later he transferred the inven

tion to Havre where he could make experiments in the open sea.

In making a report on the submarine he said that he could prove that his boat could "sail like a common boat, obtain air and light, plunge and rise perpendicular, turn to the right and left at pleasure, steer by the compass under water, renew

the common volume of air with ease, and add the respirable air, by a reservoir, which may be obtained at all times."

To his utter discouragement, his submarine for fighting the British navy by the French was finally rejected by the government. He then turned his attention to the invention of steamboats. He received some encouragement from the great Napoleon in this, who, becoming skeptical because of the sinking of one of the first vessels constructed by Fulton, dismissed him as a visionary, and France lost the opportunity and the gift which Fulton finally conferred upon his own country.

Just as he was about to have his invention of the torpedo for the work against English vessels adopted by France, the war closed between France and England and Fulton turned his attention again to the steamboat. He had left America at 21 years of age, in 1780, with 40 guineas in Twenty years later he returned, a man of his purse and one letter of introduction. international prominence and with enough ideas and purposes to fill a life time.

One year later the Clermont, his first steamboat, navigated the Hudson. "She was a strange looking vessel; the uncovered machinery occupied the center and groaned and creaked from time to time. The huge paddle-wheels splashed in and out of the water, casting spray on the decks and high in the air. There were two tall masts, provided with sails in case of need. A rude compass on deck guided the pilot in steering the boat."

The boat had not been long under way when Fulton stopped it because he thought of a way of improving the paddles. He lessened their diameter so that the buckets took less hold of the water. This increased

the speed of the boat and greatly promoted the comfort of the passengers.

With the success of this venture Fulton plunged into hard work with the development of his plan for the promotion of inland navigation in this country. The Clermont went up and down the Hudson, carrying many people, most of whom rode

for the novelty of the thing; but it made the voyage successfully and with almost every trip the mechanism of the boat was improved.

The idea of the torpedo and the charge of gunpowder and the submarine would not down. On the 20th of July, 1809, he blew up a large brig in the harbor of New York and described this experiment with others in his book, "Torpedo War or Submarine Explosions." In this work he had in mind the dream of making his own country so secure from warfare that it would be immune from attack from European fleets. Beyond this he dreamed of making warfare so destructive that all nations would turn from it to lasting peace. Weakened in early life by the exposure

due to his plunge in the river Seine when his first steamboat sank, Fulton did not in his later years enjoy robust health. In February of 1815 he rescued a companion from the Hudson. He had fallen overboard from the ferry dock to the ice. This brought on inflammation of the lungs and led to his death.

No inventor, probably, received such public acclaim during his life and such memorials at his death as did Fulton. What is more satisfying still, he lived to profit financially by his inventions. To him we owe more than to any other man for the conquering of the waste of waters and binding of the continents together with the steam-driven messengers of commerce. -C. A. P.

This the second in a series of articles written for the purpose of showing machinist students wherein the value lies in studying the various related subjects of the general machinist's course.

The things in life we prize most are generally those for which we have worked hardest. Oft times those things are necessities, consequently they are most useful. Then again it does not always pay to wait till necessity forces us to avail ourselves of things whether they be material or abstract. In many a case something laid away for future has proved itself later to be worth many times the original cost.

Knowledge is one of those things that, when laid away for future use, later proves of much more value than its last cost. Just so will it prove in many a machine shop student's life, that when he gets out into

the trade making his living, the things he learned with greatest difficulty and least interest later prove to be of most value to him.

Seemingly, related science (Physics and Chemistry) is one of the subjects many machine shop students do not like and in the study of which they can see little value or direct return. Doubtless the student is somewhat correct in his conclusion, that when he enters upon shop work he will not need to know much about any of the facts and laws taught in the science class, in order to run a lathe, or a drill press; but if he is ambitious and desires to become a master at his trade, he will soon find that one of the greatest and most valuable assets he can possess will be his complete and usable knowledge of the facts and laws taught and applied in physics and chemistry courses.