ROBERT FULTON.

then penetrate the crust of the world in our western wilderness.

It has been remarked as a notewor

Tms distinguished mechanician and original inventor was a genuine product of the American soil. The genius, indeed, of the men whom America thy coincidence, that Benjamin West produced in various departments of and Robert Fulton came into the world science in the last century, the Frank- in the same vicinity, in what was, at lins, the Rittenhouses, the Kinners- the time of their birth, a wild and unleys, the Whitneys, should be more cultivated portion of the country, more highly estimated than the parallel remote from the seaboard in means of attainments of our own day. At present thousands of instructors and thousands of new influences are paving the way to fresh inventions. Common schools and academies furnish the pupil with profound elementary knowledge; libraries disclose the myriad achievements of the past; special newspapers and magazines carry knowledge to every hamlet; kindred sciences welcome and assist one another; social organizations encourage new discovery; government offers its prizes; accumulated commercial and manufacturing wealth rewards the inventor on the instant. How different this splendid triumphal procession from the first elements of science to fame and fortune, from the groping into light of the heaven-sown genius in the infant society of America a hundred years ago! It must needs have been a plant of no common hardihood, fully predestined to growth and vitality which could

access and culture, than Arkansas is at present. It is owing to one of these men that the distance has been diminished and that we are enabled to make this truthful comparison. West was born at Springfield, Pa., in 1738. Robert Fulton first saw the light in a township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, then called Little Britain, but now bearing the name of Fulton, in the year 1765. His father, of the same name, was an emigrant from Ireland. He was at one time, we are told, a tailor; but at his son's birth was the occupant of a farm. He died too early to influence the child's education, which was picked up mainly by himself, though we hear of his being at school, and, as is not uncommon with boys of genius, of being accounted a dull fellow. This, in such cases, means simply that nature is working in a way of her own, independent of the schoolmaster. Of the an ecdotes related of his intercourse with

1

money paid by Robert Fulton, miniature painter, of the city of Philadelphia and State aforesaid;"-lawful money, truly, and very creditable not only to the youth's industry and family piety, but to the appreciation of the good people of Philadelphia. It is pleasant to know, from the enthusiastic narrative of Mr. Reigart, that for fourteen years, the remainder of her life, "this earthly heritage gave peace and comfort to the widow's heart," and was afterwards enjoyed by her daughter.

his Quaker schoolmaster, Caleb Johnson, there is one of peculiar significance. "I have," said that zealous instructor, in answer to the inquiries of the boy's mother, "used my best endeavors to fasten his attention upon these studies, but Robert pertinaciously declares his head to be so full of original notions that there is no vacant chamber to store away the contents of any dusty books." The busy brain of the boy in fact teemed with notions. At four teen he is at home in all the workshops of the place. He contrives for his com panions a paddle-wheel worked by a crank, for their flat-bottomed fishingboat, to relieve the cumbrous poling on the Conestoga. He has got the nickname of "Quicksilver Bob" among the workmen at the smithery where the government arms were made in those days of the Revolution, in consequence of his ready calculations of balls and distances, and his consumption of that article in his private experiments. He has also a talent for drawing, displayed in caricaturing the Whig and Tory boys in their fights in the streets of Lancaster. At the age of seventeen, following the track of West, he finds his way to Philadelphia, with the intention of supporting himself as a painter, and is so successful in the pursuit that at the age of twenty-one he is enabled to establish his mother on a farm of eighty-four acres, in the distant Washington County of the State, the consideration for which expressed in the deed is eighty pounds "lawful this princely abode under the protection of the steward, a man of conse

1 1 Reigart's recent Life of Fulton, Philadelphia, 1856—a

Some symptoms of disease, of a distressing pulmonary character, coming upon him at this time, and his artistical reputation being somewhat established, he was induced by his friends to visit England, with the expectation of improved health, and aid and counsel in his profession from Benjamin West, who had become established in the favor of the court and patrons of art of that country. The kind Quaker painter received him with friendly hospitality, making him a sharer of his home and artistic resources for several years. At the end of this genial apprenticeship, or, as we should rather say, fellowship, Fulton pursued his course about England, with the design of studying the masterpieces of art congregated in the rural mansions of the nobility. He was for a time at Powderham Castle, the seat of the Courtenays in Devonshire, engaged in copying the works of the masters on its walls. He seems to have resided in

book which contains numerous anecdotes of these early quence on such estates. It was while he was in the neighborhood of Exeter

years.

that he made the acquaintance of the was forwarded with a letter to Gover Earl of Bridgewater, the famous parent nor Mifflin of Pennsylvania, urging, of the canal system in England. By with numerous calculations, the introhis advice and example and the kin- duction of a canal system into that dred encouragement of Lord Stanhope, State, " as a great national question." with whom he was intimate, it would appear that Fulton was led to adopt the profession of a civil engineer, in which, and not as a painter, he was destined to become so well known to the world.

Fulton also patented in England a mill for sawing marble, for which he . received the thanks of the British Society for the Promotion of Arts and Commerce, and an honorary medal; also machines for spinning flax, making ropes, and an earth-excavator for dig.

At this time, in 1793, he addressed a letter to Lord Stanhope on the sub-ging canals. ject of some experiments in the application of steam to navigation, containing the views which he afterwards put in practice on the Hudson, and which if heeded by the noble earl, "the important invention of a successful steamboat," says Professor Renwick, “might have been given to the world ten years earlier than its actual introduction."

In 1797 he passed over to Paris, with the design of bringing to the notice of the French Government his invention of the torpedo, a device for the blowing up of enemy's vessels by attaching be neath the water a copper canister of gunpowder, to be discharged by a gunlock and clockwork. He found his ingenious countryman, Joel Barlow, in the French capital, a kindred spirit Fulton now took up his residence at with whom he formed an acquaintance, Birmingham, then illuminated by the which, as in the case of West, was intigenius of James Watt, to whom he was mately continued for years under the naturally attracted and with whose same roof. Fulton availed himself of labors on the steam-engine he became this opportunity to study the French acquainted. He employed himself par- and German and Italian languages, and ticularly in the study of canals, and improve his acquaintance with the took out a patent for a double-inclined higher branches of mechanical science plane of his invention for measuring Among other employments, he projectinequalities of height, the principle of ed, it is said, two buildings for the exwhich was exhibited in the treatise on hibition of panoramas, the success of the improvement of canal navigation, which owed much to his assistance. which he published in London in 1796, On the arrival of Chancellor Livingston with numerous well-executed plates in France, in 1801, as minister, he found from designs from his own hand. A a ready assistant in Fulton to the copy of this work was sent by the au- schemes of steam navigation in which thor to President Washington, with the he had been already engaged on the intention of bringing its theories into Hudson. Experiments were set on foot practical use in America. Another in the two following years which re

reflecting on the immense advantage my country will derive from the inven tion."

We find Fulton thus alluding to the navigation of the Mississippi. It was the original intention in the model of the Clermont, which was especially adapted for shallow waters. Indeed, up to this time, as remarked by Profes sor Renwick, "although the exclusive grant had been sought and obtained from the State of New York, it does not appear that either Fulton or his associate had been fully aware of the vast opening which the navigation of the Hudson presented for the use of steam." The demand for travel soon outran the narrow accommodations of the Cler mont, now put upon her regular trips upon the river; another vessel was built, larger and of finer appointments; punctuality was established, and the brilliant steamboat service of the Hudson fairly commenced.

from a dock in the upper part of the city on the North River. In thirty-two hours she made her destination, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. On her return to New York, a few days after, the voyage was made in thirty hours. A passage from the letter of Fulton to his friend Joel Barlow, affords an interesting memorial of the occasion. After stating that the voy age had turned out rather more favorably than he had calculated, and remarking that, with a light breeze against him, he had, solely by the aid of the engine," overtaken many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor," he adds, "the power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left New York, there were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the After a review of the pretensions of wharf, which was crowded with spec- all claimants, the honor appears fairly tators, I heard a number of sarcastic due to Fulton, of the first practical apremarks. This is the way in which ig-plication of steam, worthy the mention, norant men compliment what they call to navigation. There had indeed been philosophers and projectors. Having earlier attempts, both in this country employed much time, money and zeal and abroad; but as shown in the conin accomplishing this work, it gives me, cise yet comprehensive summary of as it will you, great pleasure to see it Professor Renwick, they could be of fully answer my expectations. It will but little importance before James give a cheap and quick conveyance to Watt, in 1786, completed the structure the merchandise on the Mississippi, of the double-acting condensing engine. Missouri and other great rivers, which After this invention became known, are now laying open their treasures to the chief rival claimant is Patrick Milthe enterprise of our countrymen; and ler, of Dalswinton, who does appear to although the prospect of personal emo- have thought seriously of the thing in lument has been some inducement to 1787, and employed the engineer Symme, I feel infinitely more pleasure in ington to complete a model for him in