After that momentous era when steam was first successfully applied to
useful purposes, human progress and improvement in all departments of
science and art seemed to have been hooked on to it, and to have
thenceforth rushed roaring at its tail, with truly "railroad speed,"
towards perfection!
Scarce had the first model steamboat splashed with its ungainly "blades"
the waters of a pond, than river traffic by means of steamboats began.
And no sooner had this been proved to be a decided success, than daring
schemes were laid to rush over the ocean itself on wheels. Men were not
long about it, after the first start was made. Their intellectual steam
was up, and the whirl of inventive effort racked the brains of engineers
as the wheels of their steamboats tortured the waters of the deep.
And here again the name of Fulton comes into notice. Early in 1814 he
conceived the idea of constructing a steam-vessel of war, which should
carry a strong battery with furnaces for red-hot shot. Congress
authorised the building of such a ship, and before the end of the same
year it was launched. Fulton died the following year, but the fame of
that enterprising engineer will never die.
The new vessel received the rather quaint title of _Fulton the First_.
She consisted of two boats joined together. Those who were appointed by
Congress to examine her and report, gave the following account of this
curious man-of-war:
"She is a structure resting on two boats and keels, separated from end
to end by a channel fifteen feet wide and sixty-six feet long. One boat
contains the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam; the cylinder of
iron, its piston, lever, and wheels, occupy part of the other. The
water-wheel revolves in the space between them. The main or gun-deck
supports the armament, and is protected by a parapet four feet ten
inches thick, of solid timber, pierced by embrasures. Through thirty
port-holes as many thirty-two pounders are intended to fire red-hot
shot, which can be heated with great safety and convenience. Her upper
or spar-deck, upon which several thousand men might parade, is
encompassed by a bulwark, which affords safe quarters. She is rigged
with two stout masts, each of which supports a large lateen yard and
sails. She has two bowsprits and jibs, and four rudders--one at each
extremity of each boat; so that she can be steered with either end
foremost. Her machinery is calculated for the addition of an engine
which will discharge an immense column of water, which it is intended to
throw upon the decks and through the port-holes of the enemy, and
thereby deluge her armament and ammunition.
"If, in addition to all this, we suppose her to be furnished, according
to Mr Fulton's intention, with hundred-pound columbiads, two suspended
from each bow, so as to discharge a ball of that size into an enemy's
ship ten or twelve feet below her water-line, it must be allowed that
she has the appearance, at least, of being the most formidable engine
for warfare that human ingenuity has contrived."
She certainly was; and even at the present time the _Fulton the First_
would cut no insignificant figure if placed alongside our gunboats,
floating-batteries, and steam-frigates.
It is not easy to get intelligent men to believe in things that savour
of the marvellous; yet there seems to be a point past which, if once a
man be got, he will go on to believe almost anything, no matter how
absurd. In those days few people in Europe would credit the truth of
this ship's proportions; but when, in the course of time and from
indubitable testimony, they were compelled to believe, they flew to the
opposite extreme of incredulity and believed anything, as the following
curiously comical paragraph will show. It is said to have appeared in a
Scotch treatise on steamships, and is intended for a "full, true, and
particular account" of this monstrous American man-of-war steamer.
After giving her dimensions three times larger than they were in
reality, the author continues:--"The thickness of her sides is thirteen
feet of alternate oak plank and cork wood. She carries forty-four guns,
four of which are hundred pounders; quarter-deck and forecastle guns,
forty-four pounders: and further, to annoy an enemy attempting to board,
can discharge one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute; and, by
mechanism, brandishes three hundred cutlasses with the utmost regularity
over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron spikes of
great length, darting them from the sides with prodigious force, and
withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!" This vessel, although
probably intended for an ocean-steamer, was never used as such. But not
long after, a vessel propelled by steam ventured to cross the Atlantic,
and thus became the parent of commercial steam navigation. This vessel
was: