Important Accomplishments

He was immediately interested in the plans of the American mechanic, and at once formed a commission, consisting of Volney, La Place, and Monge, all distinguished men, to investigate the schemes to be laid before them. Fulton built a submarine boat during the winter of 1800-1801, and in the following summer invited this commission to witness experiments with it, intending to make it of service in his system of torpedo-warfare. This "diving-boat," as he called it, seems to have been remarkably successful, judging it by even our modern standards, and is worthy of description. Fulton's diving-boat, the "Nautilus," and his powerful torpedoes, kept the British fleet in a state of perpetual apprehension; for it was well known that he was negotiating with the French government for the purchase of his inventions, and had promised Napoleon "to deliver France and the whole world from British oppression."
After John Fitch decided to create a steamboat and failed , Robert Fulton decided to create one too. Robert Fulton started making a boat with 3 other friends : Chancellor Livingston,Nicholas J. Roosevelt, and John Stevens. Fulton went to Plombieres in the spring of 1802, and there made his drawings and completed his plans for the construction of his first steamboat. Many attempts had been made, as we have seen, and many inventors were at work with him. The voyage of the "Clermont" to Albany was attended by some ludicrous incidents. Mr. Colden says that she was described "as a monster, moving on the waters, defying wind and tide, and breathing flames and smoke. This boat used dry pine wood for fuel, and the flames rose to a considerable distance above the smoke-pipe and mingled smoke and sparks rose high in the air. The success of the "Clermont" on the trial-trip was such that Fulton soon after advertised the vessel as a regular passenger boat between New York and Albany. In the year 1811 Fulton built the "Paragon." Another boat designed by Robert Fulton.

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