He was about
thirty when he finally gave up painting altogether and turned his whole
attention to inventing.
He went from England to Paris, where he lived in the family of Joel
Barlow, an American poet and public man. Here he made successful
experiments with a diving boat which he had designed to carry cases of
gunpowder under water. This was one of the stages in the development of
our modern torpedo-boat.
Although this invention alone would give Fulton a place in history, it was
not one which would affect so many people as the later one, the steamboat,
with which his name is more often associated.
Even before he had begun to experiment with the torpedo-boat Fulton had
been deeply interested in steam navigation, and while in Paris he
constructed a steamboat. In this undertaking he was greatly aided by
Robert R. Livingston, American minister at the French court, who had
himself done some experimenting in that line. Livingston, therefore, was
glad to furnish the money which Fulton needed in order to build the boat.
It was finished by the spring of 1803. But just as they were getting ready
for a trial trip, early one morning the boat broke in two parts and sank
to the bottom of the River Seine.
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