Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1898 — ROBERT FULTON’S TORPEDOES [ARTICLE]

ROBERT FULTON’S TORPEDOES

How He Scattered the Crowd While Conducting an Experiment Before he turned his attention to navigation by steam, Robert Fulton invented a marine torpedo which he endeavored to dispose of to the United ! States government. Succeeding in interesting James Madison, then secretary of state, in the matter, he obtained a small appropriation from the government for the purpose of conducting some public experiments. In the summer of 1806 he invited the high dignitaries and a number of prominent citizens of New York to Governor’s Island to seethe torpedoes and machinery with which his experiments were to be made. While he was lecturing on his blank torpedoes, which were large, empty copper cylinders, his numerous auditors crowded around him. After awhile he turned to a copper case of the same description, which was placed under the gateway of old Castle William, and to which was attached a clockwork lock. Drawing out a peg, Fulton set the clock in motion, and then he said in solemn tones to his attentive audience: “Gentlemen, this is a charged torpedo, with which, precisely in its present state, I mean to blow up a vessel; it contains 170 pounds of gunpowder, and if I were to suffer the clockwork to ran 15 minutes, I have no doubt that it would blow this fortification to atoms.” The circle of humanity which had closed around the inventor began to spread out and grew thinner, and before five of the 15 minutes had passed there were but two or three persons remaining under the gateway. Some, indeed, lost no time in getting at the greatest possible distance from the torpedo, and they did not again appear on the ground until they were assured that the engine of destruction was safely lodged in the magazine, whence it had been taken. The local historian of that period remarks: “The conduct of Mr. Fulton’s auditors was not very extraordinary or unnatural; but his own composure indicated the confidence with which he handled these terrible instruments of destruction and the reliance he had on the accuracy of the performance of hft machinery. The apprehensions of his friends surprised- and amused him, and he took occasion to remark hoW true it was that fear frequently arose from ignorance.”—Scientific American.