with great safety and convenience. Her upper or spar-deck, upon which several thousand men might parade, is encompassed with 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 an enemy, and thereby deluge her armament and ammunition. If, in addition to all this, we suppose her to be finished, according to Mr. Fulton's intention, with 100-pound columbiads, two suspended from each bow, so as to discharge a ball of that size into an enemy's ship at ten or twelve feet below the 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.

The English were not uninformed as to these preparations which were making for them, nor inattentive to their progress. It is certain that the steam frigate lost none of her terrors in the report or imaginations of the enemy. In the treatise on steam vessels, published in Scotland, which

we have before noticed, the author of which assures us that he has taken great pains to procure full and accurate information, we have a description of a steam frigate said to have been launched in New York, in the following words:

"Length on deck three hundred feet, breadth two hundred feet, thickness of her sides, thirteen feet, of alternate oak plank and corkwood, carries forty-four guns, four of which are 100-pounders, quarter-deck and forecastle guns, 44-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 pikes of great length, darting them from her sides with prodigious force, and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!"

The committee that superintended the building of the "FULTON THE FIRST," who had, from the various experiments they made, the best opportunity of judging of her usefulness, speak, in their last report to the Government, with the highest confidence in her powers. They congratulate the Navy Department and the nation on the event of this noble project, honourable alike, as they truly say, to its author and its patrons, by which the city of New York has the power to make itself invulnerable, and every bay and harbor in the nation may be protected. The committee strongly recommend the vessel to the care of the Govern

ment.

Without due attention, her machinery will very soon become useless. But, as they very justly remark, it is not enough to preserve her. To derive from such a machine, in time of war, all the advantages it is capable of affording, we should be practised in the use of it in time of peace. The expense of completely arming, equipping, and employing her sufficiently to afford the necessary practice, would not exceed that of a frigate, and it certainly would be beneficially bestowed. But, to many minds, it seems waste to expend money on anything so long as it has the character of an experiment.

We now come to mention the last work in which the active and ingenious mind of Mr. Fulton was engaged. This was a project for the modification of his submarine boat. He had contrived a vessel which was to have a capacity, by means of an airchamber, like that which was in his "NAUTILUS," to be kept at a greater or less depth in the water, but so that her deck should not be submerged. That chamber communicated with the water, and was shaped like a diving-bell; but it could at pleasure, by an air-pump, be exhausted of airthen it would, of course, fill with water, or any requisite quantity of air could be forced into it, so as to expel the water from it entirely.

The sides of the vessel were to be of the ordinary thickness, but her deck was to be stout, and plated with iron, so as to render it ball-proof, which would not require so much strength as might be at first imagined; because, as no shot could strike it from a vessel but at a very great angle, the ball would recouché on a slight resistance from a hard substance. She was to be of a size capable of sheltering a hundred men under her deck, and was to be moved by a wheel placed in another airchamber near the stern, so that, when the vessel was to be propelled, only a part of the under paddles should be in water; at least the upper half of the wheel or more moving in air. The wheel was to be turned by a crank attached to a shaft, that should penetrate the stern to the air-chamber through a stuffing-box, and run along the middle of the boat until it approached her bows. Through this shaft rungs were to be passed, of which the crew were to take hold as they were seated on each side of it on benches. By merely pushing the shaft backward and forward, the water-wheel would be turned, and the boat be propelled with a velocity equal to the force of a hundred men. By means of the air-chamber, she was to be kept. when not in hostile action, upon the surface, as common boats are. But when in reach of an

enemy, she was to sink, so that nothing but her deck would be exposed to his view or to his fire. Her motion when in this situation would be perfectly silent, and therefore he called this contrivance a mute. His design was that she should approach an enemy, which he supposed she might do in fogs or in the night, without being heard or discovered, and do execution by means of his torpedoes or submarine guns.

He presented a model of this vessel to the Government, by which it was approved; and under the authority of the Executive, he commenced building one in this port; but before the hull was entirely finished, his country had to lament his death, and the mechanics he had employed were incapable of proceeding without him.