The Life of Robert Fulton ...: Accompanied with Copies of Mr. Fulton's Original Drawings and Numerous Plates, Exhibiting the Leading Incidents and Ornaments of His Private Character; His Elevated Principles of Action; His Uncommon Usefulness and Celebrity, and His Undying Fame

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C. G. Henderson & Company, 1856 - 269 pages

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Page xxiii - Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam ! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
Page 54 - I have seen them often," added he, " standing in that very attitude, and pursuing, with an intense eye, the arrow which they had just discharged from the bow.
Page 179 - Fulton exhibited to this committee the model and plans for a vessel of war, to be propelled by steam, capable of carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and which, he represented, would move at the rate of four miles an hour. The confidence of the committee in this design...
Page 198 - Nature had made him a gentleman, and bestowed upon him ease and gracefulness. He had too much good sense for the least affectation ; and a modest confidence in his own worth and talents, gave him an unembarrassed deportment in all companies. His features were strong and of a manly beauty : he had large dark eyes, and a projecting brow, expressive of intelligence and thought...
Page 200 - ... He expressed himself with energy, fluency, and correctness, and as he owed more to his own experience and reflections, than to books, his sentiments were often interesting from their originality. In all his domestic and social relations he was zealous, kind, generous, liberal, and affectionate. He knew of no use for money but as it was subservient to charity, hospitality, and the sciences. But what was most conspicuous in his character, was his calm constancy, his industry, and that indefatigable...
Page 74 - Mohawks met the maid, — historian, hold! — Poor Human Nature! must thy shame be told? Where then that proud preeminence of birth, Thy Moral Sense? the brightest boast of earth. Had but the tiger changed his heart for thine, Could...
Page 53 - He described to them their education, their dexterity with the bow and arrow, the admirable elasticity of their limbs, and how much their active life expands the chest, while the quick breathing of their speed in the chase dilates the nostrils with that apparent consciousness of vigor which is so nobly depicted in the ' Apollo/
Page 172 - My steamboat voyage to Albany and back has turned out rather more favourable than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles : I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed •wholly by the power of the steam-engine.
Page 173 - It was in the early autumn of the year 1807 that a knot of villagers was gathered on a high bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange, dark-looking craft, which was slowly making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a seamonster, while others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment.
Page 250 - July she was again put in action. She performed a trip to the ocean, eastward of Sandy Hook, and back again, a distance of fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes. A part of this time she had the tide against her, and had no assistance whatever from sails.

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