Robert Fulton's Torpedoes

摘要

Robert Fulton is usually remembered as the American "inventor" of the steamboat. Historians of technology are also aware that Fulton was the inventor/designer of other technical systems, such as a canal system that used inclined planes instead of locks to raise and lower canal boats, and an early submarine that he originally called a "plunging boat" (later called the "Nautilus"). Fulton also developed underwater mines that he called "torpedoes," and over a period of years he developed a naval weapons system that he hoped would keep the seas safe for travel and commerce. A dedicated innovator, Fulton hoped to make his fortune by offering his torpedo system to the highest bidder, and he tried in earnest to sell it to at least three national governments-the French, the British, and the United States. He considered his torpedo system, the subject of this note, more important than the steamboat, but history proved otherwise.