He carried a supply of air compressed in a copper globe, and propelled the boat by means of a hand-engine. , We have seen that Bushnell, in 1776, invented a torpedo and submarine boat to act in conjunction with it, -- contrivances in which Israel Putnam seems to have placed great confidence, -- but he never succeeded in making them practicable. Fulton, on the contrary, did blow up a vessel provided for the purpose, and demonstrated the destructi\'e value of his work. Fulton never claimed to be the first to propose steam navigation. Experiments in the same direction seem to have been made in 1690, or even earlier. The names of Blasco de Gary (Spanish), Papin, Jonathan Hulls, William Henry, Count d'Auxiron, M. Perier, Marquis de Jouffroy, James Rumsey, Nathan Read, John Fitch, and several others are in line before we reach that of Robert Fulton. His one peculiar title to pre-eminence was in the fact that he succeeded. Rumsey came very near to success. He not only

I20 The Hudson River

completed a steamboat that was capable of moving through the water at a very moderate rate of speed, but he actually ran his steamer as a public carrier on the Delaware all through the summer of 1790. Fitch sailed a scrczv steamer on the old collect pond in New York before the Clermont was built ; but both Rumsey and Fitch died before their tasks were accomplished. Then there were Ormsbee, Morey, and others, busy with experiments. The thing was so evidently in the air that it would have been almost a miracle if a busy brain like Fulton's had not caught the infection. When Fulton took up the problem of steam navigation he was fortunate in having as his coadjutor one of the remarkable men of his time.