Robert Fulton's Torpedoes

Robert Fulton, usually remembered for his steamboats, also developed underwater mines that he called "torpedoes" as part of a naval weapons system that he hoped would keep the seas safe for travel and commerce. Two of Fulton's original drawings of these "torpedoes" are held by the Lehigh University Libraries Special Collections Department. Fulton executed these drawings in pen and ink and colored washes at the time the British were preparing to ward off an attack across the Channel from a French fleet anchored in Boulogne. The essay describes the 1804 drawings and analyzes the context in which they were developed, tracing Fulton's ideas about naval weapons, included submarine warfare as well as his "torpedo" mines.