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Figure 6. — French sketch, in Rigsarkivet, Copen- 

 hagen, of inboard profile and arrangement of 

 Fulton's Steam Battery, showing details of the Fulton 

 engine, probably taken from one of his preliminary 

 designs. 



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Cltti ,;fc, .O— • - .— *^_ 



c/4 — «. ii r za<J t, — *.. . a~_ 



■>■/ 



obtained from a copy of the original plan given him by 

 Noah Brown. 



In 1935, Lieutenant Ralph R. Gurley, USN, 

 attempted a reconstruction in sketches of the vessel 

 published in his article "The U.S.S. Fulton the First" 

 in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings.^ This recon- 

 struction was based on the Patent Office drawing 

 prepared for Fulton, and published by Stuart and 

 Bennett, and the foregoing French sources. The 

 Patent Office drawing showed the engine was an 

 inclined cylinder and Lt. Gurley shows this in his 

 sketch; in his text (p. 323) he says, "The engine was 

 <in inclined, single-cylindei affaii with a 4-foot base 

 and a 5-fool stroke." Gurley's attempt to reconstruct 

 the Steam Battery is the only one known to the author. 



Copenhagen Plans 



In 1960, Kjeld Rasmussen, naval architect of the 

 Danish Greenland Company, was requested l>\ the 



1 fanuarj Man h 19 I i, vol 61, pp 122-3 18 



author to inspect in the Danish Royal Archives at 

 Copenhagen a folio of American ship plans, the 

 index of which had listed some Civil War river 

 monitors. Mr. Rasmussen found the monitor plans 

 had been withdrawn but discovered that three plans 

 of Fulton's Steam Battery existed, as well as plans of 

 the first Princeton, a screw sloop-of-war. 



Copies of the Steam Battery's plans were obtained 

 at Copenhagen in September 1960 through the 

 courtesy of the archivist, and were found to consist 

 of the lines, copied in 1817, an inboard profile and 

 arrangement, and a sail and rigging plan. From 

 these the reconstruction for a scale model was drawn 

 and is presented here with reproductions of the 

 original drawings upon which the reconstruction is 

 based. 



It is apparent that Monlgerv's description is 

 generally accurate. The vessel is a catamaran, made 

 of two hulls, double-ended and exactly alike. The 

 outboard sides are "moulded," with round bilges, 

 the inboard sides are straight .nu\ Hat, as though a 



.-)() 



BIT.I.KTIN 2 10: CO.Vikllit I IONS FROM lilt. Mt'SLtM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



