NAVAL STEAMERS. 



THE DEMOLOGOS; OR, FULTON THE FIRST. 



At the close of the year eighteen hundred and thirteen, Robert Fulton exhibited to the 

 President of the United States, the original drawing from which the engraving on Plate One 

 is sketched, being a representation of the proposed war-steamer or floating-battery, named by 

 him, the Demoloqos. This sketch possesses more than ordinary interest, from the circumstance 

 that it is, doubtless, the only record of the first war-steamer in the world, designed and drawn 

 by the immortal Fulton, and represented by him to the Executive, as capable of carrying a 

 strong battery, with furnaces for red hot shot, and being propelled by the power of steam, at 



the rate of four miles an hour. 



It was contemplated that this vessel, besides carrying her proposed armament on deck, 

 should al<o l>e furnished with submarine guns, two suspended from each bow, so as to discharge 

 a hundred pound hall into an enemy's ship at ten or twelve feet below her water-line. In 

 addition to this, her machinery was calculated for the addition of an engine which would 

 discharge an immense column of water upon the decks, and through the portdioles of an 

 enemy, making her the most formidable engine for warfare that human ingenuity has contrived. 



The estimated cost of the vessel was three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, nearly 

 the sum requisite for a frigate of the first class. 



The project was zealously embraced by the Executive, and the national legislature in 

 March, eighteen hundred and fourteen, passed a law, authorizing the President of the United 



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PAPER $9: lIMu\"s ""Ml \\i i:\iiiry" 16" 



