468 EXPLOSION OF THE FULTON. 
The, scene, even this morning at the Navy Yard, is distress- 
ing beyond description. Indeed, to attempt a description of 
such a spectacle, at the very moment when our feelings ^re 
harrowed up to a painful degree by the shocking reality, seems 
too revolting to be undertaken. We might speak of the wound- 
ed living and the mangled dead, and of the fragments of bo- 
dies blown to pieces, mingled among the broken relics of the 
ship — but such particulars may better be left to the reader's 
imagination. 
When we left the Navy Yard at 1 1 o'clock, on]jJive men 
were unaccounted for. These have doubtless perished, either 
by drowning, or by being crushed among the timbers. 
The following particulars, illustrating the engraving in this 
volume, are taken from the Sailor's Magazine. 
The Fulton was built with two keels, or rather was in fact 
two boats, joined together by the upper works. The sides 
were of immense thickness, and the whole frame was, when 
built, probably the strongest of the kind ever constructed. 
But the timbers had now become very rotten, and the whole 
hulk was, as it were, kept together by its own weight. It is 
supposed that the rotten state of the vessel, making her tim- 
bers give way easily, rendered the destruction greater than if 
she had been new and sound. 
The explosion. — The magazine was in the bow of the lar- 
board boat. The whole of the quarter w^as demolished down 
to the water's edge, but this most striking part of the wreck 
could not be exhibited in the picture, as the view was taken 
from the Navy Yard. The beams of the main-deck were bro- 
ken, and a passage was forced through quite to the ward-room, 
where the officers were at dinner, and splinters and fragments 
driven in among them. 
The wreck. — The bowsprit appears to have fallen down 
quite to the water, the whole of that part of the bulwark 
which supported it being bloviTi away. A part of it is seen 
floating on the water. A fragment of the fore-yard lies over 
the starboard bow. The stump of the foremast is seen just 
above the deck, the mast itself lying over against the main- 
mast. The main-mast is broken off a few feet above the deck. 
Aft of this are seen a mangled mass of shattered yards, top- 
mast, mizen-mast, &c. quite concealing the sniall poop deck. 
A gun hangs out of one of the starboard port-holes near the 
gangway. Four of the larboard guns were blown into the 
water, but have all been fished up again. 
Midshi'pman Eckford. — This young gentleman was stand- 
