Samuel and Timothy Whittemore, the former a brother, the latter a son of the inventor. Mr. Timothy Whittemore almost immediately thereafter relinquished his interest to his uncle, who became the sole proprietor, and conducted the business with varied success until within a few years. The New York manufacturing comparŋ, after this sale, with an increased capital, changed its title to that of the "Phoenix Bank," and continues to this day a popular banking institution.

At the expiration of the patent in 1825, Mr. Samuel Whittemore sold several of his machines in anticipation of a rapid decline in the business, since the monopoly could no longer be retained; and from that time the manufacture of cards by machinery has become so general, as to make it a business of comparatively small amount to any, but to a few old established firms. By a singular, though interesting chain of circumstances, the identical machines which the inventor himself assisted in building, after being out of his family for more than twenty-five years, have now become the property of his sons, and are used by them in West Cambridge, a small town near that which gave him birth. Their cards are well known for their uniform excellence, the stamp being to the consumer a sufficient guarantee of their quality.

Although more than forty years have elapsed since the invention, such was the perfection with which it came from the mind of the inventor, that no essential improvements have ever been suggested. Attempts were frequently made to defraud him of his well-earned fame, by claiming it as the production of others, but they have proved as abortive as the attempts to infringe upon the patent.

After the sale of his interest, Whittemore retired from active life, and having purchased a pleasant estate in the town of West Cambridge, found that quiet and freedom from the many cares of business life, so agreeable to his nature. Since the invention, he never seriously exerted his mechanical ingenuity, feeling, doubtless, content with the laurels already acquired. Having, however, in early life entertained a deep interest in the science of astronomy, in later years he conceived the plan of a complete orrery, representing the whole planetary system, each planet to describe its own orbit, and the combination acting like nature's own. Enfeebled by an impaired health, and the infirmities of age, he never matured this project, and at length he died, in the year 1828, at the age of sixty-nine, at his residence in West Cambridge, leaving a widow to lament the loss of a kind husband, his children an indulgent father, and his associates an amiable and devoted friend. To his family he was an example of one who lived a pure and blameless life; and though he left but an inconsiderable fortune, they

inherited a far brighter treasure in an unsullied reputation. Whittemore was of a bland and conciliating disposition, even in temper, and in manners strikingly meditative, conversing but little, and often seen in profound mental study.

The value that the card machine has been, and still is, not to this country alone, but to the whole manufacturing world, it is believed even few now justly appreciate. With Whitney's cotton gin, it forms an important and necessary link in the chain of machinery which by their operation furnish to the world one of the most useful, as well as beautiful fabrics. How far it may have contributed, not only to perfect in quality, but to reduce it in cost, cannot be difficult to estimate. We may add, however, in conclusion, that not a cotton or wollen factory is reared, that does not rely upon the card machine to complete its own machinery, and the use of the hand card, in the southern states, has become as general as the culture of cotton itself.

ROBERT FULTON.

Birth and parentage.-Early ingenuity.-Becomes a painter.---Visits England.Becomes an inmate in the family of Benjamin West.-Inland navigation.-Excavating machine.-Visits France.-Turns his attention to submarine warfare. -Experiments.-British Government.-Bonaparte.-Constructs a plungingboat, with which he remains under water an hour.-Blows up a vessel in the harbor of Brest with a submarine bomb.-Revisits England.-Blows up a Danish brig. Returns to the United States.-Anecdote.-Stationary torpedo.Congress appropriate funds to carry on his experiments. Report of the commissioners.-Letter to the secretary of the navy.-Experiments on the sloop of war Argus.-Gun-harpoon and cable-cutter.-Steam navigation.-Chancellor Livingston.-Fulton's steam experiments in France.-Experiments with a steamboat on the Seine.-Commences building a steamboat in New York.Orders an engine from England.-Description and success of the first experiment on the Hudson.-Redheffer's perpetual motion.-Builds a floating steam battery for government.-Launch.-Voyage of "Fulton the First."-Lawsuits. -Death.-Conclusion.

THIS indefatigable man was born in Little Britain, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1765, of a respectable, though not opulent family. His father was a native of Kilkenny, in Ireland, and his mother was of a respectable Irish family, residing in Pennsylvania. He had two sisters older than himself, besides a younger brother and sister. His patrimony was very small. In his infancy he received the rudiments of a common English education, and his peculiar genius manifested itself at a very early age. All his hours of recreation were passed in the shops of mechanics, or in the use of his pencil. By the time he had attained the age of seventeen, he became so much of an artist, as to derive emolument from portrait and landscape painting in Philadelphia, where he remained till he was about twenty-one.

When he became of age, he went to Washington county, and there purchased a little farm, on which he settled his mother, his father having died in 1768. After seeing his parent comfortably established in the home which he had provided for her, he set out with the intention of returning to Philadelphia. On his way, he visited the warm springs of Pennsylvania, where he met with some gentlemen, who were so much pleased with the genius they discovered in his paintings, that they advised him to go to England, where they assured him he would meet with the patronage of his

countryman Mr. West, who had, even then, attained great celebrity. Mr. Fulton went to England, and his reception by Mr. West was such as he had been led to anticipate. That distinguished American was so well pleased with his promising and enterprising genius, and his amiable qualities, that he took him into his house, where he continued an inmate for several years. After leaving the family of Mr. West, he appears to have made the art of painting his chief employment for some time. He spent two years in Devonshire, near Exeter, where he made many respectable acquaintances; among others, he became known to the duke of Bridgewater, so famous for his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a nobleman celebrated for his love of science, and particularly for his attachment to the mechanic arts. With Lord Stanhope, Mr. Fulton held a correspondence for a long time, and they communicated to each other ideas on subjects towards which their minds were mutually directed.

In 1793, we find Mr. Fulton actively engaged in a project to improve inland navigation; for, even at that early day, he had conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks in his manuscripts with great confidence of its practicability. In May, 1774, he obtained from the British government a patent for a double inclined plane, to be used for transportation. An account of this may be seen in vol. xvii. of the Repertory of Arts.

What were Mr. Fulton's pursuits for some years after this period it does not appear. In his preface to a description of his Nautilus, or plunging-boat, he says, that he had resided eighteen months in the great manufacturing town of Birmingham, where he must have acquired some of that practical knowledge in mechanics which he made so useful to his country, and indeed to all the world. In 1804, when Mr. Fulton left Paris, he sent a large collection of his manuscripts to this country; but unfortunately, the vessel in which they were sent was wrecked. The case containing the papers was recovered, but only a few fragments of the manuscripts were preserved. These, however, mark the genius of Fulton, and increase our regret that any productions of his strong and original mind which he thought worth preserving should be lost. It is owing to this misfortune that we have so few traces of Mr. Fulton's occupations at this period. But a mind like his could never be idle, and it is evident that, at this time, it was still directed towards his favorite pursuits.

In 1794, he submitted to the British Society for the Promotion of Arts and Commerce, an improvement of his invention in mills for sawing marble, for which he received the thanks of the society and an honorary medal. He invented also, as is presumed, about

this time, a machine for spinning flax, and another for making ropes, for both of which he obtained patents from the British government. A mechanical contrivance for scooping out earth in certain situations, to form the channels for canals or aqueducts, which, as it is understood, has been much used in England, is also his invention. Indeed, the subject of canals appears chiefly to have engaged his attention at this time. He now, and probably for some time previous, professed himself a civil engineer, and under this title he published his work on canals, and in 1795, some essays on the same subject in the London Morning Star. In 1796, he published in London, his Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, in which he recommends small canals and boats of little burden; and also inclined planes instead of locks, together with the various contrivances necessary to effect the passage of boats from one level to another. His plans were strongly recommended by the British Board of Agriculture, of which Sir John Sinclair was president.

Mr. Fulton, throughout his course as a mechanist and civil engineer, derived great advantages from his talent for drawing and painting. He was an elegant and accurate draughtsman, which is proved by the plates annexed to the work we have mentioned. This gave him great facility in procuring the execution of his designs, and a great advantage over most who have engaged in similar pursuits. He seems, however, to have neglected his pencil as a painter for many years, till a short time before his death, when he resumed it to paint some portraits of his own family, and his success in executing these gave him much pleasure.

Mr. Fulton, ever thoughtful of the interests of his own country, sent copies of his works to distinguished persons in America, accompanied with letters, setting forth the advantages to be derived from internal communication by canals.

Having obtained a patent for canal improvements from the British government, he went to France, with the intention of introducing them there; but not meeting with much encouragement, he soon directed his mind to other important subjects; though the canal system still occupied a portion of his thoughts. About this time, his thoughts were turned towards the subject of political economy, and he wrote a work, addressed to "the Friends of Mankind," in which he labors to show, that education and internal improvements would have a good effect on the happiness of a nation. He not only wished to see a free and speedy communication between the different parts of a large country, but a universal free trade between all nations. He saw that it would take ages to establish the freedom of the seas by the common consent of na