His object in building such
a boat was to make war in a new way. When a swordfish[3] attacks a
whale, he slips round under him and stabs the monster with his sword.
Fulton said, 'If an enemy's war-ship should come into the harbor to
do mischief, I can get into my diving-boat, slip under the ship,
fasten a torpedo[4] to it, and blow the ship "sky high."'
[Illustration: FULTON'S DIVING-BOAT. (Going under water to fasten
a torpedo on the bottom of a vessel.)]
Napoleon Bonaparte liked nothing so much as war, and he let Fulton
have an old vessel to see if he could blow it up. He tried it, and
everything happened as he expected: nothing was left of the vessel
but the pieces.
[Footnote 3: Swordfish: the name given to a large fish which has a
sword-like weapon, several feet in length, projecting from its upper
jaw.]
[Footnote 4: Torpedo: here a can filled with powder, and so
constructed that it could be fastened to the bottom of a vessel.]
195. What Fulton did in England with his diving-boat; what he said
about America.--Then Fulton went back to England and tried the same
thing there. He went out in his diving-boat and fastened a torpedo
under a vessel, and when the torpedo exploded, the vessel, as he said,
went up like a "bag of feathers," flying in all directions.
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