Martyrius, bishop of Antioch, and usurped his see during the short absence which his defence necessitated. He was afterwards deposed, but through the interposition of Zeno, the son-in-law of the Emperor Leo, was restored to his former dignity in 482. The insertion of a few words by this factious bishop in the hymn which the Greeks called Trisagium, was the cause of a bitter and protracted controversy between the eastern and western churches.—R. M., A.
FULTON, Robert, an American artist and engineer, famous as having been the first to practise with permanent success the propulsion of ships by steam-power, was born at Little Britain, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1765. In 1782, according to some authorities, he was at first bound apprentice to a jeweller in Philadelphia; according to others, he at once began business as a portrait and landscape painter. It is certain, however, that by his ability and success as an artist, he had saved enough of money to buy a small farm about 1786, in possession of which he established his widowed mother. Soon afterwards he was furnished by a generous friend, Samuel Turbitt, with funds sufficient to enable him to go to London, and there study painting under West. While in London he was induced to study practical mechanics, with the view both of adopting and inventing machines which might prove profitable and useful in America. In the pursuit of mechanical knowledge he visited various parts of Britain, and became acquainted with the most eminent cultivators of practical mechanics; amongst others, with Watt, the duke of Bridgewater, the earl Stanhope, Symington, and Bell. He practised for a time as a canal engineer near Birmingham, and acquired a practical knowledge of Watt's steam-engine. Amongst the inventions which at this time occurred to Fulton, and which were afterwards put in practice either by himself or by others, were—machinery for cutting and polishing marble; the improvement of canal navigation by the use of inclined planes, with fixed steam-engines and ropes instead of locks, for transferring boats from one level to another; machinery for spinning ropes; a diving-boat; a "torpedo," or submarine apparatus for blowing up an enemy's ship of war; and improvements in steam-navigation. The means of testing by experiment, and of putting in practice some of these ideas, were furnished by the profits of a panorama, painted and exhibited by him in Paris, at the suggestion of the American poet and statesman, Joel Barlow, who had first induced him to go to France with the view of bringing his "torpedo" under the notice of Napoleon. The better to explain the nature of the advance made in steam-navigation by Fulton, a brief summary will be given of the leading events in the history of that art up to his time. In 1698 Savery propelled a boat by means of paddle-wheels, which were driven by a water-wheel, which water-wheel was driven by the fall of water from a reservoir to which that water had been raised by the direct pressure of steam on its surface, as in the inventor's engines for draining mines. This combination was evidently too cumbrous to be practically successful. In 1707 Papin made either a boat, or a model of a boat (it is not clear which), propelled by an engine which is supposed to have resembled Savery's; but that vessel or model was destroyed by boatmen on the Weser, as Papin was conveying it down that river on his way to England. In 1736 Jonathan Hulls patented in England a steam-vessel, in which paddle-wheels were to have been driven by ratchet-work, acted upon by chains or ropes attached to the pistons of atmospheric steam-engines; but it does not appear that his invention was ever tried in practice. In 1752 Daniel Bernoulli gained a prize offered by the French Academy of Sciences for the best means of propelling ships without sails, by the invention of a screw-propeller, and of a form of steam-engine suitable for driving it; but those inventions were not brought into use until the present century. In 1781 and 1783 the marquis de Jouffroy (who had first begun to experiment on steam propulsion on a small scale in 1776) made and used upon the Rhone two steam-vessels of considerable size, in both of which paddlewheels were driven by a steam-engine through ratchet-work; the connection between the pistons of the engine and the ratchet-work being effected in the first vessel by means of chains, and in the second by racks and toothed wheels. They are said to have attained a speed of about seven miles an hour; but the invention was soon afterwards abandoned. In 1787, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton in Scotland, built a twin pleasure-boat, driven by paddle-wheels, to which, at the suggestion of James Taylor, he adapted a steam-engine, made by William Symington, and apparently on nearly the same principle with that of Jouffroy. This vessel having succeeded when tried on Dalswinton loch in 1788, a larger vessel on the same plan was tried on the Forth and Clyde canal in 1789, and went at nearly seven miles an hour, but was soon abandoned in consequence of the machinery giving way under the severe shocks to which it was exposed. These early attempts at steam navigation (as well as those made by Rumsey and Fitch about the same time) failed chiefly because of the imperfect nature of the means employed for the transmission of motion from the piston to the propeller. Watt's invention of the double-acting rotative steam-engine, which effects that transmission of motion smoothly and without shocks, was an indispensable step towards the success of steam-navigation. Symington, instructed by the previous failure of his engine in Miller's boat, availed himself of that invention, when he built for Lord Dundas in 1801, the Charlotte Dundas, which was used in 1801 and 1802 as a tug-steamer on the Forth and Clyde canal with complete success, and which has been justly styled by Mr. Woodcroft, "the first practical steamboat."
Fulton, having in view the introduction of steam-navigation into America, appears, unlike many inventors, to have begun by making himself well acquainted with what had already been accomplished in that art; and in particular he obtained, through Henry Bell, an account of the boat of Miller of Dalswinton, and was present, in July 1801, at an experiment with the Charlotte Dundas on the Forth and Clyde canal. In 1803, being in Paris, he induced Robert Livingstone, then the American ambassador there, to join him in building an experimental steam-boat on the Seine, which was furnished with an engine from England. The success of that vessel was such as to lead Fulton and Livingstone immediately to plan the construction of a large vessel for the purpose of running on the Hudson; and with that view they ordered a suitable engine from Boulton and Watt. Having returned to America, Fulton proceeded to build the ship, and Livingstone obtained from the state legislature of New York a grant to Fulton and himself of the exclusive privilege of navigating by steam in that state, for a period of twenty years, afterwards extended to twenty-five. In 1806 the engine arrived from England; and in August, 1807, the Clermont made her first experimental trip on the Hudson with complete success, attaining a speed of five miles an hour. She soon afterwards began to run as a regular passage-boat between New York and Albany; and thus, for the first time, was steam navigation established as a profitable art. Fulton and Livingstone, in prosecution of their enterprise, afterwards built several larger steam-vessels. They were much harassed by infringements of their grant, and lawsuits in defence of it. They had also a fair competitor in Stevens. In the spring of 1808 Fulton was married to Harriet Livingstone, niece of the chancellor. He continued actively engaged in mechanical undertakings, one of which was that of building a steam-frigate for the United States navy, until 1815, when, after a short but severe illness, he died on the 24th of February, in the fiftieth year of his age. He is described as having been handsome in person, social and hospitable in disposition, and agreeable and unassuming in manners. The history of his mechanical inventions proves him to have possessed wonderful versatility, striking ingenuity, sound scientific and practical knowledge, and great enterprise in business, together with prudence and sagacity—a rare combination of qualities, but characteristically American. His claims to distinction as an inventor have been disputed, on the ground that his improvements in steam navigation consisted mainly in combining and adapting the inventions of others; that his paddle-wheels were Miller's or Jouffroy's, his engine Watt's, already applied to drive a paddle-wheel by Symington, and that in order to calculate the power required to drive his vessels he had recourse to the experiments of Beaufoy; but those who argue thus do not sufficiently consider the skill and the real originality shown by Fulton in that combination and adaptation, resulting, as they did, in a degree of practical success seldom attained by any inventor.—(Colden's Life of Fulton; Scott Russell on Steam-Navigation; Woodcroft on Steam-Navigation; Abstracts of Specifications of Patents for Marine Propulsion.)— W. J. M. R.
FULVIA, the wife of Marcus Antonius the triumvir, had been previously married, first to Publius Clodius, and then to Scribonius Curio. The evil reputation which Fulvia bore in her earlier conjugal relations, was in some measure redeemed by her strong and faithful attachment to her third husband, and
