Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/374

 33-^ THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

and a hoarse voice exclaimed, ' I am on the water,, he made trial of a new not mad ! I am not mad ! I have boat on the Seine (and was consid- made a discovery that would enrich ered partially insane, if you will ex- the country that adopted it.' ' W^hat cuse the pun). It was not success- has he discovered?' asked our guide, ful. Capitalists and officials frowned his shoulders, ' something trifling nate great plans, he was importunate, enough. Yon would never guess it. At last he gained the ear of Napoleon, It is the use of the steam of boiling and advocated with his unfailing en- water. His name is Salomon de thusiasm his project of navigating the Caus ; he came from Normandy four ocean by steam. The emperor soon years ago to present to the king a tired of him, and said to the Ameri- statement of the wonderful effects can ambassador, Mr. Livingston : that might be produced from his in- " Debarrassez moi de ce fou d' Amer- vention. To listen to him, you would icain," — " Rid me of this fool of an imagine that with steam you could American." It was easy to close the ■navigate ships, move carriages ; in palace doors against the stranger, but fact, there is no end of the miracles was impossible to stifle by an imperial which he insists ui)on it could be per- edict the strivings of genius. The formed.' This man was so persistent autocrat went down, but steam went in his appeals that the king's minister, up, and Fulton's fame rose with it. to be rid of him, put him in a mad- Such instances of unbelief and ill- house. Here he moaned out his treatment are numerous. The first weary plaint, ' I am not mai ! I am surveyors of the railroad from Liver- not mad ! I have made a discovery.' " pool to ^[anchester were mobbed by
 * Oh,' answered the keeper, shrugging upon him, but like all men who origi-

And so he had, but the ignorant the owners of the soil, their instru-

court could not appreciate it. His ments were broken, and they were

book on the power of steam and its driven off by violence. The men who

uses was afterwards embodied to a proposed the road were hated by the

considerable extent in a work pub- land-owners as bitterly as if they had

lished by the Marquis of Worcester, designed to convert their fields into

entitled " The Century of Inventions." camps for a standing army. Some

But poor De Caus, who was more years later, when a bill to incorporate

than a century in advance of his age, that road was before parliament, Mr.

lost his liberty in consequence of his George Stephenson was examined by

noble discoveries, which have made acute lawyers before the committee of

his name immortal. parliament, as if he had been a spy

Men who conceive great ideas are of France, plotting an invasion of the

usually very persevering. Their plans country.

master them, and they can talk of In the lower house, Sir Isaac Coffin

nothing else but their absorbing hob- denounced the project as a most fla-

by, so they naturally weary and annoy grant imposition. He would not con-

the persons they buttonhole. When sent to see the widow's premises in-

Fulton was experimenting with steam vaded. He r.sked in the most digni-

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