APPENDIX C.

ROBERT FULTON CENTENNIAL.

A Portion of the Addresses Delivered at the Public Meeting Held Under the Auspices of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in the Building of the New York Historical Society, New York City, Thursday evening, November 14, 1907, upon the One Hundred and Forty-second Anniversary of the Birth of Robert Fulton, in the Centennial Year of Successful Steam Navigation Inaugurated by Him.

[249]

ROBERT FULTON CENTENNIAL.

Following are some of the addresses delivered at the meeting held under the auspices of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in the new building of the New York Historical Society, New York City, on the evening of Thursday, November 14, 1907, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Fulton. (See page 84.)

Address by Dr. George Frederick Kunz.

Dr. George Frederick Kunz, President of the American Scenic and Historical Preservation Society, spoke as follows:

We are assembled here to do honor to Robert Fulton, who was born 142 years ago to-day and who one century ago successfully propelled the Clermont up the Hudson river by means of steam. John Fitch, James Watt and others had in turn done much to further this result, and John Stevens had even gone so far as to propel a boat by means of a screw propeller; his grandson, Edwin A. Stevens, being the first to apply this system to ferry boats. Nevertheless, the Clermont was the first boat that successfully carried on a passenger service.

Robert Fulton, who was an artist with a wonderful mechanical bent, did not happen by chance upon the proper application of steam power to navigation, and this fact is satisfactorily proven by many other of his mechanical inventions. Unfortunately the worry and anxiety entailed by this crowning achievement brought him to an early grave. Fulton was unquestionably a mechanical genius, and we all realize the great value and importance of his invention, but while according him his well-earned meed of praise we must not forget the part played by good fortune in the success of inventions. While the successful inventor is hailed as a genius, the one who has not met with the requisite encouragement or opportunity is too often called a "crank;" although it frequently happens that his neglected invention is taken up and utilized in later years, long after he has passed away.

It seems most fitting that on the waters of the river whereon the first boat was propelled by steam with commercial success there should this year be placed a vessel named in honor of the discoverer of the majestic stream. The Hendrik Hudson can carry 7,500 passengers and the Adirondack accommodates the same number. At the time the Clermont first passed up the Hudson river the population of New York City was only 75,000, and the two great river boats of to-day could have carried all the inhabitants to Albany in the course of five days. The population of the city has increased so greatly that it would take them nine months to accomplish this task at the present day.

The century which has elapsed since the initial trip of the Clermont has been signalized by marvelous achievements in the physical and mechanical sciences. It is a remarkable coincidence that within a week of the hundredth anniversary of the sailing of the Clermont one of the greatest ocean liners, the Lusitania, has made the fastest time known in crossing the ocean-four days, eighteen hours and thirty minutes and the fact may be noted that it carried $10,000,000 in gold to relieve the present financial situation, a situation produced by conditions that neither existed nor could have been similarly relieved a century ago. The sister ship of the Lusitania, the Mauretania, has just made the quickest trial trip ever accomplished and may before long still further reduce the ocean record.

On land, also, we have to record the great and ever-increasing speed that has been attained by various types of locomotives. Trains have been driven by electricity at the rate of 100 miles an hour and only yesterday a steam locomotive developed a speed of 89.4 miles an hour.

Last, but not least, in the domain of the air as well, we seem to be approaching the realization of practical aerial navigation, and in this very week we chronicle the establishment of the SeegtHalske-Schuck art Electric Company of Germany, which will engage in the enterprise of building military airships to supply the world with them as the Krupps supply it with cannon. These airships will be able to outstrip in speed all the dirigibles so far built, and the same company is also experimenting with flying machines.

One hundred years ago the electric spark caused the superstitious to marvel when it was discharged after some one had walked over a rug or when it was emitted from a rapidly revolving wheel. Since that time it has been utilized by Morse and others in the telegraph, by Edison, Gray and Bell in the telephone, for the transmission of audible sound, and by Bell in his photophone which projects sound through the air from one distant point to another. It has also been used by Edison for recording sound in the phonograph and allied instruments, and more recently by Marconi in his wireless telegraph, by means of which we are enabled, this very year, to send messages from continent to continent, and to report the progress of the great ocean liner, laden with a treasure so rich that Captain Kidd's pales into absolute insignificance.

Thus, in this year in which we celebrate the centenary of the opening of steam navigation on the Hudson, we have the two greatest ocean steamers, the greatest river boat, the fastest steam locomotive, the beginning of the transatlantic service of the Marconi wireless telegraph, and the establishment of a regular and systematic manufacture of dirigible balloons, and it is possible that in the future airships may be propelled, terrestrial machinery may be made to move, and submarine boats caused to go, by means of wireless transmission.

In physical science the wonderful Roentgen rays, through whose agency we can see through wood and produce a photograph of a breathing lung, have been of incalculable value in many ways, and notably in the practice of surgery, enabling the surgeon to locate exactly any foreign body embedded in the human frame, and thus making it possible for him to operate with greater promptitude and accuracy. And what shall we say of radium? This mysterious substance or energy secms destined to revolutionize all our ideas concerning the characteristics and qualities of matter, and already some of the dreams of the old alchemists have seemed to be on the point of realization through its agency. Indeed, to use a popular phrase, it may almost be regarded as the "missing link" between the material and spiritual conceptions of the universe.

In 1893 there was grave dangers of great disorders in Chicago. The lake front was thronged with unemployed workmen, and had the national government betrayed any weakness or vacillation in