gun" (100-pdr.), Fulton's invention,
but these were not fitted. Provision was to be made in the fireboxes for
heating shot, and a force pump with a cylinder 33 inches in diameter was
employed to throw a stream of cold water, about 60-80 gallons per
minute, for a distance of about two hundred feet. This could be done
only when the paddle wheel was not in operation. The paddle wheel was
housed, the top fitted with stairs to the spar deck. The gun deck, over
the race, was used in part for staterooms, of which the bulkheads were
permanent. Hammocks for the complement of 500 men were to be slung on
the rest of the gun deck. The ship drew 10 feet 4 inches, with the port
sills about 5-1/2 feet above the loadline. Burning wood, the vessel
could carry about 4 days' supply of fuel; burning coal, she carried 12
days' supply.

Montgery said that the vessel would be vulnerable to bombshells and hot
shot, and that furthermore she could be boarded. The displacement of the
ship, at service draft, was 1,450 tons, a figure Montgery obtained from
a copy of the original plan given him by Noah Brown.

[Illustration: Figure 6.--FRENCH SKETCH, in Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen, of
inboard profile and arrangement of Fulton's _Steam Battery_, showing
details of the Fulton engine, probably taken from one of his preliminary
designs.]

In 1935, Lieutenant Ralph R. Gurley, USN, attempted a reconstruction in
sketches of the vessel published in his article "The U.S.S. _Fulton_ the
First" in the _U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings_.[15] This
reconstruction was based on the Patent Office drawing prepared for
Fulton, and published by Stuart and Bennett, and the foregoing French
sources. The Patent Office drawing showed the engine was an inclined
cylinder and Lt. Gurley shows this in his sketch; in his text (p. 323)
he says, "The engine was an inclined, single-cylinder affair with a
4-foot base and a 5-foot stroke." Gurley's attempt to reconstruct the
_Steam Battery_ is the only one known to the author.

Copenhagen Plans

In 1960, Kjeld Rasmussen, naval architect of the Danish Greenland
Company, was requested by the author to inspect in the Danish Royal
Archives at Copenhagen a folio of American ship plans, the index of
which had listed some Civil War river monitors. Mr. Rasmussen found the
monitor plans had been withdrawn but discovered that three plans of
Fulton's _Steam Battery_ existed, as well as plans of the first
_Princeton_, a screw sloop-of-war.