A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation.

FULTON, Robert.

Item Number: 104895

London: I. & J. Taylor at the Architectural Library, 1796.

Rare first edition of Robert Fulton’s A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation. Quarto, bound in full contemporary tree calf with a red morocco spine label lettered in gilt, tooling to the spine, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled. With seventeen engraved plates and an engraved portrait of Fulton tipped in as a frontispiece. From the library of American bibliophile James Lorimer Graham with his armorial bookplate. In very good condition. Housed in a custom full morocco box.

American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat which successfully changed river traffic and trade on major American rivers. In 1800, Fulton was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte to attempt to design a submarine and produced Nautilus, the first practical submarine in history. "Although reaching out in many directions in an endeavor to solve industrial problems, Fulton's energies were directed chiefly toward the development of canal systems, and one of his most widely used inventions of this period was a dredging-machine, or power shovel, for cutting canal channels. This was for a long time afterward a common machine in England. As his ideas on inland navigation matured, he wrote many essays, pamphlets, and letters upon all phases of the subject matter and sent them to persons who, he felt, could promote their advancement. In 1796 he published A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, profusely illustrated by himself and containing drawings of many mechanical designs and even boats to show 'the numerous advantages to be derived from small canals.' He signed himself 'Robert Fulton, Civil Engineer,' which was the first formal announcement of his new occupation. Copies of this treatise were sent to Gen. Washington and the governor of Pennsylvania. It not only dealt with the popular contrivances of canals and the technicalities of his own inventions but also contained complete and accurate computations of all construction and operating costs. It contained, too, much argument and prophecy in regard to the economic and political advantages which would accrue to nations adopting great inland systems of canals" (DAB IV, 69).