Fulton, after this, lectured frequently before the members of Congress, and so favourably impressed them that a sum of 5,000 dollars was voted in aid of his experiments. One of the plans he proposed was to couple by a line two torpedoes, then letting them drift on the bow of the vessel to be destroyed, the line would catch on the cable or bows, and the torpedoes would drift towards the vessel on either side. He also proposed “block ships” of 50 or 100 tons, with cannon-proof sides and musket-proof decks (_i.e._, virtually ironclads), to be propelled by machinery, _which was to be worked by the crew_. “On each quarter and bow she was to be armed with a torpedo fastened to a long spar, the interior end of which was to be supported and braced by ropes from the yards.... By means of these spars the torpedoes were to be thrust under the bottom of the vessel to be destroyed.” Half the many plans proposed for torpedo warfare may be traced back to Robert Fulton at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. Among his inventions was a “cable-cutting machine,” a description of which would occupy an undue amount of space in a popular work. Suffice it to say that by its means he succeeded in cutting, several feet below the surface of the water, the cable—a 14-inch one—of a vessel lying at anchor. One of the most important experiments made at this time was his attempt, under sanction of Government, to blow up the sloop-of-war _Argus_, and the case demonstrates very clearly the ingenuity of the _defence_, and the means taken to foil the assailing torpedo. We have heard quite recently of propositions to defend a vessel by means of a kind of “crinoline,” as it has been termed, a strong network, &c., surrounding the whole or a part of the vessel at some distance from it, which should prevent the torpedo from exploding near the hull. Such was actually the means devised by Commodore Rodgers, of the United States Navy, in the year 1809, and which proved entirely successful in foiling Fulton’s torpedo. Colden says:—“She had a strong netting suspended from her spritsail-yard, which was anchored at the bottom; she was surrounded by spars lashed together, which floated on the surface of the water, so as to place her completely in a pen; she had grappling-irons and heavy pieces of the same metal suspended from her yards and rigging, ready to be plunged in any boat that came beneath them; she had great swords, or scythes, fastened to the ends of long spars, moving like sweeps, which unquestionably would have mowed off as many heads as came within their reach.” [Illustration: THE OLD STYLE AND THE NEW (A THREE-DECKER AND A TORPEDO BOAT).]