Here he also met
with Watt, who had just produced the steam-engine, which Fulton studied
enthusiastically. His own inventive genius was not idle, and while
living in Devonshire, he produced an improved mill for sawing marble,
which won him the thanks and medal of the British Society for the
Promotion of the Arts and Commerce; a machine for spinning flax and
making ropes; and an excavator for scooping out the channels of canals
and aqueducts, all of which were patented. He published a number of
communications on the subject of canals in one of the leading London
journals, and a treatise upon the same subject. Having obtained a patent
in England for canal improvements, he went to France in 1797, with the
design of introducing them in that country.
Upon reaching Paris, he took up his residence with Mr. Joel Barlow, and
thus was laid the foundation of a friendship between these two gentlemen
which lasted during their lives. He remained in Paris seven years,
residing during that time with Mr. Barlow, and devoting himself to the
study of modern languages, and engineering and its kindred sciences.
His work was continuous and severe in Paris.
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