This brief account of Russia’s struggle for supremacy among the family of nations, so intimately interwoven with the history of one of America’s foremost inventors in the life-saving field, is another instance of the Providence that rules the destinies of the world, through the lives of unassuming and patient workers.
From experiment came invention. The Life-Car, in this instance the outcome of extended experiment on the part of Joseph Francis, proved the value of the corrugating system, the fame of which, within a few years, spread all over the world. The Life-Car, the first construction under the corrugated system, was merely the germ of the widespread uses to which the system was and is applicable, as has been shown. Steamships, floating docks, pontoon bridges, military wagons and railway cars are only a few among the many constructions to which the Francis system of corrugated iron was applied by him and those to whom he sold the right to manufacture. The Life-Car, then, was the suggestion that led to the construction of the portable, strong, light-draft ship, which proved the most powerful implement, in Russia’s hands, of working out the vastest scheme of empire ever conceived in the brain of man. Mr. Francis, successful in all his inventions, has been honored beyond most men by foreign potentates, and now is about to receive what he holds to be the crowning honor, the bestowal of the gold medal awarded him by two Congresses, with the double thanks of this chosen body of representatives of the people.
Appendix.
WILL OF PETER THE GREAT, FATHER OF RUSSIAN SHIP-BUILDING.
The following is an authentic copy of the Will of Peter the Great, the first Emperor of Russia. This will is the supreme foundation and law of Russian politics, since his time, and was confidentially deposited in the hands of the Abbe de Bervis, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 1757, and also in those of Louis XV. A copy is also to be found in the diplomatic archives of France, from which this translation is derived:
THE WILL.
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.