NAUTILUS

NAUTILUS. The Nautilus, a "diving boat" armed with a torpedo, designed and built at Rouen, France, by Robert Fulton, was launched on 24 July 1800. After several successful submersions of it, Fulton submitted his plans for submarine operations against England's navy to Napoleon Bonaparte, who advanced ten thousand francs for repairs and improvements to the Nautilus. Although Fulton blew up a French sloop with the Nautilus, at Brest, 11 August 1801, he dismantled it when Napoleon offered no further encouragement. The U.S. Navy resurrected the name for the first nuclear powered submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, completed in 1954.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hoyt, Edwin P. From the Turtle to the Nautilus: The Story of Submarines. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.

Hutcheon, Wallace. Robert Fulton, Pioneer of Undersea Warfare. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1981.

Louis H.Bolander/a. r.

See alsoArms Race and Disarmament ; Submarines ; Torpedo Warfare .

nau·ti·lus / ˈnôtl-əs/ • n. (pl. nau·ti·lus·es or nau·ti·li / ˈnôtl-ī/ ) 1. a cephalopod mollusk with a light external spiral shell and numerous short tentacles around the mouth. Nautiluses swim with the buoyant gas-filled shell upright and descend to greater depths during the day. • Genus Nautilus, the only surviving genus of the subclass Nautiloidea: several species, in particular the common chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) of the Indo-Pacific, with a shell that is white with brownish bands on the outside and lined with mother-of-pearl on the inside. 2. (also paper nautilus) another term for argonaut.

Nau·ti·lus / ˈnôtl-əs/ the first nuclear-powered submarine, launched in 1954. This U.S. Navy vessel made a historic journey (August 1–5, 1958) under the ice of the North Pole. ∎ trademark an exercise machine that matches resistance with output of force.

nautilus (chambered nautilus) cephalopod mollusc found in w Pacific and e Indian Oceans at depths down to 200m (660ft). Its large, coiled shell divides into numerous, gas-filled chambers, which give it buoyancy. The foremost chamber contains the body. Its head has 60–90 retractable, thin tentacles without suckers, and it moves by squirting water from a funnel. Shell size c.25cm (10in). Family Nautilidae; genus Nautilus.

Nautilus ★★ 1999 (R)

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