Touboulic spent his entire working life in Brest. Appointed marine engineer in 1818, he was head of the compass workshop from 1825 to 1836, and later mechanical engineer. He built models of the ports of Brest,
Lorient and
Toulon, and a relief map of
Rochefort, and invented tools used by various sectors of the navy including a variation compass in 1856 (patent of invention code 26642 at the INPI), a
diving bell (departmental archives of Finistère, code 4 T 5), an aerial transport system that he called a velocipost in 1808 (patent number 1BA6239 at the INPI), the ancestor of the first urban cable car, before the railways, in 1838, which was first tested from 3 to 12 October 1838 in the Bois de Bordenave in Brest. The experiment was continued in 1839 for at least three months on the ramparts of
Fort Bouguen with the participation of about 800 people. The press of the time (
Armoricain) suggested possible uses for transport of convicts, the sick, etc. The Brest cable car was called the Touboulic Express by the city of Brest in 2014. Touboulic took out a patent on a
rebreather, based on the absorption of carbon dioxide on 17 June 1808. It had a tank containing oxygen which was released by the diver, and circulated in a closed circuit through a sponge soaked in lime water. Touboulic called his invention Ichtioandre (Greek for “fish-man”). In 1834, he experimented with submarines on the
Loire. ==References==