In 1834, a young Scottish engineer named John Scott Russell was conducting experiments on the Union Canal (near Edinburgh) to measure the relationship between the speed of a boat and its propelling force, with the aim of finding design parameters for conversion from horse power to steam. One August day, a rope parted in his measurement apparatus and (Russell, 1844)

the boat suddenly stopped - not so the mass of water in the channel which it had put in motion; it accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation, then suddenly leaving it behind, rolled forward with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth and well defined heap of water, which continued its course along the channel without change of form or diminution of speed.

Soliton - a definition in process   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliton