JOHN P. HOLLAND AND SIMON LAKE
The Naval Committee of the House of Representatives of the United
States in the early part of 1900 held a meeting for the purpose of
hearing expert testimony upon the subject of submarines. Up to then
the United States authorities had shown, as compared with the ruling
powers of other navies, only a limited amount of interest in the
submarine question. Increased appropriations for the construction of
submarine boats which were then beginning to become more frequent in
other countries acted, however, as a stimulus at this time.
The committee meeting took place a few days after some of the
members of the committee, together with a number of United States
navy officers, had attended an exhibition of a new submarine boat,
the _Holland No. 9_.
The late Admiral Dewey gave the following opinion about this
submarine to the committee, an opinion which since then has become
rather famous:
Gentlemen: I saw the operation of the boat down off Mount Vernon
the other day. Several members of this committee were there. I
think we were very much impressed with its performance. My aid,
Lieutenant Caldwell, was on board. The boat did everything that
the owners proposed to do. I said then, and I have said it since,
that if they had two of those things at Manila, I could never
have held it with the squadron I had. The moral effect--to my
mind, it is infinitely superior to mines or torpedoes or anything
of the kind. With two of those in Galveston all the navies of the
world could not blockade the place.
Admiral Dewey's approval of the _Holland No. 9_ undoubtedly exerted
a considerable influence on the Naval Committee and as a result of
its recommendations the United States Government finally purchased
the boat on April 11, 1900, for $150,000. This amount was about
$86,000 less than the cost of building to the manufacturers, the
Holland Torpedo Boat Company. The latter, however, could well afford
to take this loss because this first sale resulted a few months
afterwards--on August 25th--in an order for six additional
submarines. The British Government also contracted in the fall of
the same year for five Hollands. The navy of almost every power
interested in submarines soon followed the lead of the British
Admiralty. Submarines of the Holland type were either ordered
outright, or else arrangements were concluded permitting the use of
the basic patents held by the Holland Company. It will be noted that
the United States Government having discovered that it had a good
thing benevolently shared it with the governments that might be
expected to use it against us.
[Illustration: Copyright by Munn & Co., Inc.
From the _Scientific American._
_Types of American Aircraft._]
The _Holland No. 9_, as her very name indicates, was one of a long
line of similar boats. As compared with other experimental submarine
boats she was small. She was only fifty-three feet ten inches long,
and ten feet seven inches deep. Although these proportions made her
look rather thickset, they were the result of experimental work done
by the builder during a period of twenty-five years. She was
equipped both with a gasoline engine of fifty horse-power and an
electric motor run by storage batteries. The latter was intended for
use when the boat was submerged, the former when she was travelling
on the surface of the water. She was capable of a maximum speed of
seven knots an hour. Her cruising radius was 1500 miles and the
combination of oil and electric motors proved so successful that
from that time on every submarine built anywhere adopted this
principle. Two horizontal rudders placed at the stern of the boat
steered her downward whenever she wanted to dive and so
accomplished a diver was this boat that a depth of twenty-eight feet
could be reached by her in five seconds. Her conning tower was the
only means of making observations. No periscopes had been provided
because none of the instruments available at that time gave
satisfaction. This meant that whenever she wished to aim at her
target it was necessary for her to make a quick ascent to the
surface. Her stability was one of her most satisfactory features. So
carefully had her proportions been worked out that there was
practically no pitching or rolling when the boat was submerged. Even
the concussion caused by the discharge of a torpedo was hardly
noticeable because arrangements had been made to take up the recoil
caused by the firing and to maintain the balance of the boat by
permitting a quantity of water equal to the weight of the discharged
torpedo to enter special compartments at the very moment of the
discharge.
The _Holland No. 9_ was built at Lewis Nixon's shipyards at
Elizabethport, New Jersey, and was launched early in 1898, just
previous to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Although
numerous requests were made to the United States Government by her
inventor and builder, John P. Holland, for permission to take her
into Santiago harbour in an attempt to torpedo Cervera's fleet, the
navy authorities at Washington refused this permission. Why?
Presumably through navy hostility to the submarine idea. When the
_Monitor_ whipped the _Merrimac_ in 1862 the former ship belonged to
her inventor, not to the United States Government. It would have
been interesting had Holland at his own expense destroyed the
Spanish ships.
John P. Holland at the time when he achieved his success was
fifty-eight years old, Irish by birth and an early immigrant to the
United States. He had been deeply interested for many years in
mechanical problems and especially in those connected with
navigation. The change from the old wooden battleships to the new
ironclads and the rapidly increasing development of steam-engines
acted as a strong stimulus to the young Irishman's experiments. It
is claimed that his interest in submarine navigation was due
primarily to his desire to find a weapon strong enough to destroy or
at least dominate the British navy; for at that time Holland was
strongly anti-British, because he, like many other educated Irishmen
of that period, desired before everything else to free Ireland. His
plans for doing this by supplying to the proposed Irish Republic a
means for overcoming the British navy found little support and a
great deal of ridicule on the part of his Irish friends. In spite of
this he kept on with his work and in 1875 he built and launched his
first submarine boat at Paterson. This boat was far from being very
revolutionary. She was only sixteen feet long and two feet in
diameter, shaped like a cigar but with both ends sharply pointed. In
many respects except in appearance she was similar to Bushnell's
_Turtle_. Room for only one operator was provided and the latter was
to turn the propeller by means of pedals to be worked by his feet.
She accomplished little beyond giving an opportunity to her inventor
and builder to gather experience in actual underwater navigation.
Two years later in 1877 the _Holland No. 2_ was built. In spite of
the number of improvements represented by her she was not
particularly successful. Her double hull, it is true, provided space
for carrying water ballast. But the leaks from this ballast tank
continuously threatened to drown the navigator sitting inside of the
second hull. A small oil engine of four horse-power was soon
discarded on account of its inefficiency.
The experience gathered by Holland in building and navigating these
two boats strengthened his determination to build a thoroughly
successful submarine and increased his faith in his ability to do
so. He opened negotiations with the Fenian Brotherhood. This was a
secret society founded for the purpose of freeing Ireland from
British rule and creating an Irish Republic. Holland finally
succeeded in persuading his Fenian friends to order from him two
submarine boats and to supply him with the necessary means to build
them. Both of these boats were built. The lack of success of the
first one was due primarily to the inefficiency of her engine. The
second boat which was really the _Holland No. 4_ was built in 1881.
It is usually known as the _Fenian Ram_, and is still in existence
at New Haven, Connecticut, where a series of financial and political
complications finally landed her.
These two boats added vastly to Holland's knowledge concerning
submarine navigation. A few others which he built with his own means
increased this fund of knowledge and step by step he came nearer to
his goal. By 1888 his reputation as a submarine engineer and
navigator had grown to such an extent that Holland was asked by the
famous Philadelphia shipbuilders, the Cramps, to submit to them
designs for a submarine boat to be built by the United States
Government. Only one other design was submitted and this was by the
Scandinavian, Nordenfeldt.
William C. Whitney, then Secretary of the United States Navy,
accepted Holland's design. Month after month passed by wasted by the
usual governmental red tape, and when all preliminary arrangements
had been made and the contract for the actual building of an
experimental boat was to be drawn up, a sudden change in the
administration resulted in the dropping of the entire plan.
Holland's faith in the future submarine and in his own ability was
still unshaken, but this was not the case with his financial
condition. None of the boats he had built so far had brought him any
profits and on some he had lost everything that he had put into
them. His financial support, for which he relied entirely upon
relatives and friends, was practically exhausted. But fortunately on
March 3, 1893, Congress appropriated a sum of money to defray the
expenses of constructing an experimental submarine. Invitations to
inventors were extended. So precarious was Holland's financial
condition at that time that he found it necessary to borrow the
small sum of money involved in making plans which he had to submit.
It is claimed that he succeeded in doing this in a manner highly
typical of his thoroughness.
He needed only about $350.00 but even this comparatively small sum
was more than he had. However, he happened to be lunching with a
young lawyer just about this time and began to tell him about his
financial difficulties. Holland told him that if he only had $347.19
he could prepare the plans and pay the necessary fees. And that
done, he was sure of being able to win the competition. His lawyer
friend, of course, had been approached before by other people for
loans. Invariably they had asked him for some round sum and
Holland's request for $347.19 when he might just as well have asked
for $350.00 aroused his interest. He asked the inventor what the
nineteen cents were to be used for. Quick as a flash he was told
that they were needed to pay for a particular type of ruler
necessary to draw the required plans. So impressed was the lawyer
with Holland's accuracy and honesty in asking not a cent more than
he actually needed that he at once advanced the money. And a good
investment it turned out to be. For in exchange he received a
good-sized block of stock in the Holland Torpedo Boat Company which
in later years made him a multi-millionaire.
Holland's plans did win the competition just as he asserted that
they would; but, of course, winning a prize, offered by a
government, and getting that government to do something about it,
are two different matters. So two years went by before the Holland
Torpedo Boat Company at last was able to start with the construction
of the new submarine which was to be called the _Plunger_.
The principal feature of this new boat was that it was to have a
steam engine for surface navigation and an electric motor for
underwater navigation. This arrangement was not so much a new
invention of Holland's as an adaptation of ideas which had been
promulgated by others. Especially indebted was he in this respect to
Commander Hovgaard of the Danish navy who, in 1887, had published an
important book on the subject of double propulsion in submarines.
Though Holland had made many improvements on these earlier theories,
he soon found out that even at that there was going to be serious
trouble with the _Plunger's_ engines. The boat had been launched in
1897; but instead of finishing it, he persuaded the government to
permit his company to build a new boat, and to return to the
government all the money so far expended on the _Plunger_.
The new boat, _Holland No. 8_, was started immediately and completed
in record time but she, too, was unsatisfactory to the inventor. So
without loss of time he went ahead and built another boat, the
_Holland No. 9_, which, as we have said, became the first United
States submarine.
Two other men submitted plans for submarine boats in the competition
which was won by the Holland boat, George C. Baker and Simon Lake.
Neither of these was accepted. Mr. Baker made no further efforts to
find out if his plans would result in a practicable submarine boat.
But Simon Lake was not so easily discouraged.
It is very interesting that the United States Navy Department at
that time demanded that plans submitted for this competition should
meet the following specifications:
1. Safety.
2. Facility and certainty of action when submerged.
3. Speed when running on the surface.
4. Speed when submerged.
5. Endurance, both submerged and on the surface.
6. Stability.
7. Visibility of object to be attacked.
In spite of the many years that have passed since this competition
and in spite of the tremendous progress that has been made in
submarine construction these are still the essential requirements
necessary to make a successful submarine boat.
The designs submitted by Mr. Lake provided for a twin-screw vessel,
80 feet long, 10 feet beam, and 115 tons displacement, with 400
horse-power steam engines for surface propulsion and 70 horse-power
motors for submerged work. The boat was to have a double hull, the
spaces between the inner and the outer hulls forming water ballast
tanks. There were to be four torpedo tubes, two forward and two aft.
In an article published in 1915 in _International Marine
Engineering_, Mr. Lake says about his 1893 design:
The new and novel feature which attracted the most attention and
skepticism regarding this design was (the author was later
informed by a member of the board) the claim made that the vessel
could readily navigate over the waterbed itself, and that while
navigating on the waterbed a door could be opened in the bottom
of a compartment and the water kept from entering the vessel by
means of compressed air, and that the crew could, by donning
diving suits, readily leave and enter the vessel while submerged.
Another novel feature was in the method of controlling the depth
of submergence when navigating between the surface and waterbed.
The vessel was designed to always submerge and navigate on a
level keel rather than to be inclined down or up by the back, to
"dive" or "rise." This maintenance of a level keel while
submerged was provided for by the installation of four depth
regulating vanes which I later termed "hydroplanes" to
distinguish them from the forward and aft levelling vanes or
horizontal rudders. These hydroplanes were located at equal
distances forward and aft of the center of gravity and buoyancy
of the vessel when in the submerged condition, so as not to
disturb the vessel when the planes were inclined down or up to
cause the vessel to submerge or rise when under way.
I also used, in conjunction with the hydroplanes, horizontal
rudders which I then called "levelling vanes," as their purpose
was just the opposite from that of the horizontal rudder used in
the diving type of vessel. They were operated by a pendulum
controlling device to be inclined so as to always maintain the
vessel on a level keel rather than to cause her to depart
therefrom. When I came to try this combination out in practice, I
found hand control of the horizontal rudders was sufficient. If
vessels with this system of control have a sufficient amount of
stability, you will run for hours and automatically maintain both
a constant depth and a level keel, without the depth control man
touching either the hydroplane or horizontal rudder control gear.
This automatic maintenance of depth without manipulating the
hydroplanes or rudders was a performance not anticipated, nor
claimed in my original patent on the above-mentioned
combination, and what caused these vessels to function in this
manner remained a mystery, which was unsolved until I built a
model tank in 1905 in Berlin, Germany, and conducted a series of
experiments on models of submarines. I then learned that a down
pull of a hydroplane at a given degree of inclination varied
according to its depth of submergence and that the deeper the
submergence, the less the down pull. This works out to give
automatic trim on a substantially level keel, and I have known of
vessels running for a period of two hours without variation of
depth of one foot and without once changing the inclination of
either the hydroplanes or the horizontal rudder.
A great deal of skepticism was displayed for many years towards this
new system of controlling the depth of submergence. But in recent
years all the latest submarine boats have been built on this plan.
Who, then, was this mechanical genius who was responsible for these
far-going changes in submarine construction? Simon Lake was born at
Pleasantville, New Jersey, September 4, 1866. He was educated at
Clinton Liberal Institute, Fort Plain, New York, and Franklin
Institute, Philadelphia. Early in life he displayed a marked
interest in and genius for mechanical problems. His lack of success
in the 1893 competition only spurred him on to further efforts. As
long as the United States Government was unwilling to assist him in
building his submarine boat, there was nothing left for him except
to build it from his own means. In 1894, therefore, he set to work
on an experimental boat, called the _Argonaut, Jr._ According to Mr.
Lake's description as published in _International Marine
Engineering_ in a series of articles from his pen the _Argonaut,
Jr._, was
provided with three wheels, two on either side forward and one
aft, the latter acting as a steering wheel. When on the bottom
the wheels were rotated by hand by one or two men inside the
boat. Her displacement was about seven tons, yet she could be
propelled at a moderate walking gait when on the bottom. She was
also fitted with an air lock and diver's compartment, so arranged
that by putting an air pressure on the diver's compartment equal
to the water pressure outside, a bottom door could be opened and
no water would come into the vessel. Then by putting on a pair of
rubber boots the operator could walk around on the sea bottom and
push the boat along with him and pick up objects, such as clams,
oysters, etc. from the sea bottom.
So much interest was aroused by this little wooden boat that Mr.
Lake was enabled to finance the building of a larger boat, called
the _Argonaut_. It was designed in 1895 and built in 1897 at
Baltimore.
Concerning the _Argonaut_ Mr. Lake says in the same article:
The _Argonaut_ as originally built was 36 feet long and 9 feet in
diameter. She was the first submarine to be fitted with an
internal-combustion engine. She was propelled with a thirty
horse-power gasoline (petrol) engine driving a screw propeller.
She was fitted with two toothed driving wheels forward which were
revolved by suitable gearing when navigating on the waterbed, or
they could be disconnected from this gearing and permitted to
revolve freely, propulsion being secured by the screw propeller.
A wheel in the rudder enabled her to be steered in any direction
when on the bottom. She also had a diving compartment to enable
divers to leave or enter the vessel when submerged, to operate on
wrecks or to permit inspection of the bottom or to recover
shellfish. She also had a lookout compartment in the extreme bow,
with a powerful searchlight to light up a pathway in front of her
as she moved along over the waterbed. This searchlight I later
found of little value except for night work in clear water. In
clear water the sunlight would permit of as good vision without
the use of the light as with it, while if the water was not
clear, no amount of light would permit of vision through it for
any considerable distance.
In January, 1898 [says Mr. Lake], while the _Argonaut_ was
submerged, telephone conversation was held from submerged
stations with Baltimore, Washington, and New York.
In 1898, also, the _Argonaut_ made the trip from Norfolk to New
York under her own power and unescorted. In her original form she
was a cigar-shaped craft with only a small percentage of reserve
buoyancy in her surface cruising condition. We were caught out in
the severe November northeast storm of 1898 in which over 200
vessels were lost and we did not succeed in reaching a harbour in
the "horseshoe" back of Sandy Hook until, of course, in the
morning. The seas were so rough they would break over her conning
tower in such masses I was obliged to lash myself fast to prevent
being swept overboard. It was freezing weather and I was soaked
and covered with ice on reaching harbour.
This experience caused me to apply to the _Argonaut_ a further
improvement for which I had already applied for a patent. This
was, doubled around the usual pressure resisting body of a
submarine, a ship-shape form of light plating which would give
greater seaworthiness, better surface speed, and make the vessel
more habitable for surface navigation. It would, in other words,
make a "sea-going submarine," which the usual form of
cigar-shaped vessel was not, as it would not have sufficient
surface buoyancy to enable it to rise with the seas and the seas
would sweep over it as they would sweep over a partly submerged
rock.
The _Argonaut_ was, therefore, taken to Brooklyn, twenty feet
added to her length, and a light water-tight buoyancy
superstructure of ship-shape form added. This superstructure was
opened to the sea when it was desired to submerge the vessel,
and water was permitted to enter the space between the light
plating of the ship-shaped form and the heavy plating of the
pressure resisting hull. This equalized pressure on the light
plates and prevented their becoming deformed due to pressure. The
superstructure increased her reserve of buoyancy in the surface
cruising condition from about 10 per cent. to over 40 per cent.
and lifted right up to the seas like any ordinary type of surface
vessel, instead of being buried by them in rough weather.
This feature of construction has been adopted by the Germans,
Italians, Russians, and in all the latest types of French boats.
It is the principal feature which distinguishes them in their
surface appearance from the earlier cigar-shaped boats of the
diving type. This ship-shaped form of hull is only suited to the
level keel submergence.
In those days submarine boats were a much more unusual sight than
they are to-day and simple fishermen who had never read or heard
about submarines undoubtedly experienced disturbing sensations when
they ran across their first underwater boat. Mr. Lake, a short time
ago, while addressing a meeting of electrical engineers in Brooklyn,
told the following experience which he had on one of his trips in
the _Argonaut_:
On the first trip down the Chesapeake Bay, we had been running
along in forty feet of water and had been down about four hours.
Night was coming on, so we decided to come up to find out where
we were. I noticed one of those Chesapeake "Bug Eyes" lighting
just to leeward of us, and, as I opened the conning tower hatch,
called to the men aboard to find out where we were. As soon as I
did so, he turned his boat around and made straight for the
beach. I thought he was rather discourteous. He ran his boat up
on that beach and never stopped; the last I saw of him was when
he jumped ashore and started to run inland as hard as he and his
helper could go. Finally I learned we were just above the mouth
of the York or Rappahannock River and I found a sort of inland
harbour back of it. I decided to put up there for the night. Then
learning that there was a store nearby, we called after dark for
more provisions and I noticed a large crowd there. We got what we
wanted, and stepped outside the door. He asked us where we were
from. "We are down here in the submarine boat, _Argonaut_, making
an experimental trip down the bay." He then commenced to laugh.
"That explains it," he said; "just before nightfall, Captain
So-and-So and his mate came running up here to the store just as
hard as they could, and both dropped down exhausted, and when we
were able to get anything out of them, they told a very strange
story. That's why all these people are here." This is the story
the storekeeper told me: "The men were out dredging and all at
once they noticed a buoy with a red flag on it, and that buoy was
going against the tide, and they could not understand it. It came
up alongside, and they heard a 'puff, puff,' something like a
locomotive puffing, and then they smelt sulphur." (The "puff,
puff" was the exhaust of our engine and those fumes were what
they thought was sulphur.) "Just then the thing rose up out of
the water, then the smokestack appeared, and then the devil came
right out of that smokestack."
In the January, 1899, issue of _McClure's Magazine_ there appeared a
profusely illustrated article entitled "Voyaging under the Sea." The
first part of it, "The Submarine Boat _Argonaut_ and her
Achievements," was written by Simon Lake himself. In it he quotes
as follows from the log book of the _Argonaut_ under date of July
28, 1898.
Submerged at 8.20 A. M. in about thirty feet of water.
Temperature in living compartment, eighty-three degrees
Fahrenheit. Compass bearing west-north-west, one quarter west.
Quite a lively sea running on the surface, also strong current.
At 10.45 A. M. shut down engine; temperature, eighty-eight
degrees Fahrenheit.
After engine was shut down, we could hear the wind blowing past
our pipes extending above the surface; we could also tell by the
sound when any steamers were in the vicinity. We first allowed
the boat to settle gradually to the bottom, with the tide running
ebb; after a time the tide changed, and she would work slightly
sideways; we admitted about four hundred pounds of water
additional, but she still would move occasionally, so that a
pendulum nine inches long would sway one eighth of an inch
(thwartship). At 12 o'clock (noon) temperature was eighty-seven
degrees Fahrenheit; at 2.45 P. M. the temperature was still
eighty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. There were no signs of carbonic
acid gas at 2.45, although the engine had been closed down for
three hours and no fresh air had been admitted during the time.
Could hear the whistle of boats on the surface, and also their
propellers when running close, to the boat. At 3.30 the
temperature had dropped to eighty-five degrees. At 3.45 found a
little sign of carbonic acid gas, very slight, however, as a
candle would burn fairly bright in the pits. Thought we could
detect a smell of gasoline by comparing the fresh air which came
down the pipe (when hand blower was turned). Storage lamps were
burning during the five hours of submergence, while engine was
not running.
At 3.50 engine was again started, and went off nicely. Went into
diving compartment and opened door; came out through air-lock,
and left pressure there; found the wheels had buried about ten
inches or one foot, as the bottom had several inches of mud. We
had 500 pounds of air in the tanks, and it ran the pressure down
to 250 pounds to open the door in about thirty feet.
The temperature fell in the diving compartment to eighty-two
degrees after the compressed air was let in.
Cooked clam fritters and coffee for supper. The spirits of the
crew appeared to improve the longer we remained below; the time
was spent in catching clams, singing, trying to waltz, playing
cards, and writing letters to wives and sweethearts.
Our only visitors during the day were a couple of black bass that
came and looked in at the windows with a great deal of apparent
interest.
In future boats, it will be well to provide a smoking
compartment, as most of the crew had their smoking apparatus all
ready as soon as we came up.
Started pumps at 6.20, and arrived at the surface at 6.30. Down
altogether ten hours and fifteen minutes. People on pilot boat
_Calvert_ thought we were all hands drowned.
The second part of this article was called "A Voyage on the Bottom
of the Sea." It was written by Ray Stannard Baker, who had been
fortunate enough to receive an invitation from Mr. Lake to accompany
him on one of the trips of the _Argonaut_. Any one who has read
Jules Verne's fascinating story _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the
Sea_ must be struck immediately with the similarity between Mr.
Baker's experiences and those of Captain Nemo's guests. It is not at
all surprising, therefore, to have Mr. Baker tell us that during
this trip Mr. Lake told him:
"When I was ten years old, I read Jules Verne's _Twenty Thousand
Leagues under the Sea_, and I have been working on submarine
boats ever since."
Mr. Baker's record of what he saw and how he felt is not only a
credit to his keen powers of observation, but also a proof of the
fact that, in many ways, there was little difference between the
_Argonaut_ of 1898 and the most up-to-date submarine of to-day. In
part he says:
Simon Lake planned an excursion on the bottom of the sea for
October 12, 1898. His strange amphibian craft, the _Argonaut_,
about which we had been hearing so many marvels, lay off the pier
at Atlantic Highlands. Before we were near enough to make out her
hulk, we saw a great black letter A, framed of heavy gas-pipe,
rising forty feet above the water. A flag rippled from its
summit. As we drew nearer, we discovered that there really wasn't
any hulk to make out--only a small oblong deck shouldering deep
in the water and supporting a slightly higher platform, from
which rose what seemed to be a squatty funnel. A moment later we
saw that the funnel was provided with a cap somewhat resembling a
tall silk hat, the crown of which was represented by a brass
binnacle. This cap was tilted back, and as we ran alongside, a
man stuck his head up over the rim and sang out, "Ahoy there!"
A considerable sea was running, but I observed that the
_Argonaut_ was planted as firmly in the water as a stone pillar,
the big waves splitting over her without imparting any
perceptible motion.
We scrambled up on the little platform, and peered down through
the open conning-tower, which we had taken for a funnel, into the
depths of the ship below. Wilson had started his gasoline engine.
Mr. Lake had taken his place at the wheel, and we were going
ahead slowly, steering straight across the bay toward Sandy Hook
and deeper water. The _Argonaut_ makes about five knots an hour
on the surface, but when she gets deep down on the sea bottom,
where she belongs, she can spin along more rapidly.
The _Argonaut_ was slowly sinking under the water. We became
momentarily more impressed with the extreme smallness of the
craft to which we were trusting our lives. The little platform
around the conning-tower on which we stood--in reality the top of
the gasoline tank--was scarcely a half dozen feet across, and the
_Argonaut_ herself was only thirty-six feet long. Her sides had
already faded out of sight, but not before we had seen how
solidly they were built--all of steel, riveted and reinforced, so
that the wonder grew how such a tremendous weight, when
submerged, could ever again be raised.
I think we made some inquiries about the safety of submarine
boats in general. Other water compartments had been flooded, and
we had settled so far down that the waves dashed repeatedly over
the platform on which we stood--and the conning-tower was still
wide open, inviting a sudden engulfing rush of water. "You
mustn't confuse the _Argonaut_ with ordinary submarine boats,"
said Mr. Lake. "She is quite different and much safer."
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_For Anti-Aircraft Service._]
He explained that the _Argonaut_ was not only a submarine boat,
but much besides. She not only swims either on the surface or
beneath it, but she adds to this accomplishment the extraordinary
power of diving deep and rolling along the bottom of the sea on
wheels. No machine ever before did that. Indeed, the _Argonaut_
is more properly a "sea motorcycle" than a "boat." In its
invention Mr. Lake elaborated an idea which the United States
Patent Office has decided to be absolutely original.
[Illustration: Photo by Bain News Service.
_The Latest French Aircraft Gun._]
We found ourselves in a long, narrow compartment, dimly
illuminated by yellowish-green light from the little round, glass
windows. The stern was filled with Wilson's gasoline engine and
the electric motor, and in front of us toward the bow we could
see through the heavy steel doorways of the diver's compartment
into the lookout room, where there was a single round eye of
light.
I climbed up the ladder of the conning-tower and looked out
through one of the glass ports. My eyes were just even with the
surface of the water. A wave came driving and foaming entirely
over the top of the vessel, and I could see the curiously
beautiful sheen of the bright summit of the water above us. It
was a most impressive sight. Mr. Lake told me that in very clear
water it was difficult to tell just where the air left off and
the water began; but in the muddy bay where we were going down
the surface looked like a peculiarly clear, greenish pane of
glass moving straight up and down, not forward, as the waves
appear to move when looked at from above.
Now we were entirely under water. The rippling noises that the
waves had made in beating against the upper structure of the boat
had ceased. As I looked through the thick glass port, the water
was only three inches from my eyes, and I could see thousands of
dainty, semi-translucent jellyfish floating about as lightly as
thistledown. They gathered in the eddy behind the conning-tower
in great numbers, bumping up sociably against one another and
darting up and down with each gentle movement of the water. And I
realized that we were in the domain of the fishes.
Jim brought the government chart, and Mr. Lake announced that we
were heading directly for Sandy Hook and the open ocean. But we
had not yet reached the bottom, and John was busily opening
valves and letting in more water. I went forward to the little
steel cuddy-hole in the extreme prow of the boat, and looked out
through the watch-port. The water had grown denser and yellower,
and I could not see much beyond the dim outlines of the ship's
spar reaching out forward. Jim said that he had often seen fishes
come swimming up wonderingly to gaze into the port. They would
remain quite motionless until he stirred his head, and then they
vanished instantly. Mr. Lake has a remarkable photograph which he
took of a visiting fish, and Wilson tells of nurturing a queer
flat crab for days in the crevice of one of the view-holes.
At that moment, I felt a faint jolt, and Mr. Lake said that we
were on the bottom of the sea.
Here we were running as comfortably along the bottom of Sandy
Hook Bay as we would ride in a Broadway car, and with quite as
much safety. Wilson, who was of a musical turn, was whistling
_Down Went McGinty_, and Mr. Lake, with his hands on the
pilot-wheel, put in an occasional word about his marvellous
invention. On the wall opposite there was a row of dials which
told automatically every fact about our condition that the most
nervous of men could wish to know. One of them shows the pressure
of air in the main compartment of the boat, another registers
vacuum, and when both are at zero, Mr. Lake knows that the
pressure of the air is normal, the same as it is on the surface,
and he tries to maintain it in this condition. There are also a
cyclometer, not unlike those used on bicycles, to show how far
the boat travels on the wheels; a depth gauge, which keeps us
accurately informed as to the depth of the boat in the water, and
a declension indicator. By the long finger of the declension dial
we could tell whether we were going up hill or down. Once while
we were out, there was a sudden, sharp shock, the pointer leaped
back, and then quivered steady again. Mr. Lake said that we had
probably struck a bit of wreckage or an embankment, but the
_Argonaut_ was running so lightly that she had leaped up jauntily
and slid over the obstruction.
We had been keeping our eyes on the depth dial, the most
fascinating and interesting of any of the number. It showed that
we were going down, down, down, literally down to the sea in a
ship. When we had been submerged far more than an hour, and there
was thirty feet of yellowish green ocean over our heads, Mr. Lake
suddenly ordered the machinery stopped. The clacking noises of
the dynamo ceased, and the electric lights blinked out, leaving
us at once in almost absolute darkness and silence. Before this,
we had found it hard to realize that we were on the bottom of the
ocean; now it came upon us suddenly and not without a touch of
awe. This absence of sound and light, this unchanging
motionlessness and coolness, this absolute negation--that was the
bottom of the sea. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment we
realized acutely the meaning and joy of sunshine and moving
winds, trees, and the world of men.
A minute light twinkled out like a star, and then another and
another, until the boat was bright again, and we knew that among
the other wonders of this most astonishing of inventions there
was storage electricity which would keep the boat illuminated for
hours, without so much as a single turn of the dynamo. With the
stopping of the engine, the air supply from above had ceased; but
Mr. Lake laid his hand on the steel wall above us, where he said
there was enough air compressed to last us all for two days,
should anything happen. The possibility of "something happening"
had been lurking in our minds ever since we started. "What if
your engine should break down, so that you couldn't pump the
water out of the water compartments?" I asked. "Here we have
hand-pumps," said Mr. Lake promptly; "and if those failed, a
single touch of this lever would release our iron keel, which
weighs 4000 pounds, and up we would go like a rocket."
I questioned further, only to find that every imaginable
contingency, and some that were not at all imaginable to the
uninitiated, had been absolutely provided against by the genius
of the inventor. And everything from the gasoline engine to the
hand-pump was as compact and ingenious as the mechanism of a
watch. Moreover, the boat was not crowded; we had plenty of room
to move around and to sleep, if we wished, to say nothing of
eating. As for eating, John had brought out the kerosene stove
and was making coffee, while Jim cut the pumpkin pie. "This isn't
Delmonico's," said Jim, "but we're serving a lunch that
Delmonico's couldn't serve--a submarine lunch."
By this time the novelty was wearing off and we sat there, at the
bottom of the sea, drinking our coffee with as much unconcern as
though we were in an up-town restaurant. For the first time since
we started, Mr. Lake sat down, and we had an opportunity of
talking with him at leisure. He is a stout-shouldered, powerfully
built man, in the prime of life--a man of cool common sense, a
practical man, who is also an inventor. And he talks frankly and
convincingly, and yet modestly, of his accomplishment.
Having finished our lunch, Mr. Lake prepared to show us something
about the practical operations of the _Argonaut_. It has been a
good deal of a mystery to us how workmen penned up in a submarine
boat could expect to recover gold from wrecks in the water
outside, or to place torpedoes, or to pick up cables. "We simply
open the door, and the diver steps out on the bottom of the sea,"
Mr. Lake said, quite as if he was conveying the most ordinary
information.
At first it seemed incredible, but Mr. Lake showed us the heavy,
riveted door in the bottom of the diver's compartment. Then he
invited us inside with Wilson, who, besides being an engineer, is
also an expert diver. The massive steel doors of the little room
were closed and barred, and then Mr. Lake turned a cock and the
air rushed in under high pressure. At once our ears began to
throb, and it seemed as if the drums would burst inward.
"Keep swallowing," said Wilson, the diver.
As soon as we applied this remedy, the pain was relieved, but the
general sensation of increased air pressure, while exhilarating,
was still most uncomfortable. The finger on the pressure dial
kept creeping up and up, until it showed that the air pressure
inside of the compartment was nearly equal to the water pressure
without. Then Wilson opened a cock in the door. Instantly the
water gushed in, and for a single instant we expected to be
drowned there like rats in a trap. "This is really very simple,"
Mr. Lake was saying calmly. "When the pressure within is the same
as that without, no water can enter."
With that, Wilson dropped the iron door, and there was the water
and the muddy bottom of the sea within touch of a man's hand. It
was all easy enough to understand, and yet it seemed impossible,
even as we saw it with our own eyes. Mr. Lake stooped down, and
picked up a wooden rod having a sharp hook at the end. This he
pulled along the bottom....
We were now rising again to the surface, after being submerged
for more than three hours. I climbed into the conning-tower and
watched for the first glimpse of the sunlight. There was a sudden
fluff of foam, the ragged edge of a wave, and then I saw, not
more than a hundred feet away, a smack bound toward New York
under full sail. Her rigging was full of men, gazing curiously in
our direction, no doubt wondering what strange monster of the sea
was coming forth for a breath of air.