stern two horizontal rudders. They stick out behind like the feet of a
swan as it swims about a lake. When it is necessary to dive, these flat
rudders are tipped down in the rear, and the ship is forced under at the
bow at an inclination. When the required depth is reached the rudders
are flattened out, so to speak, or held at the inclination to keep the
vessel on an even keel, the tanks having been filled to overcome all but
a very small reserve buoyancy. An automatic arrangement allows the water
to press on a rubber diaphragm, and keeps the boat at an even depth. It
is a great problem, however, to steer absolutely straight. It has been
found that under water the mariner's compass is not trustworthy. Mr.
Holland devised an ingenious arrangement to overcome this. There is a
triangular drag floating just above the diving-rudders. It is necessary,
when the boat is running on the surface, to put it on the exact course
it is to follow just before the dive is made. The rudders are tipped,
and then this drag comes into play. If the boat veers to the right or
left this drag sways to the opposite side. It is so arranged that it
works a lever that at once swings the steering-rudder of the ship to the
side that will bring the boat straight on its course again.
Suppose, now, it is necessary to come to the top of the water at once,
without waiting for the diving-rudders to steer us up. The
compressed-air tanks can expel nearly twenty tons of water from the
tanks at the bottom of the vessel in about two minutes, and the boat
will rush to the top at once. Here is where the matter of buoyancy comes
in. A problem that has also been solved in this boat is the ability to
remain stationary at a certain depth under water. There is an anchor
which is run from a drum at the bottom of the boat near the bow, and it
will hold the boat in any position independent of current or tide. If it
is desirable to remain in one position, and not at anchor, we must use
two little "down-haul" screws. They are little screws such as propel a
ship at the stern. An electric dynamo is set going, and these screws are
turned in a horizontal position, and the small reserve buoyancy in the
boat, amounting only to about 375 pounds, is overcome. When we are
running under water the slight dip of the diving-rudders keeps us at the
required depth.
[Illustration: RAMMING A MAN-OF-WAR.]
There have been several devices to make a vessel go under water. The
oldest, perhaps, has been the sudden filling of tanks by allowing the
water to rush in. The water has to be expelled by air pressure. This
method of diving and coming up consists of a series of bumping motions,
and is very crude. Another method used was by "down-haul" screws. These
were turned, and they simply bored holes in the water, like an auger in
a board, and the boat had to go down in the water. After the boat got
down there was no satisfactory way of regulating the depth, and the rise
to the surface was always too abrupt. Propelling the boats under water
until recently has been an unsolved problem. Sometimes chemicals have
been used, and sometimes the stored-up heat of the engine has been
tried. Electricity has solved this problem, and made it possible to stay
under water six hours going at full speed. During this time the boat can
go fully fifty miles without once coming to the surface. Should any
accident occur, each member of the crew is supplied with a life-saving
helmet, which is easy of adjustment, and by means of which he may float
to the surface of the water in safety. A folding rubber boat may also be
carried in the super-structure of the craft, so that there is very
little danger of loss of life under the water. Mr. Holland has explored
all New York Harbor, and he says that ladies have often asked him to
take them down in his experimental boats.
The facility with which this vessel will do its work may be judged from
the fact that when running on the surface of the water it can dive to a
depth of twenty-five feet in twenty seconds. When running awash it can
dive to a depth of twenty-five feet in ten seconds. It can come up as
quickly as it goes down. It is supposed that the vessel will never need
to go any deeper than forty feet, and having the ability to dive when
attacked it will carry no guns.
Mr. Holland was a young man in Ireland during our civil war. He studied
engineering, and was especially interested in the submarine boat that
the Confederates used with considerable success, but with great loss of
life to themselves, in the war. The splendid ship _Housatonic_ of our
navy was sunk off Charleston, South Carolina, by one of these boats. Mr.
Holland came here in 1873, and two years later made his first experiment
in going under water. He has kept at it ever since, and more than once
has he given the pilots and skippers of New York Harbor a scare by
suddenly causing to come to the top of the water some sort of a sea
monster, the like of which no one ever dreamed, and the appearance of
which could not be explained. One of Mr. Holland's boats was popularly
known as the "Fenian ram," because he was practising in it in New York
Harbor about the time of the celebrated Fenian uprising. He has lost one
or two boats by the mistakes of some of his helpers, and on more than
one occasion he has been in a ticklish situation, but he always came out
all right, and finally mastered all the intricate problems connected
with submarine navigation--problems that have engaged scores of men ever
since Drebbell, a Dutchman, first tried the experiment in the time of
James I. of England.
The first partly successful boat of this kind seems to have been made in
the time of our revolutionary war by a man named Bushnell, who lived in
Maine. The boat could remain under water for half an hour, but the
scheme of building them came to nothing. It will surprise most persons,
probably, to know that the first really successful boat was made by our
own Robert Fulton, the famous steamboat engineer. It was in 1800, and
Fulton showed it to Napoleon Bonaparte in the harbor of Havre in 1801.
He went down twenty-five feet in it, and remained there for one hour.
Then he went down with four persons, and remained four hours. Compressed
air was used for respiration in this boat. Various improvements have
been made from that time to this. The crude boats of the civil war were
displaced in the late seventies and eighties by those of fairly
satisfactory working arrangements, and the Russian, French, and Turkish
governments have built several, but they have lacked complete mastery of
the problem of under-water navigation, such as this boat that we are now
building is expected to display. By next summer the boat will probably
be in service.
If the boat is successful it may make as great a revolution in naval
warfare as the famous _Monitor_, built by Mr. Ericsson, did in the war
of 1861. For what battle-ship would be proof against it? The biggest of
all battle-ships would only sink quicker than smaller ones, and huge
war-ships of all kinds would be nothing more than death-traps for all
those aboard them. Another question of great importance is whether the
guns of war-ships can be tipped sufficiently to strike the boat when it
is anywhere near.
TODDLETUMS'S NEW-YEAR'S DREAM.
"Papa, I paid another visit last night."
"Another visit? Where did you go, Toddletums?"
"I guess I got a little sleepy after our big dinner. I got up among
those spirit chaps in the sky that I played baseball with last summer,
and was wondering what became of all the hours we use up during the
year, so I thought I would ask them. When I got up there they were
awfully glad to see me.
"The whole crowd were bowling, and they were using the tail of a comet
for a bowling-alley. Papa I'm so sorry you couldn't see them, it was so
funny. At the end of the comet alley they had a lot of things stuck up
that looked like those glasses that cookie boils eggs by. One of the
spirits told me they were the hours we used up during the year, and that
it was their custom to meet every New-Year's eve to bowl them out of
existence. As he was telling me, one big chap (say, papa, but those
chaps are big!) grasped what they said was a baby world, and, swinging
it, smashed down a lot of hours. Well, in a short time all the hours
were gone except one. Then they stood around and waited, looking
solemnly at a winking, blinking light in the distance that they said was
my world. Suddenly every one lifted his hand and pointed at the last
hour, and the biggest spirit seized a world, and when the last moment
trickled down the glass, they dropped their hands, and he sent the ball
smashing along the comet, and knocked out the last hour.
"Some of them rushed over to one side and began piling up what looked
like cakes of ice. Every few seconds one chap sent a cake flying smash
at our world. Those were the new hours. You see, time moves very quickly
up there, and it takes a lot of work to keep the hours moving.
"They invited me to get on the comet and take a ride through the Milky
Way. We all perched on it, and some one started it off, and we went
skipping along faster than any bob-sled. In a few minutes we got into
the Milky Way. After a while we got off and strolled up to a
funny-looking world. It was made of pies, cakes, candies, and all sorts
of good things mixed. When we stopped, all the spirits looked grave, and
when one of them began to talk, I grew frightened.
"He said that when little boys from the world ate such things they were
all saved and piled up here. Then if a little boy ate too much he would
die, and come up here and commence all over again, and the moment he put
the nice things in his mouth they immediately became bitter and nasty.
They all looked hard at me when he said this, and shouted, 'Make
Toddletums turn over a new leaf.'
"One of them commenced to blow, and a thin vapor formed, and then
another blew rents into it, until I could make out the words, 'I promise
to turn over a new leaf.'
"'Turn it over!' shouted the spirits; and it sounded like a crash of
thunder.
"Well, they thought I'd get frightened at that, but I didn't. I just
grasped the edge of that vapor leaf, and I was turning it nicely, when I
woke up, and found myself wrapping the bed-sheet around me 'cause it was
cold. But, papa, I guess I'll turn over the new leaf as I promised."
THE MIDDLE DAUGHTER.
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
CHAPTER I.
AT THE MANSE.
"I am troubled and low in my mind," said our mother, looking pensively
out of the window. "I am really extremely anxious about the
Wainwrights."
It was a dull and very chilly day in the late autumn. Fog hid the hills;
wet leaves soaked into the soft ground; the trees dripped with moisture;
every little while down came the rain, now a pour, then a drizzle--a
depressing sort of day.
Our village of Highland, in the Ramapo, is perfectly enchanting in clear
brilliant weather, and turn where you will, you catch a fine view of
mountain, or valley, or brown stream, or tumbling cascade. On a snowy
winter day it is divine; but in the fall, when there is mist hanging its
gray pall over the landscape, or there are dark low-hanging clouds with
steady pouring rain, the weather, it must be owned, is depressing in
Highland. That is, if one cares about weather. Some people always rise
above it, which is the better way.
I must explain mamma's interest in the Wainwrights. They are our dear
friends, but not our neighbors, as they were before Dr. Wainwright went
to live at Wishing-Brae, which was a family place left him by his
brother; rather a tumble-down old place, but big, and with fields and
meadows around it, and a great rambling garden. The Wainwrights were
expecting their middle daughter, Grace, home from abroad.
Few people in Highland have ever been abroad; New York, or Chicago, or
Omaha, or Denver is far enough away for most of us. But Grace
Wainwright, when she was ten, had been borrowed by a childless uncle and
aunt, who wanted to adopt her, and begged Dr. Wainwright, who had seven
children and hardly any money, to give them one child on whom they could
spend their heaps of money. But no, the doctor and Mrs. Wainwright
wouldn't hear of anything except a loan, and so Grace had been lent, in
all, eight years; seven she had spent at school, and one in Paris,
Berlin, Florence, Venice, Rome, the Alps. Think of it, how splendid and
charming!
Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hattie did not like to give her up now, but Grace,
we heard, would come. She wanted to see her mother and her own kin;
maybe she felt she ought.
At the Manse we had just finished prayers. Papa was going to his study.
He wore his Friday-morning face--a sort of preoccupied pucker between
his eyebrows, and a far-away look in his eyes. Friday is the day he
finishes up his sermons for Sunday, and, as a matter of course, we never
expect him to be delayed or bothered by our little concerns till he has
them off his mind. Sermons in our house have the right of way.
Prayers had been shorter than usual this morning, and we had sung only
two stanzas of the hymn, instead of four or five. Usually if mamma is
anxious about anybody or anything, papa is all sympathy and attention.
But not on a Friday. He paid no heed either to her tone or her words,
but only said, impressively:
"My love, please do not allow me to be disturbed in any way you can
avoid between this and the luncheon hour; and keep the house as quiet as
you can. I dislike being troublesome, but I've had so many interruptions
this week; what with illness in the congregation, and funerals, and
meetings every night, my work for Sunday is not advanced very far.
Children, I rely on you all to help me," and with a patient smile, and a
little wave of the hand quite characteristic, papa withdrew.
We heard him moving about in his study, which was over the sitting-room,
and then there came a scrape of his chair upon the floor, and a creaking
sound as he settled into it by the table. Papa was safely out of the way
for the next four or five hours. I would have to be a watch-dog to keep
knocks from his door.
"I should think," said Amy, pertly, tossing her curls, "that when papa
has so much to do he'd just go and do it, not stand here talking and
wasting time. It's the same thing week after week. Such a martyr."
"Amy," said mamma, severely, "don't speak of your father in that
flippant manner. Why are _you_ lounging here so idly? Gather up the
books, put this room in order, and then, with Laura's assistance, I
would like you this morning to clean the china closet. Every cup and
saucer and plate must be taken down and wiped separately, after being
dipped into hot soap-suds and rinsed in hot water; the shelves all
washed and dried, and the corners carefully gone over. See how thorough
you can be, my dears," said mamma in her sweetest tones. I wondered
whether she had known that Amy had planned to spend the rainy morning
finishing the hand-screen she is painting for grandmother's birthday.
From her looks nothing could be gathered. Mamma's blue eyes can look as
unconscious of intention as a child's when she chooses to reprove, and
yet does not wish to seem censorious. Amy is fifteen, and very
headstrong, as indeed we all are, but even Amy never dreams of hinting
that she would like to do something else than what mamma prefers when
mamma arranges things in her quiet yet masterful fashion. Dear little
mamma. All her daughters except Jessie are taller than herself; but
mother is queen of the Manse, nevertheless.
Amy went off, having with a few deft touches set the library in order,
piling the Bibles and hymn-books on the little stand in the corner, and
giving a pat here and a pull there to the cushions, rugs, and curtains,
went pleasantly to begin her hated task of going over the china closet.
Laura followed her.
Elbert, our seventeen-year-old brother, politely held open the door for
the girls to pass through.
"You see, Amy dear," he said, compassionately, "what comes on reflecting
upon papa. It takes some people a long while to learn wisdom."
Amy made a little _moue_ at him.
"I don't mind particularly," she said. "Come, Lole, when a thing's to be
done, the best way is to do it and not fuss nor fret. I ought not to
have said that; I knew it would vex dear mamma; but papa provokes me so
with his solemn directions, as if the whole house did not always hold
its breath when he is in the study. Come, Lole, let's do this work as
well as we can. Amy's sunshiny disposition matches her quick temper.
She may say a quick word on the impulse of the moment, but she makes up
for it afterward by her loving ways."
"It isn't the week for doing this closet, Amy," said Laura. "Why didn't
you tell mamma so? You wanted to paint in your roses and clematis before
noon, didn't you? I think it mean. Things are so contrary," and Laura
sighed.
"Oh, never mind, dear! this won't be to do next week. I think mamma was
displeased and spoke hastily. Mamma and I are so much alike that we
understand one another. I suppose I am just the kind of girl she used to
be, and I hope I'll be the kind of woman she is when I grow up. I'm
imitating mother all I can."
Laura laughed. "Well, Amy, you'd never be so popular in your husband's
congregation as mamma is--never. You haven't so much tact; I don't
believe you'll ever have it, either."
"I haven't it yet, of course; but I'd have more tact if I were a
grown-up lady and married to a clergyman. I don't think, though, I'll
ever marry a minister," said Amy, with grave determination, handing down
a beautiful salad-bowl, which Laura received in both hands with the
reverence due to a treasured possession. "It's the prettiest thing we
own," said Amy, feeling the smooth satiny surface lovingly, and holding
it up against her pink cheek, "Isn't it scrumptious, Laura?"
"Well," said Laura, "it's nice, but not so pretty as the tea-things
which belonged to Greataunt Judith. They are my pride. This does not
compare."
"Well, perhaps not in one way, for they are family pieces, and prove we
came out of the ark. But the salad-bowl is a beauty. I don't object to
the care of china myself. It is ladies' work. It surprises me that
people ever are willing to trust their delicate china to clumsy maids. I
wouldn't if I had gems and gold like a princess, instead of being only
the daughter of a poor country clergyman. I'd always wash my own nice
dishes with my own fair hands."
"That shows your Southern breeding," said Laura. "Southern women always
look after their china and do a good deal of the dainty part of the
house-keeping. Mamma learned that when she was a little girl living in
Richmond."
"'Tisn't only Southern breeding," said Amy. "Our Holland-Dutch ancestors
had the same elegant ways of taking care of their property. I'm writing
a paper on 'Dutch Housewifery' for the next meeting of the
Granddaughters of the Revolution, and you'll find out a good many
interesting points if you listen to it."
"Amy Raeburn!" exclaimed Laura, admiringly, "I expect you'll write a
book one of these days."
"I certainly intend to," replied Amy, with dignity, handing down a fat
Dutch cream-jug, and at the moment incautiously jarring the step-ladder,
so that, cream-jug and all, she fell to the floor. Fortunately the
precious pitcher escaped injury; but Amy's sleeve caught on a nail, and
as she jerked it away in her fall it loosened a shelf, and down crashed
a whole pile of the second-best dinner-plates, making a terrific noise
which startled the whole house.
Papa, in his study, groaned, and probably tore in two a closely written
sheet of notes. Mamma and the girls came flying in. Amy picked herself
up from the floor; there was a great red bruise and a scratch on her
arm.
[Illustration: "OH, YOU POOR CHILD!" SAID MOTHER, GAUGING THE EXTENT OF
THE ACCIDENT WITH A RAPID GLANCE.]
"Oh, you poor child!" said mother, gauging the extent of the accident
with a rapid glance. "Never mind," she said, relieved; "there isn't much
harm done. Those are the plates the Ladies' Aid Society in Archertown
gave me the year Frances was born. I never admired them. When some
things go they carry a little piece of my heart with them, but I don't
mind losing donation china. Are you hurt, Amy?"
"A bruise and a scratch--nothing to signify. Here comes Lole with the
arnica. I don't care in the least since I haven't wrecked any of our
Colonial heirlooms. Isn't it fortunate, mother, that we haven't broken
or lost anything _this_ congregation has bestowed?"
"Yes indeed," said mamma, gravely. "There, gather up the pieces, and get
them out of the way before we have a caller."
In the Manse, callers may be looked for at every possible time and
season, and some of them have eyes in the backs of their heads. For
instance, Miss Florence Frick or Mrs. Elbridge Geary seems to be able to
see through closed doors. And there is Mrs. Cyril Bannington Barnes, who
thinks us all so extravagant, and does not hesitate to notice how often
we wear our best gowns, and wonders to our faces where mamma's last
winter's new furs came from, and is very much astonished and quite angry
that papa should insist on sending all his boys to college. But, there,
this story isn't going to be a talk about papa's people. Mamma wouldn't
approve of that, I am sure.
Everybody sat down comfortably in the dining-room, while Frances and
Mildred took hold and helped Amy and Laura finish the closet. Everybody
meant mamma, Mildred, Frances, Elbert, Lawrence, Sammy, and Jessie.
Somehow a downright rainy day in autumn, with a bit of a blaze on the
hearth, makes you feel like dropping into talk and staying in one place,
and discussing eventful things, such as Grace Wainwright's return, and
what her effect would be on her family, and what effect they would have
on her.
"I really do not think Grace is in the very least bit prepared for the
life she is coming to," said Frances.
"No," said mamma, "I fear not. But she is coming to her duty, and one
can always do that."
"For my part," said Elbert, "I see nothing so much amiss at the
Wainwrights'. They're a jolly set, and go when you will, you find them
having good times. Of course they are in straitened circumstances."
"And Grace has been accustomed to lavish expenditure," said Mildred.
"If she had remained in Paris with her Uncle Ralph and Aunt Gertrude she
would have escaped a good deal of hardship," said Lawrence.
"Oh," mamma broke in, impatiently, "how short-sighted you young people
are! You look at everything from your own point of view. It is not of
Grace I am thinking so much. I am considering her mother and the girls
and her poor worn-out father. I couldn't sleep last night, thinking of
the Wainwrights. Mildred, you might send over a nut-cake and some soft
custard and a glass of jelly, when it stops raining, and the last number
of HARPER'S MAGAZINE might be slipped into the basket too--that is, if
you have all done with it. Papa and I have finished reading the serial,
and we will not want it again. There's so much to read in this house."
"I'll attend to it, mamma," said Mildred. "Now what can I do to help you
before I go to my French lesson?"
"Nothing, you sweetest of dears," said mother, tenderly. Mildred was her
great favorite, and nobody was jealous, for we all adored our tall, fair
sister.
So we scattered to our different occupations, and did not meet again
till luncheon was announced.
Does somebody ask which of the minister's eight children is telling this
story? If you must know, I am Frances, and what I did not myself see was
all told to me at the time it happened, and put down in my journal.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
FOR KING OR COUNTRY.
A Story of the Revolution.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER XII.
IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
How natural the valley looked as George came down the road that led
across the bridge! He could hear the brook roaring under its icy
covering, and through the leafless trees he could make out the big
manor-house. It was home again. What would they say? How would they
receive him? There were no signs of activity about, no smoke coming from
the foundry chimney. The place looked half deserted.
George watched some crows waddling out in the field. Suddenly they took
flight, and the young Lieutenant saw what had put them up. He reined in
his horse. "Adam Bent Knee," he ejaculated, and placing his fingers to
his lips he gave the well-remembered whistle.
The old Indian stopped, and then striking into a gait, half run, half
lope, he came across the snow.