Under the green sea, in the total darkness of the great depths and the
yellowish-green of the shallows of the oceans, with the seaweeds waving
their fronds about their barnacle-encrusted timbers and the creatures of
the deep playing in and about the decks and rotted rigging, lie hundreds
of wrecks. Many a splendid ship with a valuable cargo has gone down off
a dangerous coast; many a hoard of gold or silver, gathered with
infinite pains from the far corners of the earth, lies intact in
decaying strong boxes on the bottom of the sea.
To recover the treasures of the deep, expeditions have been organised,
ships have sailed, divers have descended, and crews have braved great
dangers. Many great wrecking companies have been formed which accomplish
wonders in the saving of wrecked vessels and cargoes. But in certain
places all the time and at others part of the time, wreckers have had to
leave valuable wrecks a prey to the merciless sea because the ocean is
too angry and the waves too high to permit of the safe handling of the
air-hose and life-line of the divers who are depended upon to do all
the under-water work, rigging of hoisting-tackle, placing of buoys, etc.
Indeed, it is often impossible for a vessel to stay in one place long
enough to accomplish anything, or, in fact, to venture to the spot at
all.
It was an American boy who, after reading Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea," said to himself, "Why not?" and from that time
set out to put into practice what the French writer had imagined.
Simon Lake set to work to invent a way by which a wrecked vessel or a
precious cargo could be got at from below the surface. Though the waves
may be tossing their whitecaps high in air and the strong wind may turn
the watery plain into rolling hills of angry seas, the water twenty or
thirty feet below hardly feels any surface motion. So he set to work to
build a vessel that should be able to sail on the surface or travel on
the bottom, and provide a shelter from which divers could go at will,
undisturbed by the most tempestuous sea. People laughed at his idea, and
so he found great difficulty in getting enough capital to carry out his
plan, and his first boat, built largely with his own hands, had little
in its appearance to inspire confidence in his scheme. Built of wood,
fourteen feet long and five feet deep, fitted with three wheels,
_Argonaut Junior_ looked not unlike a large go-cart such as boys make
out of a soap-box and a set of wooden wheels. The boat, however, made
actual trips, navigated by its inventor, proving that his plan was
feasible. _Argonaut Junior,_ having served its purpose, was abandoned,
and now lies neglected on one of the beaches of New York Bay.
The _Argonaut,_ Mr. Lake's second vessel, had the regular submarine
look, except that she was equipped with two great, rough tread-wheels
forward, and to the underside of her rudder was pivoted another. She was
really an under-water tricycle, a diving-bell, a wrecking-craft, and a
surface gasoline-boat all rolled into one. When floating on the surface
she looked not unlike an ordinary sailing craft; two long spars, each
about thirty feet above the deck, forming the letter A--these were the
pipes that admitted fresh air and discharged the burnt gases of the
gasoline motor and the vitiated air that had been breathed. A low deck
gave a ship-shape appearance when floating, but below she was shaped
like a very fat cigar. Under the deck and outside of the hull proper
were placed her gasoline tanks, safe from any possible danger of
ignition from the interior. From her nose protruded a spar that looked
like a bowsprit but which was in reality a derrick; below the
derrick-boom were several glazed openings that resembled eyes and a
mouth: these were the lookout windows for the under-water observer and
the submarine searchlight.
The _Argonaut_ was built to run on the surface or on the bottom; she was
not designed to navigate half-way between. When in search of a wreck or
made ready for a cruise along the bottom, the trap door or hatch in her
turret-like pilot house was tightly closed; the water was let into her
ballast tanks, and two heavy weights to which were attached strong
cables that could be wound or unwound from the inside were lowered from
their recesses in the fore and after part of the keel of the boat to the
bottom; then the motor was started connected to the winding mechanism,
and, the buoyancy of the boat being greatly reduced, she was drawn to
the bottom by the winding of the anchor cables. As she sank, more and
more water was taken into her tanks until she weighed slightly more than
the water she displaced. When her wheels rested on the bottom her
anchor-weights were pulled completely into their wells, so that they
would not interfere with her movements.
Then the strange submarine vehicle began her voyage on the bottom of
the bay or ocean. Since the pipes projected above the surface plenty of
fresh air was admitted, and it was quite as easy to run the gasoline
engine under water as on the surface. In the turrets, as far removed as
possible from the magnetic influences of the steel hull, the compass was
placed, and an ingeniously arranged mirror reflected its readings down
below where the steersman could see it conveniently. Aft of the
steering-wheel was the gasoline motor, connected with the
propeller-shaft and also with the driving-wheels; it was so arranged
that either could be thrown out of gear or both operated at once. She
was equipped with depth-gauges showing the distance below the surface,
and another device showing the trim of the vessel; compressed-air tanks,
propelling and pumping machinery, an air-compressor and dynamo which
supplied the current to light the ship and also for the searchlight
which illuminated the under-water pathway--all this apparatus left but
little room in the hold, but it was all so carefully planned that not an
inch was wasted, and space was still left for her crew of three or four
to work, eat, and even sleep, below the waves.
Forward of the main space of the boat were the diving and lookout
compartments, which really were the most important parts of the boat, as
far as her wrecking ability was concerned. By means of a trap door in
the diving compartment through the bottom of the boat a man fitted with
a diving-suit could go out and explore a wreck or examine the bottom
almost as easily as a man goes out of his front door to call for an
"extra." It will be thought at once, "But the water will rush in when
the trap door is opened." This is prevented by filling the diving
compartment, which is separated from the main part of the ship by steel
walls, with compressed air of sufficient pressure to keep the water from
coming in--that is, the pressure of water from without equals the
pressure of air from within and neither element can pass into the
other's domain.
An air-lock separates the diver's section from the main hold so that it
is possible to pass from one to the other while the entrance to the sea
is still open. A person entering the lock from the large room first
closes the door between and then gradually admits the compressed air
until the pressure is the same as in the diving compartment, when the
door into it may be safely opened. When returning, this operation is
simply reversed. The lookout stands forward of the diver's space. When
the _Argonaut_ rolls along the bottom, round openings protected with
heavy glass permit the lookout to follow the beam of light thrown by the
searchlight and see dimly any sizable obstruction. When the diving
compartment is in use the man on lookout duty uses a portable telephone
to tell his shipmates in the main room what is happening out in the wet,
and by the same means the reports of the diver can be communicated
without opening the air-lock.
This little ship (thirty-six feet long) has done wonderful things. She
has cruised over the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, New York Bay, Hampton
Roads, and the Atlantic Ocean, her driving-wheels propelling her when
the bottom was hard, and her screw when the oozy condition of the
submarine road made her spiked wheels useless except to steer with. Her
passengers have been able to examine the bottom under twenty feet of
water (without wetting their feet), through the trap door, with the aid
of an electric light let down into the clear depths. Telephone messages
have been sent from the bottom of Baltimore Harbour to the top of the
New York _World_ building, telling of the conditions there in contrast
to the New York editor's aerial perch. Cables have been picked up and
examined without dredging--a hook lowered through the trap door being
all that was necessary. Wrecks have been examined and valuables
recovered.
[Illustration: SINGING INTO THE TELEPHONE
Part of the entertainment furnished by the telephone newspaper at
Buda-Pest.]
Although the _Argonaut_ travelled over 2,000 miles under water and on
the surface, propelled by her own power, her inventor was not satisfied
with her. He cut her in two, therefore, and added a section to her,
making her sixty-six feet long; this allowed more comfortable quarters
for her crew, space for larger engines, compressors, etc.
It was off Bridgeport, Connecticut, that the new _Argonaut_ did her
first practical wrecking. A barge loaded with coal had sunk in a gale
and could not be located with the ordinary means. The _Argonaut_,
however, with the aid of a device called the "wreck-detector," also
invented by Mr. Lake, speedily found it, sank near it, and also
submerged a new kind of freight-boat built for the purpose by the
inventor. A diver quickly explored the hulk, opened the hatches of the
freight-boat, which was cigar-shaped like the _Argonaut_ and supplied
with wheels so it could be drawn over the bottom, and placed the
suction-tube in position. Seven minutes later eight tons of coal had
been transferred from the wreck to the submarine freight-boat. The
hatches were then closed and compressed air admitted, forcing out the
water, and five minutes later the freight-boat was floating on the
surface with eight tons of coal from a wreck which could not even be
located by the ordinary means.
It is possible that in the future these modern "argonauts" will be
seeking the golden fleeces of the sea in wrecks, in golden sands like
the beaches of Nome, and that these amphibious boats will be ready along
all the dangerous coasts to rush to the rescue of noble ships and wrest
them from the clutches of the cruel sea.
Mr. Lake has also designed and built a submarine torpedo-boat that will
travel on the surface, under the waves, or on the bottom; provided with
both gasoline and electric power, and, fitted with torpedo discharge
tubes, she will be able to throw a submarine torpedo; her diver could
attach a charge of dynamite to the keel of an anchored warship, or she
could do great damage by hooking up cables through her diver's trap door
and cutting them, and by setting adrift anchored torpedoes and submarine
mines.
Thus have Jules Verne's imaginings come true, and the dream _Nautilus,_
whose adventures so many of us have breathlessly followed, has been
succeeded by actual "Hollands" and practical "Argonauts" designed by
American inventors and manned by American crews.