Herbert C. Fyfe

CHAPTER IX
THE EARLY HISTORY OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

Although no mention of a submarine vessel having been actually constructed can be found earlier than the seventeenth century, and although the torpedo and the mine were not invented till still later, the art of submarine warfare and subaqueous exploration dates back to a very much earlier period.

The earliest form of under-water attack was carried out by divers long before explosive compounds were invented, and the old writers have strange stories to tell of fierce fights beneath the waves.

“The first divers learned their art,” says John Beckmann, in his “History of Inventions and Discoveries,” “by early and adventurous experience, in trying to continue under water as long as possible without breathing, and indeed it must be allowed that some of them carried it to very great perfection. This art, however, excites little surprise, for, like running, throwing, and other bodily dexterities, it requires only practice; but it is certain that those nations called by us uncultivated and savage excel in it the Europeans who through refinement and luxury have become more delicate and less fit for such laborious exercises.”

In early times divers were employed for peaceful as well as for hostile purposes. They were kept in ships to assist in raising anchors and to recover goods thrown overboard in times of danger, and by the laws of the Rhodians they were allowed a share of the wreck, proportional to the depth at which they had gone in search of it. “The pearls of the Greek and Roman ladies,” writes Beckmann, “were fished up by divers at the great hazard of their lives, and by the like means are procured at present those which are purchased as ornaments by our fair.”

In the operations of war divers were used for many purposes. Beckmann tells us that when Alexander was besieging Tyre, divers swam off from the city under water to a great distance and with long hooks tore to pieces the mole with which the besiegers were endeavouring to block up the harbour.

We learn from Herodotus (viii. 8) that when the fleet of Xerxes was advancing to the invasion of Greece, “there was in the force one Skyllias, a Skionaian, the best diver of his time, who in the shipwreck off PilÎon had saved many things for the Persians and had also obtained many things himself.” This diver deserted to the Greeks and gave them the benefit of his skill as well as of recent intelligence concerning their enemy. He was the means of destroying a number of the Persian ships by a curious kind of submarine attack. Accompanied by his daughter Kyane, whom he had instructed in his art, he dived during a storm and “cast off” the cables from the anchors which held the vessels, the result being that they were driven on shore and wrecked.

Thucydides (iv. 26) gives an instance of a case of divers being employed as subaqueous auxiliaries during the siege of Syracuse.

“The besieged had driven piles into the water before their old docks, that their vessels might be in safety behind them and the Athenians be unable to stand in amongst them and do any damage to the shipping.” The latter endeavoured to remove this species of nautical entrenchment, and for this purpose they constructed a raft on which were turrets and parapets to cover the men who embarked on it. It was towed up to a line of piles and used as a kind of covering battery for the crews of boats who removed the piles which had been “sawed off close to the bottom by divers.” A serious obstruction was offered by some piles driven in till their heads were below the surface of the water in the hope that the besieging ships might run upon it. But the divers, by persevering efforts, succeeded in sawing them through, thus enabling the besiegers to remove them.

The Chronicles of the early Middle Ages supply instances of the employment of divers in naval warfare. The Baltic, we read, was so infested with pirates that a Swedish force was sent against them. The Swedish admiral, observing that the pirate vessels lay at anchor in a certain bay, sent in at night men from his own fleet to dive beneath them and make holes in their bottoms. The following day he engaged them. In the action the leaks made by the subaqueous assailants during the night proved so serious that the piratical crews had to turn their attention chiefly to stopping them and to baling out their vessels. The number available to fight their enemy was in consequence so reduced that the Swedes gained a complete victory and the power of the pirates was annihilated.

Again at the siege of Malta by the Turks in the sixteenth century some furious under-water fighting occurred. The Maltese were excellent divers and the Knights took advantage of their skill to assist in the erection of a barricade across the mouth of one of the creeks which indent the shores of the Grand Harbour. This obstruction the Turkish besiegers endeavoured to remove, and accordingly they made upon it a series of determined attacks. The divers left their work to drive them off and a terrible and weird struggle ensued, frequently below the surface of the water, which finally ended in the repulse of the infidel assailants.

One must accept cum grano salis the stories told by writers regarding the time that divers were able to continue under water. Beckmann said that the divers of Astrakhan employed in the fishery there could remain for seven minutes under water. The divers in Holland seem to have been very expert, for an observer, during the time they were under water, was obliged to breathe at least ten times. “Those who collect pearl-shells in the East Indies can remain under water a quarter of an hour, though some are of opinion that it is possible to continue longer; and Mersenne mentions a diver, named John Barrinus, who could dive under water for six hours.” Beckmann evidently found it a little difficult to swallow this, so he adds, “How far this may be true I shall leave others to judge.”

An account of a Sicilian diver, Nicolo Pesce, given by Kircher, is yet more marvellous than any of those just cited. So great was his skill that he carried letters for the king from Sicily to Calabria. The story goes that the king offered him a gold cup if he would explore the terrible Gulf of Charybdis. He remained for three-quarters of an hour amidst the foaming abyss and on his return described all the horrors of the place to the astonished monarch, who requested him to dive once more to further examine the gulf. For some time he hesitated, but upon the promise of a still larger cup and a purse of gold he was tempted to plunge again, with the melancholy result that he never came to the surface again.

A history of the art and practice of diving, although it would present many points of interest, is foreign to our subject, and attention must be confined to the question of submarine warfare.

Some writers on this subject, whilst making such statements as “The confinement of gunpowder in watertight cases and its submarine explosion for the destruction of floating and other bodies is almost as old as villainous saltpetre itself,” or “The ancients understood the manufacture of subaqueous explosives or at least combustibles,” do not trouble to give any particular instances. A French writer is reported to have collected accounts of the use of such devices against ships below the water-line, but a diligent search has failed to reveal the name of the author.

“The fact that some under-water explosive compound,” said Admiral Cyprian Bridge, in an article he contributed to Fraser’s Magazine many years ago, “had been known in ancient times was not lost sight of in the stirring intellectual revolution of the Renaissance, which, amongst other legacies, bequeathed to mankind the outlines of the modern art of war. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should meet with the use of such an agent in the wars of the sixteenth century. The most celebrated instance of its employment was by the Italian Giannibelli (sic) at Antioch during the siege of the city by the Prince of Parma.”

Perhaps the Admiral is referring to what Lieutenant Sleeman says is the earliest record of the employment of a torpedo (i.e., a case of explosion possessing the power of aggression). In 1585 an Italian engineer named Zambelli invented a floating mine and succeeded in destroying a bridge built over the Scheldt by the Prince of Parma. Zambelli’s mine consisted of a flat boat filled with gunpowder arranged in it so as to secure the maximum effectiveness, and provided with a long sulphur metal rope and clockwork for its ignition.

A few years before this feat (in 1578) an Englishman, by name William Bourne, published a book entitled, “Inventions or Devices.” He suggested in his seventeenth article, “How for to sink a ship that hath laid you aboard without shooting of ordnance.” William Bourne is in some books said to have actually invented a plunging apparatus for use in warfare, but no circumstantial account of such a vessel is extant.

The Marquis of Worcester, in his “Century of Inventions” (1663), describes in section 9 “An engine, portable in one’s pocket, which may be carried and fastened on the inside of the greatest ship, Tanquam aliud agens, and at any appointed minute, though a week after, either by day or night it shall irrecoverably sink that ship.” The smallness of the engine suggests some explosive missile connected with clockwork as the only means to insure its being compact and operating on a precise day at a stated point of time. Section 10 is as follows: “A way from a mile off to dive and fasten a like engine to any ship so as it may punctually work the same effect either for time or execution.”

In 1596 John Napier of Merchiston wrote a statement of four “Secret Inventions,” concluding with the remark—“These inventions, besides devices of sailing under the water with divers other devices and stratagems for burning of the enemies, by the grace of God, and work of expert craftsmen, I hope to perform.”

Pepys in his “Diary,” under date March 14, 1662, says: “This afternoon came the German Doctor Knuffler to discourse with us about his engine to blow up ships. We doubted not the matter of fact it being tried in Cromwell’s time, but the safety of carrying them in ships, but he do tell us that when he comes to tell the King his secret, for none but the Kings successively and their heirs must know it, it will appear to be of no danger at all.”

The foregoing extracts show that the possibility of a practical method of submarine attack was beginning to take shape in the minds of philosophers and inventive geniuses. “Fire and Powder Ships,” “Machines,” “Internals,” “Catamarans,” and similar devices for accomplishing the destruction of an enemy were known at this time, and it is not strange that the idea of making the explosion take place beneath the water should have suggested itself.

CHAPTER X
EARLY EFFORTS IN SUBMARINE NAVIGATION

Who invented the first boat which was capable of being propelled beneath the water? Opinions differ as to the correct answer to this question. David Bushnell’s boat (circa 1773) is the first of which we have any definite record, but William Bourne (1580), Magnus Pegelius (1605), and Cornelius Van Drebbel (1620) have all been credited with having constructed under-water vessels. In the previous chapter it has been shown that the earliest form of submarine attack was carried out by divers. The prototype of the submarine boat was undoubtedly the diving bell, the history of which contrivance, although presenting many points of interest, it will be impossible to relate here.

According to some writers to William Bourne, the English mathematician, belongs the credit (in 1580), of operating the first submarine boat as such, in contradistinction to a diving-bell, but there is nothing to show that Bourne did more than discuss the question, as did also Magnus Pegelius, although the latter is reported to have built a small submarine vessel in the year 1605.

Drebbel’s Reputed Submarine.

The Dictionary of National Biography credits Cornelius Drebbel, who was born in 1572, in the town of Alkmaar, in Holland, and who died in London in 1634, with the invention of a submarine boat “which was navigable without the use of artificial light, from Westminster to Greenwich.” We have spent some time in endeavouring to verify this assertion, but the references to the boat are vague and unsatisfactory. However, as Drebbel is by some accounted the “Father of Submarine Navigation,” it seems scarcely fitting to dismiss him without further thought.

In that curious old volume entitled “New Experiments Physico-mechanical touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects,” by the “Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq.,” mention is made of Drebbel’s boat, and it may be interesting to transcribe the passage. It occurs, on p. 188 of the second edition, published at Oxford in 1662.

THE EARLIEST KNOWN PICTURE OF AN UNDER-WATER VESSEL.

“But yet on occasion of this opinion of Paracelsus, perhaps it will not be impertinent if before I proceed, I acquaint your lordship with a Conceit of that deservedly Famous Mechanician and Chymist, Cornelius Drebell, who among other strange things that he performed, is affirmed (by more than a few credible Persons) to have contrived for the late learned King James, a vessel to go under Water; of which tryal was made in the Thames with admirable success, the vessel carrying twelve Rowers besides Passengers; one of which is yet alive, and related to an excellent Mathematician that informed me of it. Now that for which I mention this story is, That having had the curiosity and opportunity to make particular Enquiries among the Relations of Drebell, and especially of an ingenious Physitian that marryed his daughter, concerning the grounds upon which he conceived it feasible to make men unaccustomed to continue so long under Water without suffocation, or (as the lately mention’d Person that went in the Vessel affirms) without inconvenience, I was answered that Drebell conceived, that ’tis not the whole body of the air but a certain Quintessence (as Chymists speake) or spirituous part of it that makes it fit for respiration, which being spent the remaining grosser body, or carcase (if I may so call it) of the Air, is unable to cherish the vital flame residing in the heart: so that (for ought I could gather) besides the Mechanicall contrivance of his vessel he had a Chymicall liquor, which he accounted the chief secret of his Submarine Navigation. For when from time to time he perceived that the finer and purer part of the Air was consumed or over-clogged by the respiration, and steams of those that went in his ship, he would, by unstopping a vessel full of the liquor speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts as would make it again for a good while fit for Respiration. Whether by dissipating or precipitating the grosser exhalations, or by some other intelligible way, I must not now stay to examine, contenting myself to add, that having had the opportunity to do some service to those of his Relations, that were most intimate with him, and having made it my business to learn what the strange liquor might be, they constantly affirmed that Drebell would never disclose the Liquor unto any, nor so much as tell the matter whereof he made it, to above one Person, who himself assured me what it was.”

It is much to be wished that fuller accounts were extant respecting Drebbel’s boat, and the methods he employed to enable his passengers to breathe under water. W. B. Rye in one of the notes to his work “England as seen by Foreigners” (1865, p. 232), gives a carefully compiled account of Drebbel’s inventions and quotes from a Dutch Chronicle of Alkmaar, by C. van der Wonde (1645), a passage relating to his submarine boat.

“He built a ship in which one could row and navigate under water from Westminster to Greenwich, the distance of two Dutch miles; even five or six miles, or as far as one pleased. In this boat a person could see under the surface of the water and without candle-light, as much as he needed to read in the Bible or any other book. Not long ago this remarkable ship was yet to be seen lying in the Thames or London river.”

As to what Drebbel’s “Chymicall Liquor” really was there is no chance of discovering. Professor W. P. Bradley has pointed out that the name “Quintessence of Air” is very suggestive of oxygen. The life-giving component of air (not discovered until a century and a half after Drebbel’s time) is volumetrically the “quintessence,” the fifth part of air. “Is it possible,” he asks, “that Drebbel had discovered some liquid which easily disengaged the then unknown oxygen gas and thus was able to restore to vitiated air that principle of which respiration deprives it? Undoubtedly not. It is much more likely that he possessed a solution capable of absorbing the carbonic acid gas which is produced by respiration, and that the name given it was entirely fanciful and without special significance. But even if Drebbel’s claim was a piece of pure quackery with no substantial basis at all, it is nevertheless not without interest, for it shows, as we might have anticipated, that the problem of ventilation, one of the most important with which the inventors of submarines have to deal, was at least appreciated by Drebbel the pioneer.”

A writer of the period, one Harsdoffer, tells how Drebbel was led to the construction of his boat:—

“One day when walking along the banks of the Thames Drebbel noticed some sailors dragging behind their barques baskets full of fish; he saw that the barques were weighed down in the water, but that they rose a little when the baskets allowed the ropes which held them to slacken a little. The idea occurred to him that a ship could be held under the water by a somewhat similar method and could be propelled by oars and poles. Some time afterwards he constructed two little boats of this nature, but of different sizes, which were tightly closed with thick skin, and King James himself journeyed in one of them on the Thames. There were on this occasion twelve rowers besides the passengers, and the vessel during several hours was kept at a depth of twelve to fifteen feet below the surface.” This royal excursion under water terminated, we read, “fort hereusement.”

The AbbÉ de Hautefeuille, in a brochure which appeared in 1680 entitled “ManiÈre de respirer sous l’Eau,” writes thus:—

“Drebbel’s secret was probably the machine which I had imagined consisting of a bellows with two valves and two tubes resting on the surface of the water, the one bringing down air and the other sending it back. By speaking of a volatile essence which restored the nitrous parts consumed by respiration Drebbel evidently wished to disguise his invention and prevent others from finding out its real nature.”

Ben Jonson, in his comedy, “The Staple of News,” first acted by His Majesty’s servants in 1625, has a hit at certain inventions of the time, and amongst these is the boat of Master Drebbel. Thomas, Act III., Scene I., says:—

“They write here one Cornelius’ son

Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel

To swim the tavel at Dunkirk and sink all

The shipping there.

Pennyboy, junior. But how is’t done?

Grabal. I’ll shew you, sir,

It is an automa, runs under water

With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail

Made like an auger with which tail she wriggles

Betwixt the costs of a ship and sinks it straight.

P., jun. Whence have you this news?

Fitton. From a right hand I assure you.

The eel-boats here, that lie before Queen-hythe

Came out of Holland.

P., jun. A most brave device

To murder their flat bottoms.”

That Ben Jonson should class the submarine boat of Drebbel with such a proposal as that of bringing an army over seas in corkshoes—

“All his horse

Are shod with cork, all fourscore pieces of ordnance

Mounted upon cork carriages, with bladders

Instead of wheels, to run the passage over

At a spring tide.”

and with the discovery of perpetual motion—

“By an ale-wife in St. Katherine’s

At the sign of the Dancing Bear,”

gives one an idea of how the world in general viewed Drebbel’s invention, and yet the inventor found favour in the eyes of James I., who bestowed money upon him, gave him a lodging in Eltham Palace, took a great interest in his experiments, and when his life was in danger at Prague, owing to a revolution, succeeded in obtaining his release by personal intercession.

In return for his Majesty’s favour Cornelius invented an “ingenious machine” for producing perpetual motion, which became one of the wonderful sights of the day. According to a description in the Biographie Universelle it consisted of a globe of glass in which by means of the four elements Drebbel imitated perpetual motion. In the space of twenty-four hours one could behold the course of the sun, the planets, and the stars. By means of this marvellous globe he showed “the cause of cold, of the ebb and flow of the sea, of storms, of thunder, of rain, of the wind, enfin tout le mecanisme de la nature.”

In the diary of Lewis Frederick, Prince of Wurtemberg, under date Tuesday, May 1, 1610, occurs the passage, “His Excellency went to Elham Park to see the perpetual motion; the inventor’s name was Cornelius Trebel, a native of Alkmaar, a very fair and handsome man, and of very gentle manners, altogether different from such-like characters; we also saw there Virginals, which played of themselves.”

Undoubtedly Drebbel was ahead of his time, but one cannot credit him with all the wonders he is reported to have achieved. Some of his biographers state that he invented a telescope, a microscope, and a thermometer; an incubator for hatching fowls; an instrument for showing pictures of portraits of people not present at the time, and a method of producing at will the most extreme cold. Drebbel was evidently highly thought of at the Courts of James I., Rudolph II., and Ferdinand II., but this was perhaps due more to his being “a very fair and handsome man of very gentle manners,” than to his scientific attainments.

One of his biographers refers to him thus: “Cornelius van Drebbel, ein Charlatan,” and others have dubbed him alchemist, empiric, magician, and professor of the Black Art.

Mr. Rye’s estimate is perhaps the truer:—

“But however extravagant and improbable some of the following descriptions may appear, yet, allowing as we ought to do for the crude state of physical science and the credulity of the times in which he lived, as well as the then prevailing tendency to clothe scientific investigation and experiment with an air of mystery, Cornelius Drebbel is entitled, we think, to hold a respectable position among the ingenious inventors and mechanicians of the early part of the seventeenth century.”

Bishop Wilkins on Submarine Navigation.

Drebbel’s boat attracted the attention of the Right Reverend John Wilkins, whose mathematical and philosophical works were published in London in the year 1708.

John Wilkins was a remarkable man, considerably in advance of his day in scientific speculation. As few people nowadays read his books a brief extract from his “Mathematical Magick: or the Wonders that may be perform’d by Mechanical Geometry” may be read with interest and amusement.

The book is divided into two parts, the first entitled “Archimedes, or Mechanical Powers,” the second, “Doedalus, or Mechanical Motions.”

Chapter V. of Part 2 deals with “the possibility of framing an Ark for Submarine Navigation: the Difficulties and Consequences of such a Contrivance.”

“It will not be altogether impertinent,” says the author, “with the Discourse of these gradient Automata to mention what Mersennus doth so pleasantly and largely descant upon concerning the making of a ship wherein men may safely swim under the water. That such a Contrivance is feasible, and may be effected, is beyond all question, because it hath been already experimented here in England by Cornelius Dreble; but how to improve it unto Publick Use and Advantage, so as to be serviceable for remote Voyages, the carrying of any considerable Number of Men, with Provisions and Commodities, would be of such excellent Use, as may deserve some further enquiry.”

The difficulties are divided into three heads:—

1. “The letting-out or receiving in anything as there shall be occasion without the admission of Water. If it hath not such a convenience these kind of Voyages must needs be very dangerous and uncomfortable both by Reason of many noisome and offensive Things which should be thrust out, and many other needful Things which should be received in. Now herein will consist the Difficulty, for to contrive the opening of the Vessel so that anything may be put in or out, and yet the Water not rush into it with much Violence as it doth usually in the leak of a Ship.”

The learned Doctor’s remedy is as follows: “Let there,” he says, “be certain leather bags made of several bignesses, long and open at both ends, and answerable to these let there be divers windows made in open places in the frame of the ship round the sides, to which one end of these bags might be fixed, the other end coming within the ship. The bag being thus fastened and tied close about towards the window, then any thing that is to be sent out might be safely put into that end within the ship: this being again close shut, and the other end loosened, the thing may be safely sent out without the admission of any water.”

In taking anything in, it was to be first received into that part of the bag towards the window, which being close tied down at the other end may then be safely opened.

A CONCERT IN A SUBMARINE.
The Diable Marin of W. Bauer.
(1855.)

“It is easy to conceive, how by such means as these a Person may be sent out or received in, as there shall be occasion; how the water which will perhaps by Degrees leak into several parts may be emptied out again, with divers other like advantages. Tho’ if there should be a leak at the bottom of the vessel, yet very little Water would get in, because the Air would get out.”

The fate of the unhappy Person thrust out of the Vessel by means of the leather bags is too dreadful to contemplate, and the sailors called upon to man a modern war submarine may congratulate themselves that this convenient contrivance imagined by the ingenious prelate has not come into use. As to the taking in of things into the boat one does not quite gather how they would get into the bag, or how the bag would be first untied and then tied again by those inside the vessel.

The second difficulty in such an Ark is “the Motion or fixing of it according to occasion: the directing of it to several places as the Voyage shall be designed, without which it would be very useless, if it were to remain only in one Place, and were to remove only blindfold, without any certain Direction: And the Contrivance of this may seem very difficult because these submarine Navigators will want the usual advantages of Wind and Tide for Motion, and the sight of the Heavens for direction.”

The progressive motion of the boat would be effected by the help of several oars made to contract and dilate like the fins of a fish, the holes through which they pass into the ship being tied about with the afore-mentioned Leather Bags.

“It will not be convenient, perhaps, that the motion in these Voyages should be very swift because of those Observations and Discoveries to be made at the Bottom of the Sea, which in a little space may abundantly recompense the slowness of the Progress.”

Dr. Wilkins had grasped the fact that if the Ark were so ballasted as to be equal weight with the like magnitude of Water, it would then be easily movable in any Part of it.

As for the ascent and descent of the craft this was to be accomplished by “some great Weight at the Bottom of the Ship (being Part of its Ballast), which by some Cord within may be loosened from it. If this Weight is let loose so will the Ship ascend from it (if need be) to the very Surface of the Water; and again as it is pulled close to the Ship, so will it descend.”

The idea of taking in Water-ballast for sinking the Ark does not seem to have occurred to the Author.

For directing the course of the Vessel the Mariner’s Needle would be employed, but the patent difficulty of all is this, “How the Air may be supplied for Respiration, How constant Fires may be kept in for light and the Dressing of Food, how those Vicissitudes of Rarefaction and Condensation may be maintained.”

While our author will not go so far as to say that a man may by custom, “which in other things doth produce such strange incredible effects,” be enabled to live in the open Water as do the fishes, yet he thinks that long use and custom may strengthen men against many such inconveniences of this kind which to inexperienced persons may prove very hazardous: thus it will not perhaps be so necessary to have the air for breathing so “pure and desecated” as is required for others.

The difficulty of respiration under water may be met in several ways. “The submarine ark should be of such a large capacity that as the air is corrupted in one part so it may be purified and renewed in the other: if the mere refrigeration of the air would fit it for breathing, this might be somewhat helped with bellows, which would cool it by motion: it is not altogether improbable,” says the doctor, “that the lamps and fires in the middle of it like the reflected beams in the first region rarefy the air and the circumambient coldness towards the sides of the vessel like the second region, cooling and condensing of it would work such a Vicissitude and change of air as might fit it for all its proper uses.”

Finally, if none of these conjectures will help, the author mentions that there is in France one BarriÈres, a diver, who hath found out the art whereby a man might easily continue under water for six hours together, “whereas Ten Cubical Feet of Air will not serve another Diver to breathe in for Half an Hour, he by the help of a Cavity not above one or two Foot at most will have Breath enough for six hours and a Lanthorne scarce above the usual size to keep a candle burning as long as a Man please. Which (if it be true and were commonly known) might be sufficient help against the greatest difficulty.”

Dr. Wilkins makes no mention of the “Chymicall Liquor” which Drebbel is reported to have discovered for the purifying of the air inside the boat when under water, and it is probable that he attached little value to the accounts of this remarkable substance.

Having so far dealt with the difficulties of submarine navigation and their remedies, the author proceeds to discuss the many advantages and conveniences of such a contrivance.

First of all, says he—“’Tis private; a Man may thus go to any Coast of the World invisibly without being discovered or prevented in his journey.”

Certainly this would be a convenience to the criminal fleeing from justice, to a deposed ruler wishing to escape from his conquerors, and to others desirous of effacing themselves for a time.

Secondly—“’Tis safe from the Uncertainty of Tides and the Violence of Tempests, which do never move the Sea above Five or Six paces deep, from Pirates and Robbers which do so infest other Voyages. From Ice and great Frosts, which do so much endanger the Passages towards the Poles.” Could Bishop Wilkins but have perused Mr. John Holland’s article in the North American Review for December, 1900, in which proposals for a submarine passenger service across the Channel are put forward, he would have been gratified to find the inventor of a practical under-water vessel of the same opinion as himself regarding the “advantages and conveniences” of travelling beneath rather than on the waves.

M. Goubet also has imagined a submarine cross-Channel service.

Thirdly—“It may be of very great advantage against a Navy of Enemies, who by this means may be undermined in the Water and blown up.”

Sixty-seven years after these words were written David Bushnell launched his submarine boat, which carried a torpedo charged with 130 lbs. of gunpowder to be affixed to the side of the vessel to be blown up. In 1864 the David, owned by the Confederates, blew up the Housatonic, and though this is the only occasion on which a submarine has done any damage to the foe in an actual real encounter, it is more than likely that in the next great naval war under-water vessels may “be of very great advantage against a Navy of Enemies.”

Fourthly—“It may be of special use for the Relief of any Place that is besieged by Water to convey unto them Invisible Supplies; and so likewise for the Surprizal of any Place that is accessible by Water.”

Fifthly—“It may be of unspeakable Benefit for Submarine Experiments and Discoveries, as—The several Proportions of Swiftness betwixt the ascent of a Bladder, Cork, or any other light Substance, in comparison to the descent of Stones or Lead. The deep Caverns and Subterranean Passages where the Sea Water in the course of its circulation, doth vest itself into other Places and the like. The Nature and Kinds of Fishes, the several Arts of Catching them, by alluring them with Lights, by placing divers nets about the sides of this Vessel, shooting the greater sort of them with Guns, which might be put out of the ship by the help of such Bags as were mentioned before, with divers the like Artifices and Treacheries, which may be more successfully practised by such who live so familiarly together. These fish may serve not only for food but for Fewel likewise, in respect of that oil which may be extracted from them; the Way of Dressing Meat by Lamps being in many Respects the most convenient for such a Voyage. The many fresh springs that may probably be met with at the Bottom of the Sea, will serve for the Supply of Drink and other Occasions.”

Dr. Wilkins is, however, convinced that, above all, his Ark will be most valuable in the discovery of submarine treasures, “not only in regard of what hath been drowned by Wrecks, but the several precious Things that grow there; as Pearl, Coral Mines; with innumerable other Things of great Value which may be much more easily found out and fetch’d up by the help of this than by any of the usual ways of the Urinators.” For the better fulfilment of this purpose, the author suggests that there should be some lesser cabins tied about the Great Ark at various distances, where several persons as Scouts might be lodged for the taking of observations according as the Admiral should direct them. Dr. Wilkins’ prediction has been realised, and in Mr. Simon Lake’s Argonaut there exists a machine which is bound to play an important part in “the discovery of Submarine Treasure.”

In the penultimate paragraph of the chapter on the Submarine Ark Dr. Wilkins waxes enthusiastic over the immense possibilities latent in such a contrivance. “All kinds of Arts and Manufactures may be exercised in this Vessel. The Observations made by it might be written and (if need be) Printed here likewise. Several Colonies may there inhabit, having their Children born, and bred up, without the knowledge of land, who could not chuse but be amazed with Strange Conceits upon the Discovery of this Upper World.”

In conclusion the author writes:—

“I am not able to judge what other Advantages there may be suggested, or whether Experiment would fully answer these Notional Conjectures. But, however, because the Invention did unto me seem ingenious and new, being not impertinent to the present Enquiry therefore I thought it might be worth the mentioning.”

Mersenne.

“Mersennus,” to whom the learned Bishop refers, was a monk of the order of the “Minims,” who lived from 1588–1648, and was the chief friend and literary agent of Des Cartes. He gave in his writings some attention to submarine navigation. He proposed that the shell of a boat which he projected, but never built, should be of copper or some other metal, and that in shape it should resemble a fish, and in order to avoid its turning round both ends should be pointed.

In time of war the boat would destroy the keels of the enemy’s ships. At the port-holes were placed big cannon. An arrangement of packing with a plug valve prevented the introduction of water. At the moment of firing the guns were brought close to the openings and the plug-valve was raised; after the shot had been discharged the plug fell automatically back to its place. In order to replenish the air pneumatic machines and ventilators would be used; for steering, the compass would act as well beneath the waves as on the surface; for lighting, phosphorescent bodies would be used. The boat was to have wheels and was to be moved by means of oars. Mersenne was the first to affirm that even the most violent tempests could not be a source of danger to the submarine vessel as the disturbance was felt but a little distance below the surface.

RACING THE “CAMPANIA.”
Apostoloff’s Proposed Submarine.

Another monk of the same order, Father Fournier, about the year 1640 gave to the world his ideas on the problem of navigating beneath the water.

In the year 1653 a Frenchman, whose name we have been unable to discover, is said to have built and operated a submarine boat at Rotterdam. It was 72 feet long, 12 feet high, and 8 feet broad. It was traversed down its entire length by a system of very solid girders whose extremities projecting beneath the bottom were covered with iron. Ordinarily the boat was not meant to be submerged lower than the “awash” condition, but the part above the water was made to slope with the idea of turning aside the projectiles aimed at it. In the centre of the boat was a kind of paddle wheel, but the inventor was careful to keep many details secret regarding its propulsion and its method of attack. For some little time he showed his invention for a small pecuniary remuneration, but it failed to attract the notice of those in authority.

In the Annual Register of the year, 1774, at page 245, there appears an authentic account of a late unfortunate transaction with respect to a diving machine at Plymouth. This relates to the death of a Mr. Day who lost his life in a boat of his own construction in Plymouth Sound.

Day.

It appears that Mr. Day, “the sole projector of the scheme, and as matters have turned out, the unhappy sacrifice to his own ingenuity,” planned a method of sinking a vessel under water with a man in it, who should live there for a certain time, and then by his own means only bring himself up to the surface. He tried his project in the Broads near Yarmouth, fitting a Norfolk market-boat for his purpose, and succeeded in sinking himself thirty feet under water, where he continued during the space of twenty-four hours. Elated with this success, he then wanted to avail himself of his invention. He conversed with his friends, perfectly convinced that he had brought his undertaking to a certainty; but how to reap the advantage of it was the difficulty that remained.

THE “INTELLIGENT WHALE” OF HALSTEAD.
(1892.)

That this vessel might serve some useful purpose, whether peaceful or warlike, does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Day, who was content seemingly to construct a diving boat capable of sinking and rising again to the surface, without furnishing it with any method of propulsion. A friend of the inventor suggested that if he acquainted the sporting gentlemen with the discovery and the certainty of the performance considerable “betts” would take place as soon as the project should be mentioned in Company. Struck by this happy idea, Mr. Day looked into the “Sporting Kalendar” and finding therein the name of Blake decided that it was to this gentleman that he ought to address himself. Accordingly, in November, 1773, Mr. Blake received the following letter:—

“Sir,—I have found out an affair by which many thousands may be won. It is of a paradoxical nature, but can be performed with ease; therefore, sir, if you chuse to be informed of it, and give me £100 for every £1,000 you shall win by it, I will very readily wait upon you, and inform you of it. I am, myself, but a poor mechanic and not able to make anything of it without your assistance.

“Yours, &c.,

“J. Day.”

Mr. Blake naturally had no conception of Mr. Day’s design, nor was he sure that the letter was serious. He wrote, however, to the inventor, and appointed an interview, when the latter announced his project. He declared “that he could sink a ship one hundred yards deep in the sea with himself in it, and remain therein for the space of twenty-four hours, without communication with anything above; and at the expiration of the time rise up again in the vessel.”

Mr. Blake was not a little staggered at this dare-devil proposal, but agreed to advance money for the construction of a model. This having proved satisfactory Mr. Blake advanced a further sum for the building of a practicable vessel. This, it would appear, had a false bottom, “standing on feet like a butcher’s block, which contained the ballast; and by the person in the vessel unscrewing some pins, he was to rise to the surface leaving the false bottom behind.”

The boat was at length built and in the presence of Mr. Blake a trial descent was made. The day fixed for the test which was to decide the bet arrived, but Mr. Blake reduced the depth of water from one hundred yards to one hundred feet, and the time from twenty-four to twelve hours.

“The vessel was towed to the place agreed upon; Mr. Day provided himself with whatever he thought necessary, went into the vessel, let the water into her, and with great composure retired to the room constructed for him and shut up the valve. The ship went gradually down to twenty-two fathom water at 2 o’clock on Tuesday, June 28 (1774), in the afternoon, being to return at 2 o’clock the next morning. He had three buoys as messengers which he could send to the surface at option to announce his situation below; but none appearing Mr. Blake, who was near at hand in a barge, began to entertain some suspicions. He kept a strict look-out, and at the time appointed, neither the buoys nor the vessel coming up, he applied to the Orpheus frigate, which lay just off the barge, for assistance. The captain with the most ready benevolence supplied them with everything in his power to seek for the ship. Mr. Blake in this alarming situation was not content with the help of the Orpheus only; he made immediate application to Lord Sandwich (who happened to be at Plymouth) for further relief. His Lordship with great humanity ordered a number of hands from the dock-yard, who went with the utmost alacrity and tried every effort to regain the ship, but unhappily without effect.”

According to Admiral Hichborn (U.S.N.) J. Day has the unique distinction of being the only known victim of the dangers of submarine navigation. This distinction, says the Admiral, depends upon the supposition that reports of submarine accidents were much more reliable two hundred and forty years ago than they have been for the last forty years, during which period there have been authentic newspaper reports of the loss of eighty-two lives in attempting submarine navigation in the United States. “Fifty of these lives were not lost at all, and the other thirty-two, though lost in a boat designed to operate as a submarine, were all lost when, and apparently because, she was not so operating.” This refers to the David, which in the American Civil War destroyed four crews of eight men each.

Mr. Charles Babbage in his article on the Diving Bell in the “EncyclopÆdia Metropolitana,” describes Day’s under-water boat. He writes:—

“Having purchased a sloop of 50 tons it was prepared by building an air-tight chamber in the middle 12 feet long, 9 feet broad, and 8 feet deep, and capable of containing 75 hogsheads of air. Considerable pains were taken to make this as strong and as secure as possible. In the middle of the top of this chamber was a square hole, a scuttle just sufficiently large to admit a man; it was bevelled outwards, in order that the valve which was to close the chamber might be driven in more tightly. Screws were applied to this valve, in order to screw it home, and it, as well as the scuttle, was lined with flannel. On the decks of the vessel three buoys of different colours, white, red and black, were fixed by plugs in such a manner that they were to be disengaged by driving another plug from the inside of the chamber. These were designed as signals to indicate the state of health of the adventurer during his stay under water. The white was to denote his being very well, the red indifferent, and the black his being very ill. The ballast of 20 tons, by which the vessel was to be sunk and by disengaging of which it was to be raised again, was fixed to four iron rods passing through tubes into the chamber. The vessel was ballasted internally with 10 tons, which with the twenty suspended from her would, it was imagined, cause her to sink when full of water. Thus perished a man whose intrepidity resulted from his ignorance of the dangers he encountered, and who fell a victim to his obstinate confidence in the success of a plan concerning which his knowledge was totally insufficient to enable him to judge. The depth of water in which the vessel sank was 22 fathoms; the pressure of more than four atmospheres thus produced, in all probability crushed in the sides of the chamber soon after it reached the bottom.”

ALVARY TEMPLO “AQUAPEDE.” (1826.)

CHAPTER XI
DAVID BUSHNELL

The originator of the modern method of submarine warfare was David Bushnell, a native of Saybrook (now Westbrook) in the State of Maine, U.S.A., who in the latter part of the eighteenth century conceived the idea of destroying the British ships of war which were employed upon the coasts of North America by exploding gunpowder, contained in a magazine, beneath their bottoms. In order the better to fix the charge to the ships, Bushnell built in 1775 the first practical submarine boat, and the first of which any detailed account is extant.

In a letter written in October, 1789, to Thomas Jefferson, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris, David Bushnell gives a very interesting description of his vessel and its achievements. This deserves to be printed here in full in view of the many quite remarkable devices (considering the period) which the inventor originated.

The external shape of the submarine vessel bore some resemblance to two upper tortoise shells of equal size, joined together, the place of entrance into the vessel being represented by the opening made by the swell of the shells at the head of the animal. The inside was capable of containing the operator and air sufficient to support him thirty minutes without receiving fresh air. At the bottom, opposite to the entrance, was fixed a quantity of lead for ballast. At one edge, which was directly before the operator, who sat upright, was an oar for rowing forward or backward. At the other edge was a rudder for steering. An aperture at the bottom, with its valve, was designed to admit water for the purpose of defending, and two brass forcing pumps served to eject the water within when necessary for ascending. At the top there was likewise an oar for ascending or descending, or continuing at any particular depth. A water-gauge or barometer determined the depth of descent, a compass directed the course, and a ventilator within supplied the vessel with fresh air when on the surface.

The entrance into the vessel was elliptical, and so small as barely to admit a person. This entrance was surrounded with a broad elliptical iron band, the lower edge of which was let into the wood, of which the body of the vessel was made, in such a manner as to give its utmost support to the body of the vessel against the pressure of the water. Above the upper edge of this iron band there was a brass crown or cover, resembling a hat with its crown and brim, which shut watertight upon the iron band; the crown was hung to the iron band with hinges so as to turn over sidewise when opened. To make it perfectly secure when shut it might be screwed down upon the band by the operator or by a person without.

There were in the brass crown three round doors, one directly in front and one on each side, large enough to put the hand through. When open they admitted fresh air. Their shutters were ground perfectly tight into their places with emery, hung with hinges, and secured in their places when shut. There were likewise several small glass windows in the crown for looking through, and for admitting light in the day-time, with covers to secure them. There were two air-pipes in the crown. A ventilator within drew fresh air through one of the air-pipes and discharged it into the lower part of the vessel; the fresh air introduced by the ventilator expelled the impure light air through the other air-pipe. Both air-pipes were so constructed that they shut themselves whenever the water rose near their tops, so that no water could enter through them, and opened themselves immediately after they rose above the water.

The vessel was chiefly ballasted with lead fixed to its bottom; when this was not sufficient a quantity was placed within, more or less according to the weight of the operator; its ballast made it so stiff that there was no danger of over-setting. The vessel, with all its appendages and the operator, was of sufficient weight to settle it very low in the water. About 200 lbs. of lead at the bottom for ballast could be let down 40 or 50 feet below the vessel; this enabled the operator to rise instantly to the surface of the water in case of accident.

When the operator would descend he placed his foot upon the top of a brass valve, depressing it, by which he opened a large aperture in the bottom of the vessel, through which the water entered at his pleasure; when he had admitted a sufficient quantity he descended very gradually; if he admitted too much he ejected as much as was necessary to obtain an equilibrium by the two brass forcing pumps which were placed at each hand. Whenever the vessel leaked or he would ascend to the surface he also made use of these forcing pumps. When the skilful operator had obtained an equilibrium he could row upward or downward, or continue at any particular depth, with an oar placed near the top of the vessel, formed upon the principle of the screw, the axis of the oar entering the vessel; by turning the oar one way he raised the vessel, by turning it the other way he depressed it.

A glass tube 18 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, standing upright, its upper end closed, and its lower end, which was open, screwed into a brass pipe, through which the external water had a passage into the glass tube, served as a water-gauge or barometer. There was a piece of cork with phosphorus on it put into the water-gauge. When the vessel descended the water rose into the water-gauge, condensing the air within, and bearing the cork with its phosphorus on its surface. By the light of the phosphorus the ascent of the water in the gauge was rendered visible, and the depth of the vessel under water ascertained by a graduated line.

An oar, formed upon the principle of the screw, was fixed in the forepart of the vessel; its axis entered the vessel, and being turned one way, rowed the vessel forward, but being turned the other way rowed it backward; it was made to be turned by the hand or foot.

A rudder, hung to the hinder part of the vessel, commanded it with the greatest ease. The rudder was made very elastic, and might be used for rowing forward. Its tiller was within the vessel, at the operator’s right hand, fixed at a right angle on an iron rod which passed through the side of the vessel; the rod had a crank on its outside end which commanded the rudder by means of a rod extending from the end of the crank to a kind of tiller fixed upon the left hand of the rudder. Raising and depressing the first-mentioned tiller turned the rudder as the same required. A compass marked with phosphorus directed the course, both above and under the water, and a line and lead founded the depth when necessary.

The internal shape of the vessel, in every possible section of it, verged towards an ellipsis, as near as the design would allow, but every horizontal section, although elliptical, yet as near to a circle as could be admitted. The body of the vessel was made exceedingly strong, and to strengthen it as much as possible a firm piece of wood was framed, parallel to the conjugate diameter, to prevent the sides from yielding to the great pressure of the incumbent water in a deep immersion. This piece of wood was also a seat for the operator.

Every opening was well secured. The pumps had two sets of valves. The aperture at the bottom for admitting water was covered with a plate perforated full of holes to receive the water and prevent anything from choking the passage or stopping the valve from shutting. The brass valve might likewise be forced into its place with a screw if necessary. The air-pipes had a kind of hollow sphere fixed round the top of each to secure the air-pipe valves from injury; these hollow spheres were perforated full of holes for the passage of the air through the pipes. Within the air-pipes were shutters to secure them should any accident happen to the pipes or the valves on their tops.

BUSHNELL’S SUBMARINE

Wherever the external apparatus passed through the body of the vessel the joints were round and formed by brass pipes, which were driven into the wood of the vessel, the holes through the pipes were very exactly made, and the iron rods which passed through them were turned in a lathe to fit them; the joints were also kept full of oil to prevent rust and leaking. Particular attention was given to bring every part necessary for performing the operations, both within and without the vessel, before the operator, and as conveniently as could be devised, so that everything might be found in the dark except the water-gauge and the compass, which were visible by the light of the phosphorus, and nothing required the operator to turn to the right hand or to the left to perform anything necessary.

Description of a Magazine and its Appendages designed to be conveyed by the Submarine Vessel to the bottom of a Ship.

In the forepart of the brim of the crown of the submarine vessel was a socket, and an iron tube passing through the socket; the tube stood upright, and could slide up and down in the socket 6 inches. At the top of the tube was a wood screw (A), fixed by means of a rod, which passed through the tube, and screwed the wood screw fast upon the top of the tube; by pushing the wood screw up against the bottom of the ship and turning it at the same time it would enter the planks; driving would also answer the same purpose. When the wood screw was firmly fixed it could be cast off by unscrewing the rod, which fastened it upon the top of the tube.

Behind the submarine vessel was a place above the rudder for carrying a large powder magazine. This was made of two pieces of oak timber, large enough when hollowed out to contain 150 lbs. of powder, with the apparatus used in firing it, and was secured in its place by a screw turned by the operator. A strong piece of rope extended from the magazine to the wood screw (A) above mentioned, and was fastened to both. When the wood screw was fixed, and to be cast off from its tube, the magazine was to be cast off likewise by unscrewing it, leaving it hanging to the wood screw; it was lighter than the water, that it might rise up against the object to which the wood screw and itself were fastened.

Within the magazine was an apparatus constructed to run any proposed length of time under twelve hours; when it had run out its time it unpinioned a strong lock resembling a gunlock, which gave fire to the powder. This apparatus was so pinioned that it could not possibly move till, by casting off the magazine from the vessel, it was set in motion.

The skilful operator could swim so low on the surface of the water as to approach very near a ship in the night without fear of being discovered, and might, if he chose, approach the stem or stern above water with very little danger. He could sink very quickly, keep at any depth he pleased, and row a great distance in any direction he desired without coming to the surface, and when he rose to the surface he could soon obtain a fresh supply of air. If necessary he might descend again and pursue his course.

Experiments made to prove the nature and use of a Submarine Vessel.

The first experiment I made was with about two ounces of gunpowder, which I exploded 4 feet under water, to prove to some of the first personages in Connecticut that powder would take fire under water.

The second experiment was made with 2 lbs. of powder enclosed in a wooden bottle and fixed under a hogshead, with a 2–inch oak plank between the hogshead and the powder. The hogshead was loaded with stones as deep as it could swim; a wooden pipe descending through the lower head of the hogshead and through the plank into the powder contained in the bottle, was primed with powder. A match put to the priming exploded the powder, which produced a very great effect, rending the plank into pieces, demolishing the hogshead, and casting the stones and the ruins of the hogshead, with a body of water, many feet into the air, to the astonishment of the spectators. This experiment was likewise made for the satisfaction of the gentlemen above mentioned.

I afterwards made many experiments of a similar nature, some of them with large quantities of powder; they produced very violent explosions, much more than sufficient for any purpose I had in view.

In the first essays with the submarine vessel I took care to prove its strength to sustain the great pressure of the incumbent water when sunk deep before I trusted any person to descend much below the surface, and I never suffered any person to go under water without having a strong piece of rigging made fast to it, until I found him well acquainted with the operations necessary for his safety. After that I made him descend and continue at particular depths, without rising or sinking, row by the compass, approach a vessel, go under her, and fix the wood screw mentioned in No. 2, and marked A, into her bottom, &c., until I thought him sufficiently expert to put my design into execution.

I found, agreeably to my expectations, that it required many trials to make a person of common ingenuity a skilful operator. The first I employed was very ingenious, and made himself master of the business, but was taken sick in the campaign of 1776 at New York before he had an opportunity to make use of his skill, and never recovered his health sufficiently afterwards.

After various attempts to find an operator to my wish, I sent one who appeared more expert than the rest from New York to a 50–gun ship lying not far from Governor’s Island. He went under the ship and attempted to fix the wooden screw into her bottom, but struck, as he supposes, a bar of iron which passes from the rudder hinge, and is spiked under the ship’s quarter. Had he moved a few inches, which he might have done without rowing, I have no doubt but he would have found wood where he might have fixed the screw, or if the ship were sheathed with copper he might easily have pierced it; but not being well skilled in the management of the vessel, in attempting to move to another place he lost the ship. After seeking her in vain for some time, he rowed some distance and rose to the surface of the water, but found daylight had advanced so far that he durst not renew the attempt. He says that he could easily have fastened the magazine under the stem of the ship above water, as he rowed up to the stern and touched it before he descended. Had he fastened it there the explosion of 150 lbs. of powder (the quantity contained in the magazine) must have been fatal to the ship. In his return from the ship to New York he passed near Governor’s Island, and thought he was discovered by the enemy on the island. Being in haste to avoid the danger he feared, he cast off the magazine, as he imagined it retarded him in the swell, which was very considerable. After the magazine had been cast off one hour, the time the internal apparatus was set to run, it blew up with great violence.

Afterwards there were two attempts made in Hudson’s River, above the city, but they effected nothing. One of them was by the afore-mentioned person. In going towards the ship he lost sight of her, and went a great distance beyond her. When he at length found her the tide ran so strong that, as he descended under water for the ship’s bottom, it swept him away. Soon after this the enemy went up the river and pursued the boat which had the submarine vessel on board, and sunk it with their shot. Though I afterwards recovered the vessel, I found it impossible at that time to prosecute the design any farther. I had been in a bad state of health from the beginning of my undertaking, and was now very unwell; the situation of public affairs was such that I despaired of obtaining the public attention and the assistance necessary. I was unable to support myself and the persons I must have employed had I proceeded. Besides, I found it absolutely necessary that the operators should acquire more skill in the management of the vessel before I could expect success, which would have taken up some time, and made no small additional expense. I therefore gave over the pursuit for that time, and waited for a more favourable opportunity, which never arrived.

In the year 1777 I made an attempt from a whale-boat against the Cerberus frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and New London, by drawing a machine against her side by means of a line. The machine was loaded with powder, to be exploded by a gunlock, which was to be unpinioned by an apparatus to be turned by being brought alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a schooner at anchor astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight. By some means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and three men, and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken up very much hurt.

After this I fixed several kegs under water, charged with powder, to explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide. I set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river, and obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as we durst venture; I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived him, as it did me. We set them adrift to fall with the ebb upon the shipping. Had we been within sixty rods I believe they must have fallen in with them immediately, as I designed; but, as I afterwards found, they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until, after being detained some time by frost, they advanced in the day-time in a dispersed situation, and under great disadvantages. One of them blew up a boat with several persons in it who imprudently handled it too freely, and thus gave the British that alarm which brought on the battle of the kegs.

BUSHNELL’S SUBMARINE.
A A. Oars. B. Rudder. C. Seat. D. Immersion tank. E. Pipe. F. Conning tower. G. Safety weight. H. Torpedo.

The above vessel, magazine, &c., were projected in the year 1771, but not completed until the year 1775.

The above account appears in the fourth volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, and also in the fourth volume of Nicholson’s Journal of Natural Philosophy (1801).

Disappointed in the failure of his submarine boat to accomplish the things of which he felt sure it was capable, Bushnell went to France, and finally settled in Georgia, where he lived under the pseudonym of Dr. Bush until the year 1826, when he died at the ripe age of ninety.

General Washington, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated September 26, 1775, described Bushnell as “a man of great mechanical powers, fertile in inventions, and master of execution.” With regard to the submarine vessel he says, “I thought, and still think, that it was an effort of genius, but that too many things were necessary to be combined to expect much from the issue against an enemy who are always upon guard.”

Bushnell was undoubtedly the first inventor who combined in his design submarine navigation and torpedo warfare, and his invention, crude though it was, was the embryo of the modern diving torpedo-boat. The principles on which it was built may be traced in almost all the later submarine craft, and the improvements that have taken place have been mostly due to the general progress of engineering; the “oar placed near the top of the vessel” may be compared with Mr. Nordenfelt’s vertical screws.

CHAPTER XII
FULTON’S SUBMARINE BOATS

“What will become of navies, and where will sailors be found to man ships of war, when it is a physical certainty that they may at any moment be blown into the air by means of diving-boats, against which no human foresight can guard them?”—M. St. Aubin (in 1802).

Robert Fulton was born in 1765 in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, and died at New York on February 24, 1815. In the year 1796 Fulton went to Paris, residing at the house of Joel Barlow, then resident minister for the United States, for seven years. While in Paris two projects occupied a large portion of his time. The first was a carcass, or box, filled with combustibles which was to be propelled under water and made to explode beneath the bottom of a vessel.

The second was a submarine boat. In 1797 Fulton submitted his vessel to the approval of the Government of the Directory, promising to furnish them with an agent by which they could dispose of their enemies, particularly British, in all parts of the world. A Commission appointed to examine his ideas reported favourably on them, but the Minister of the Marine would have nothing to do with them. Fulton then made a model of his submarine, which met with the approval of another Commission, but again the Minister of Marine was obdurate. Fulton now tried the Dutch Government, but they did not look with any favour on the new methods of under-water warfare.

Three years later (in 1800), Fulton approached Napoleon, who appeared to think well of his schemes, for he appointed La Place, Mouge, and Volney to examine them, and also gave him 10,000 francs to carry out experiments.

In May, 1801, Fulton built his first submarine boat, the Nautilus. She made her first trial on the Seine opposite the Invalides. Fulton and one sailor formed the crew and with nothing but a candle to light the interior, they remained submerged twenty minutes. On coming to the surface they found that the current had carried them some considerable distance down the river, so again sinking beneath the surface Fulton steered his vessel to the point of departure. On July 3, 1801, Fulton embarked with three companions on board his “plunging boat” in the harbour of Brest; the four men descended in the Nautilus a depth of 23 feet, which seemed to be the greatest depth the boat would stand. They remained below in total darkness for one hour. At subsequent descents Fulton tried to employ candles, but found they destroyed the vitality of the air. Bulls-eyes were then inserted in the top of the boat, and these alleviated, to a certain extent, the prevailing gloom.

Once Fulton with three persons is said to have stayed for six hours at a depth of 5 feet by the aid of a copper globe of 1 cubic foot capacity “containing 200 atmospheres”; on another occasion he sailed out of the harbour, then quite suddenly lowered his mast, and disappeared from view, showing how quickly he could submerge his craft.

The Nautilus was a cigar-shaped boat about 7 feet in diameter. The hull was of copper, but supported by iron ribs. It had one mast, a mainsail, and a jib, which moved her at the rate of two miles an hour on the surface, and were stowed in two minutes when preparing to dive. Under the water the vessel was moved by the exertions of two men, the “propelling engine” consisting of a wheel rotated by a hand-winch, at the rate of 2½ miles an hour. A third man steered from a small conning tower while Fulton governed the position of the boat by regulating the machine which kept her balanced and determined her depth below the surface. She was 21 feet 4 inches long, and was furnished with a keel under the whole length of the hull.

Having proved that man could exist for some time beneath the surface in a vessel and could steer it, Fulton made experiments with a torpedo or case of explosive. On the first occasion he blew a small ship to fragments with 20 lbs. of powder.

As he had shown his ability to blow up old hulks in French waters, Fulton proposed to build a large submarine vessel, but failed to attain official support, partly because those in authority considered that submarine explosions were not legal warfare. One of these writes that “this type of warfare carries with it the objection that those who undertake it and those against whom it is made, will all be lost. This cannot be called a gallant death.”

THE “NAUTILUS” OF ROBERT FULTON.

Fulton asked a reward for each vessel he destroyed, the re-imbursement of the price of his ship (40,000 francs), and lastly a patent giving himself and his crew the quality of belligerents, so that if they were captured they would not be hanged as pirates.

That submarine warfare was considered by some “immoral” at the time is evident from the statement of Admiral Pleville le Pelle, the Minister of Marine. “It seems impossible to serve a Commission for belligerency to men who employ such a method of destroying the fleet of the enemy.”

As Fulton was equally unsuccessful in his effort to interest Napoleon in steam navigation, the disappointed inventor crossed the Channel in order to discover whether the English would show themselves any readier to grasp new ideas, and would prove capable of foreseeing the possibilities of his inventions.

It was in May, 1804, that Fulton came to England, and from some accounts it would appear that the English Government, alarmed at Fulton’s plans, invited him, at the suggestion of Earl Stanhope, to lay his ideas before them. The inventor explained to the naval authorities that his system rendered above-water fleets unnecessary, but they did not at all relish the idea of fighting beneath the waves.

Mr. Pitt, however, then Prime Minister, was very much taken with the American and his torpedoes, and appointed a Commission to watch certain experiments. The Commission consisted of Mr. Pitt, Lords Mulgrave, Melville, and Castlereagh, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Cavendish, Admiral Sir Howe Popham (the only naval man in the Commission), Major Congreve, and Sir John Rennie.

Although Mr. Pitt and some few others were disposed to look with favour on Fulton’s devices, the Commission as a whole were of the same opinion as Admiral Earl St. Vincent, who remarked that it was foolish for Pitt to encourage “that gimcrack, for so he was laying the foundation for doing away with the Navy, on which depended the strength and prestige of Great Britain.”

Thus Fulton’s plans were declared to be unpracticable by the Commission. Mr. Pitt still refused to relinquish his faith in Fulton, and on October 15, 1805, he caused an experiment to be made on an old Danish brig which was blown to pieces by 170 lbs. of powder. Even this wonderful result failed to appeal to those in authority, for while they recognised that torpedoes and submarine boats might prove useful to weaker nations, and might be used with effect by them, they declared that such weapons of warfare could have no place in the naval equipment of the Mistress of the Seas. It is said that Fulton was offered a large sum of money to suppress his inventions, but this is doubtful. Full details of Fulton’s boat and various confidential reports are said to be amongst the secret papers of the Record Office.

In the year 1806 Fulton returned to New York and made overtures to the United States Government. Receiving some encouragement he succeeded, after many unsuccessful efforts, in blowing up a vessel which had been prepared for the purpose. Admiral Porter in 1878 wrote, “A Midshipman nowadays at our Torpedo School at Newport, would consider himself disgraced if he failed to destroy a ship of the line in ten minutes with less explosive powder, especially if the ship lay at anchor and gave him every opportunity to operate upon her.” The admiral seems to forget that Fulton was a pioneer, and laboured under every possible disadvantage in prosecuting his work.

In 1810 Congress appropriated 5,000 dollars to assist Fulton in developing his ideas. After many trials, most of which were failures, the United States brig Argus was prepared for Fulton’s final experiment. By order of Commodore Rodgers, the vessel had been so protected with spars and netting reaching to the bottom as to be practically unassailable, and the attempt to blow her up by a submarine torpedo was unsuccessful, as Fulton himself acknowledged, though he could not refrain from adding that “a system then in its infancy, which compelled a hostile vessel to guard herself by such extraordinary means, could not fail of becoming a most important mode of warfare.”

Could Fulton have foreseen the manner in which his crude devices were to develop into the Whitehead torpedo and submarine boat of to-day, he would have had something to cheer him in his hours of depression.

After the failure of the Argus experiment, Fulton devoted his attention to steam navigation, and was more successful in this line than in his efforts to introduce torpedo warfare, though he considered the latter a matter of greater moment than the former.

In a letter to Joel Barlow, dated New York, August 22, 1807, Fulton says, after describing his celebrated steam voyage up the Hudson:—

“However, I will not admit that it (steam navigation) is half so important as the torpedo system of defence or attack, for out of this will grow the liberty of the seas—an object of infinite importance to the welfare of America and every civilised country. But thousands of witnesses have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement and they believe; but they have not seen a ship of war destroyed by a torpedo, and they do not believe. We cannot expect people in general to have knowledge of physics or power to reason from cause to effect, but in case we have war and the enemy’s ships come into our waters, if the Government will give me reasonable means of action, I will soon convince the world that we have surer and cheaper modes of defence than they are aware of.”

Referring to the failure of Fulton to induce the various Powers to adopt his submarine boat and torpedo, Admiral Porter said (in 1878) that naval men seventy years ago, whether in this country or abroad, saw no prospect in the success of Fulton’s scheme but the destruction of the service which was then their pride and glory, and it was hardly to be wondered at that all plans to destroy ships by other means than the legitimate eighteen-pounder were looked upon with disfavour. So the torpedo slept, but in time it reappeared invested with such deadly attributes that no nation could afford to disregard its claims as the most destructive implement of naval warfare yet devised. During the “Second War of Independence” (1812–1814) some unsuccessful attacks were made by a diving vessel on British men-of-war, and this is generally understood to be one of Fulton’s vessels.

The following extract is from a work published by James Kelly in 1818.

“About this time—that is the summer of 1813—some infamous and insidious attempts were publicly encouraged for the destruction of the British men-of-war upon the coasts of America by torpedoes and other explosive machinery, as will appear from the following extract from the American newspapers.

“‘A gentleman at Norwich, U.S., has invented a diving boat, which by means of paddles he can propel under water at the rate of three miles an hour, and ascend and descend at pleasure. He has been three times under the bottom of the Ramilies off New London. In the first attempt, after remaining under some time, he came to the top of the water like the porpoise for air, and as luck would have it, came up but a few feet from the stern of the Ramilies.

“‘He was observed by a sentinel on deck who sang out “Boat ahoy!” immediately on hearing which, the boat descended without making a reply. Seeing this an alarm gun was fired on board the ship and all hands called to quarter, the cable cut and the ship got under weigh with all possible despatch, expecting to be blown up by a torpedo.

“‘In the third attempt he came up directly under the Ramilies, and fastened himself and his boat to her keel, where he remained half an hour and succeeded in perforating a hole through her upper, but while engaged in screwing a torpedo to her bottom the screw broke and defeated his object for that time. So great is the alarm and fear on board the Ramilies of some such stratagem being played upon them, that Commodore Hardy has withdrawn his force from before New London and keeps his ship under weigh all the time instead of lying at anchor as formerly.’”

This “dishonourable attempt,” evidently made under the sanction of the American executive, induced Sir Thomas Hardy to address letters to the public authorities of New London, and to the Government of the States of Connecticut on the subject. In these Sir Thomas Hardy states that “he is fully apprised of the efforts to destroy the Ramilies, and that he shall do all in his power to defeat them, but he thinks it right to notify publicly that since the attempt he had ordered on board from fifty to a hundred American prisoners of war, who in the event of the efforts to destroy the ship by torpedoes or other infernal inventions being successful, would share the fate of himself and his crew. That in future whenever a vessel was taken, the crew would be kept on board until it has ascertained that no snare was laid for the destruction of British seamen, and that the regulations would be observed when a vessel was boarded and abandoned by her crew.”

Sir Thomas adds that his example would be followed by all the commanders of his squadron.

These representations had some effect on the American public, for on the contents of the letter being known a public meeting was held, and as many of the citizens had relations and friends prisoners of war on board the British squadron, it was determined to present a remonstrance to the American executive against the further employment of torpedoes in the ordinary course of warfare.

Admiral Porter says that these submarine attacks were mostly unauthorised by the U.S. Government, and disapproved by the navy, “who preferred the more chivalric method of sinking vessels with eighteen and twenty-four pounders, or mowing down their crews with grape and canister.”

It is almost certain that the submarine craft that attacked H.M.S. Ramilies as she lay off New London was one of Fulton’s boats.

In the year 1814 Fulton constructed the Mute, a huge submarine capable of holding a hundred men, and deriving its name from the silent engine that propelled it. The Mute was 80 feet 6 inches long, 21 feet wide, and 11 feet deep. It was armoured on the top with iron sheets, beneath which was a wood lining almost a foot in thickness. Before the trials could be completed Fulton died, and thus the story of this ardent inventor’s notions concerning submarine warfare comes to a close.

In 1810 Fulton published at New York a book, “Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions,” in which he gives an account of the various devices he had contrived for blowing up ships, piers, &c., and of the actual experiments he had made. He seems to have elaborated his submarine boat after his torpedo had been invented, and his idea was that an under-water vessel would be useful in discharging torpedoes. His method of attack was to float the torpedo down to the object to be attacked, and to guide and even explode them by means of lines. He seemed not to have thought of the use of the spar torpedo as we know it to-day.

CHAPTER XIII
SUBMARINES DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

From the death of Robert Fulton down to the commencement of the American Civil War no very startling developments in under-water warfare are to be chronicled. During the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848–50 the modern subaqueous explosive mine first came into use in actual warfare, and mines were also employed during the Crimean War; in 1859 by the Austrians at the time of the threatened attack on Venice by the French, and by the Chinese in 1857–58 to defend the streams in the neighbourhood of Canton.

The mine and the torpedo both played their part in the American Civil War, and since then both these weapons have been adopted as valuable factors of offence and defence by all the great Powers. When the Southern Confederacy seceded from the United States in 1861, one of the first steps of its naval department was to form a torpedo section to protect approaches to places liable to attack by the Northern fleet. It was during the war that the idea was applied of taking the mine to the hostile ship by means of a boat, for the mine, besides being immovable, was liable to be picked up or cut adrift by the enemy. A charge of powder was placed at the end of a long pole carried in the bows of the boat; when darkness came on the boat crept up to the enemy, the pole and charge were run under water until in contact with the hull of the enemy, and the explosive was then ignited by means of electricity. Thus came into being the “spar” or “outrigger” torpedo, a weapon which still finds a place in the armament of the British fleet. The Confederates affixed the spar torpedo to at least one ironclad ship and many small steam vessels, and much damage was inflicted on the enemy by its employment.

It must be remembered that automobile or fish torpedoes had not been invented at this time, and that the only under-water weapons used on both sides were fixed mines and spar torpedoes.

It was in order to use the spar torpedo to the greatest advantage that the diving torpedo-boat was employed, and in this chapter we shall have to deal with a very famous incident in the history of submarine navigation, namely, the sinking of the Federal frigate Housatonic by a submarine boat manned by the Confederates and armed with a spar torpedo.

Early in the war the Federal or Northern Government entered into negotiations with a Frenchman, whose name we have been unable to discover, to build and operate a submarine boat against the Confederate or Southern vessels. In particular the North desired to blow up the Confederate Merrimac in Norfolk Harbour. It has been stated that $10,000 were to be paid for the boat when finished, and $5,000 for each successful attack with her. The boat was apparently constructed at the Navy Yard at Washington, and paid for by the Federals, but before they could learn the art of navigating the vessel the Frenchman, taking his gains with him, left the country. Whether the boat would have proved of much value is to be doubted, and the probability is that the inventor would have been as unsuccessful as were the Federals in working the craft.

Admiral Hichborn terms it “an absurd arrangement of duckfoot hand-worked paddles in an age when the screw-propeller was in common use.”

It was 35 feet long and 6 feet in diameter, and was built up of steel plates. Immersion was obtained by the admission of water, and the mode of propulsion on the surface or below the water was by eight pairs of oars or paddles which opened and shut like the leaves of a book, and were worked by sixteen men placed half on the port and half on the starboard. The maximum speed was 2½ knots on the surface. Fresh air was produced by two machines—one consisted of a bellows passing air over a chamber of lime, the other produced oxygen. The armament was a spar torpedo. According to one account it was towed round by a steamboat to Port Royal and foundered in a storm of wind off Cape Hatteras.

Early in 1863 the Confederates cut down a gunboat at Charleston and converted it into a half-submerged torpedo-boat. It does not appear to have done any mischief, but Mr. H. W. Wilson, in his “Ironclads in Action,” says that it may have been the vessel which on the night of April 19, 1864, approached the Wabash. The Northern vessel was at anchor when something was seen near her in the water and challenged. She slipped her cable and went ahead, opening a heavy fire upon the strange craft, after which it disappeared, whether as the result of a shot or not is uncertain.

On the night of October 5, 1863, an attack was made upon the United States’ ironclad, New Ironsides, of 3,486 old American tons, carrying twenty guns, at anchor in the midst of the blockading squadron off Charleston, by a submarine vessel owned by the Confederates. This boat was built by Theodore Stoney at Charleston, and was called the David, a name given by the Southerns to some subsequent under-water craft in memory of the fight between the lad David and the giant Goliath.

This first David was 54 feet long and at her widest depth 6 feet in diameter. She was cigar-shaped, and was propelled by a screw driven by steam power. When in action she lay almost flush with the water, her funnel and steering chamber alone projecting above the surface. (Another report says that she was so far submerged that only about 10 feet in length of the hull was visible 2 feet above the water.) Her armament consisted of a single spar torpedo with a 60 lb. charge of gunpowder, which was folded alongside when not in use, and only run out on an iron bar to a distance of 10 feet for the actual attack, ignition being effected by an acid fuse rendered active by a collision nearly end on. Her maximum speed was 7 knots an hour.

“With a crew of volunteers Lieut. Glassell took her out, and, a little after nine in the evening, the Ironsides watch saw her approaching. She looked to them like a plank, since all that could be seen was the coaming of her hatchway. Several officers were on deck, and the David was at once hailed. Her only answer was a volley of musketry which mortally wounded one Federal officer. An instant later the ironclad received a violent blow from the explosion of a torpedo containing 60 lbs. of powder, which threw up a column of water, shook the ship severely and broke one man’s leg on board her. After the smoke and spray had cleared away the Ironsides was found to be uninjured and the boat had disappeared. Her crew jumped overboard at the moment of firing the torpedo, and Glassell, as he swam about, hailed a Northern coal schooner, on board which he was taken, whilst a second man escaped to the Ironsides. The engineer of the David, however, after the explosion swam back to the boat, to which he found the pilot clinging for dear life, as he was unable to swim. Helping him on board he discovered that the David could yet float, though the explosion had put out the fires, and together the two took her back to Charleston.”

In a paper on “Offensive Torpedo Warfare,” read before the Royal United Service Institution in 1871, Commander W. Dawson, R.N., writes of the attack as follows:—

“Observe the elements of failure. A charge destructive enough if exploded in actual contact, but innocuous to a strongly built ship by the accidental interposition of seven or eight feet of water, yet held near enough to the operating vessel to place her in immediate danger, either from the direct action of the explosion upon her thin sides, or from her being swamped by the falling columns of water, self-acting fuses, so arranged as to necessitate the most exposed direction of attack, viz., the enemy’s broadside; an acid composition sluggish enough in its action to allow time for the boat to rebound after collision, the few feet required to render the explosion harmless, and last, not least, a commander and crew, who, having never fired their weapon before, were in greater terror of their own torpedo than the enemy would have been. Can we wonder that the conductor of this enterprise jumped overboard before the explosion, that his little vessel had her fires extinguished and was nearly swamped, and that the New Ironsides, though severely injured, was not compelled to return into port? The crew, deserted by their commander, relighted the fires, and brought the boat safely into harbour.”

The first attempts of the Confederates with their submarine boat having proved a failure, the Federal officers on the outside blockade grew somewhat careless, and the final result of the Confederates’ efforts was that one of the fine new vessels of the Federal fleet, the Housatonic, 1,264 tons, and carrying 13 guns, was destroyed in Charleston harbour on the night of February 17, 1864.

The David that accomplished this feat, unique in the annals of submarine warfare, had been built at Mobile by Messrs. McClintock and Howgate, and brought overland to Charleston. She had lateral fins by which she could be raised and submerged, and ballast tanks to lighten her and enable her to rise to the surface, though these, we read, uniformly refused to act. She carried no reserve of air, and hence she well deserved the name “peripatetic coffin.” She was about 60 feet long, and elliptical in transverse section. Her crew consisted of nine men, eight of whom propelled the vessel by operating cranks on the screw shaft, while the ninth acted as pilot.

THE “DAVID” THAT SANK THE “HOUSATONIC.”

It was originally designed to make the attack by passing under the keel of a ship towing a contact torpedo, having a small reserve buoyancy. Under favourable conditions the torpedo would be drawn under water when the vessel descended, strike the bottom of the ship, and explode on contact.

During her first cruise under the orders of Lieut. Payne (or Paine?) an enemy’s vessel passed close to her without noticing her; the swill raised by her paddles sunk the David, and Payne alone of all the crew saved himself. When the boat was recovered from the bottom, Lieut. Payne persuaded eight sailors to embark with him; a squall of wind caused the boat to fill with water, Lieut. Payne and two bluejackets alone escaping by leaping out of her as she went down. No sooner was the boat recovered from the bottom than her gallant commander offered to try again. A new crew volunteered, and all went well for a time. But one night, off Fort Sumter, she capsized, and only four (of whom Lieut. Payne was one) escaped.

A third time she was raised, and the next essay was made in the Cooper River, under the lead of Mr. Aunley, one of the men who had constructed the boat. Alas! She sank for the fourth time, having caught her nose in the bottom, and all hands were drowned. Once more she was recovered only to foul the cable of a schooner at anchor in the harbour, and to sink for a fifth time.

Up to this time five crews of eight each had volunteered for service in the ill-starred David, and of these forty men, no less than thirty-five had perished. The brave Southern sailors, instead of fighting shy of the submarine, were as ready as ever to face death again. The David was recovered, and Lieut. Dixon, with Captain Carlson, both officers in the Confederate army, volunteered with five others to take her out against the Northern fleet. The Federal corvette Housatonic lay outside the bar in Charleston harbour, and it was on this vessel that on the evening of February 17, 1864, the attack was made, an attack which is thus vividly described by Admiral David Porter, U.S. Navy, in his book, “The Naval History of the Civil War”:—

“At about 8.45 p.m. the officer of the deck on board the unfortunate vessel discovered something about 100 yards away, moving along the water. It came directly towards the ship, and within two minutes of the time it was first sighted was alongside. The cable was slipped, the engines backed, and all hands called to quarters. But it was too late—the torpedo struck the Housatonic just forward of the mainmast, on the starboard side, in a line with the magazine. The man who steered her knew where the vulnerable spots of the steamer were, and he did his work well. When the explosion took place the ship trembled all over as if by the shock of an earthquake, and seemed to be lifted out of the water, and then sunk stern foremost, heeling to port as she went down. Her captain, Pickering, was stunned and somewhat bruised by the concussion, and the order of the day was ‘Sauve qui peut.’ A boat was despatched to the Canandaigua, not far off, and that vessel at once responded to the request for help, and succeeded in rescuing the greater part of the crew. Strange to say, the David was not seen after the explosion, and was supposed to have slipped away in the confusion; but when the Housatonic was inspected by divers, the torpedo boat was found sticking in the hole she had made, and all her crew were dead in her. It was a reckless adventure these men had engaged in, and one in which they could scarcely have hoped to succeed. They had tried it once before inside the harbour, and some of the crew had been blown overboard. How could they hope to succeed on the outside, where the sea might be rough, when the speed of the David was not over five knots, and when they might be driven out to sea! Reckless as it might be, it was the most sublime patriotism, and showed the length to which men could be urged on behalf of a cause for which they were willing to give up their lives and all they held most dear.”

It was by deeds such as these that North and South are to-day united, as they never were before.

When Lieutenant Hobson, during the Spanish-American war, offered to sink the Merrimac at the entrance of Santiago harbour, half the American sailors were wild to join in the hazardous task, and if volunteers for submarines had been requested it is certain that men would have come forward in 1898 as they did so nobly in 1864.

The David, that finally succeeded in sinking the Housatonic, proved so costly an experiment in human lives, because she was not worked as a submarine, but as a low freeboard surface torpedo boat, a purpose for which she was never designed, and for which, as we have seen, she proved dangerous and inefficient. As some one has observed, she was intended for submerging at pleasure—her own pleasure, however, not that of her crew. During the attack on the Housatonic, on February 17th, the vessel did not run under water. The crew submerged it to the hatch coaming and left the cover open against the protest of Mr. Howgate, who despatched it on its mission. The attack was made by a spar torpedo, and the wave thrown up by its explosion, when it struck the Housatonic, entered the open hatchway and swamped the vessel. Most accounts of the feat of the David state that all the crew were drowned. From the following extract it would seem that the gallant captain survived the attack.

“I remember on one occasion during the war,” wrote Hobart Pacha in an article, “The Torpedo Scare,” appearing in Blackwood’s Magazine for June, 1885, “when I was at Charleston, meeting in a coffee-room at that place a young naval officer (a Southerner) with whom I got into conversation. He told me that that night he was going to sink a Northern man-of-war which was blockading the port, and invited me to see him off. I accompanied him down to his cigar-boat, as he called it, and found that she was a vessel about forty feet long, shaped like a cigar, on the bow of which was placed a torpedo. On his stepping on board with his crew of four men, his boat was immersed till nothing but a small piece of funnel was visible. He moved off into the darkness at no great speed—say at about five miles an hour. The next evening, on visiting the coffee-house, I found my friend sitting quietly smoking his pipe. He told me that he had succeeded in making a hole in the frigate which he had attacked, which vessel could, in fact, be seen lying in shallow water, some seven miles off, careened over to repair damages. But he said that, on the concussion made by firing the torpedo, the water had rushed in through the hatches of his boat, and she had sunk to the bottom. All his men were drowned. He said he didn’t know how he escaped himself, but he fancied that he came up through the hatches, as he found himself floating about, and swam on shore. This affair was officially reported by the American blockading squadron, corroborating the fact of the injury done to the frigate, and stating that the torpedo-boat was got up, with four dead bodies in her hold. Here is one system which might be utilised in naval warfare if perfected, and I am given to understand that a submarine torpedo-boat is already invented by Mr. Nordenfelt.”

After the sinking of the Housatonic the Federals again turned their attention to submarine warfare, and in October, 1864, some trials were made on the Hudson with a boat named the Stromboli, constructed at Fairhaven from the designs of an engineer, one Wood. It was not, properly speaking, either a submarine or a diving boat, but by letting in a certain quantity of water into the reservoirs it could be brought flush with the surface, leaving only the conning tower, the chimney and the ventilator above the waves. A steam engine propelled the Stromboli at a speed of ten miles an hour, while a spar torpedo formed the armament. On the 16th of November, 1864, the Stromboli was under the command of John Lay, and was ordered to proceed to Hampton Roads to attack the Confederate cruisers. It appears to have arrived on the 6th of December, but its subsequent doings are not to be discovered.

Another semi-submarine which figured in the American Civil War was the Sputyen Duyvil, built by Messrs. Mallory & Co., from the plans of Messrs. William Wood and John Lay. She was made of wood, and her dimensions were, length 74 feet, beam 20 feet, draught 7½ feet. On going into action she could be immersed to a depth of 9 feet in order to put her armoured side below water, she was to fight with her deck, which was placed with 3–in. armour, flush with the water. Amidships, and standing about 3 feet above the deck, was a pilot house from which the boat could be steered. The Sputyen Duyvil was attached to James River’s squadron during the year 1865, but there is no evidence that she was ever brought into use; her torpedoes were fired on contact, and were worked through a hollow iron boom projecting from the bow, and having inside it a rod to which the torpedo was to be attached.

“When you have been shown lovingly over a torpedo by an artificer skilled in the working of its tricky bowels, torpedoes have a meaning and a reality for you to the end of your days.”—Rudyard Kipling.

“The next great naval war will bestow upon the torpedo and its users a halo of romance which will eclipse entirely that surrounding the gun and the ram.”

“The arts of shipbuilders and steel-workers stand for nothing when a Whitehead torpedo succeeds in striking a ship’s bottom and tears and rends it with the explosion of 200 lbs. of gun-cotton. In the hands of ignorant or careless people the Whitehead is nearly as dangerous to its friends as to its foes, but in the hands of skilful and resolute men it is the most terrible engine of warfare which the world has ever seen.”—Lieut. G. E. Armstrong, in Torpedoes and Torpedo Vessels.

“The spar-torpedo is the dagger which a determined man plunges into the body of an enemy who does not protect himself with a coat of mail; the Whitehead torpedo is the bullet which, easy to discharge from afar, kills the enemy in its path.”—Lieut. C. Arnault.

Although twenty-five Federal vessels are known to have been sunk and destroyed, and nine others more or less injured by various kinds of torpedoes during the great war of secession, the many objections to the employment of the spar-torpedo were only too evident. The necessarily close proximity of the craft attacking and the ship attacked, resulted in some cases in the destruction of the former as well as the latter, and inventive minds therefore set to work to devise a submarine weapon which could be discharged at the enemy from a distance. The result was the automobile fish torpedo, an instrument of warfare which is to be found in every navy, and the sole armament of the modern submarine boat.

In a history of under-water warfare, a description of the Whitehead torpedo, which is in reality a crewless submarine boat, must find a place, but a word may be said beforehand respecting the difference between the “Mine” and the “Torpedo.”

The mine is a stationary charge of explosive contained in a case moored beneath the surface of the water. The torpedo is a case of explosive, which by some means or other is provided with the power of aggression, either on or below the surface. The mine awaits the enemy, in fine, whilst the torpedo goes to seek him. Into the details of Submarine Mining it is not proposed to enter here.

Torpedoes are divided into two classes—(1) Uncontrollable. (2) Controllable. Class I. comprises Projectile, Rocket, Drifting, and Automobile torpedoes; the last named are now practically the only kind of uncontrollable torpedo employed. In nearly all navies the “Whitehead” is the type adopted; the German uses the “Schwartzkopff,” which differs only from the former in that it is made of phosphor-bronze instead of steel. Controllable torpedoes comprise Spar, Towing, Dirigible, Locomotive and Automobile. Great Britain has adopted the Brennan locomotive torpedo for coast defence only, and she still retains the spar-torpedo, although it is doubtful if it would ever be used in a naval engagement.

Somewhere about the year 1860 an officer of the Austrian Marine Artillery devised plans for the construction of a surface screw boat or fire-ship, to be propelled either by a steam or hot-air engine, or by clockwork, to be steered from the shore by means of long tiller ropes, and to carry in its fore part a large charge of gun-cotton, the explosion of which was effected by means of a pistol in communication with a movable blade at the bow, and with one vertical and two horizontal spars, so that if any of these arrangements came into contact with the object aimed at the pistol was fired and the charge exploded.^[8] On the death of this officer, which took place before he had time to put his ideas into practice, the pen drawings came into the possession of Captain Lupuis, an officer of the Austrian navy. During the sixties Captain Lupuis carried out a series of experiments with a view of discovering a means of propelling a floating torpedo along the surface of the water and directing it by means of ropes and guiding lines. The forward end of the torpedo was to be charged with explosive, and on coming in contact with a vessel it would be exploded by the automatic firing of a pistol. The motive power was to be either steam or clockwork. The Austrian Government, before whom he laid his plans, told him that they could not consider them until he discovered some reliable form of motor and a better method of steering. In the year 1864 Captain Lupuis sought the advice and assistance of a Mr. Whitehead, at the time manager to an engine manufacturing company at Fiume, and the result was that the latter invented the famous locomotive torpedo that bears his name.

The first Whitehead fish torpedo was produced in 1866, but it was a very much less terrible engine of destruction than it is to-day. It was built of steel, was 14 inches in diameter, 16 inches at the fins, and weighed 300 lbs. Its explosive charge was 18 lbs. of dynamite. The motive power was compressed air charged to a pressure of about 700 lbs. to the square inch, and the air chamber was made of ordinary boiler plates. The speed was only six knots for a short distance. Mr. Whitehead’s design was a great improvement on Captain Lupuis’s. It ran beneath the waves, it was independent of outside aid when once started, and its motive power was superior both to steam and clockwork. Still it was by no means a perfectly reliable weapon, and its great fault was that it failed to keep a uniform depth in the water.

By 1868 Mr. Whitehead had invented the “Balance” Chamber, which has since proved a very effective means of controlling the depth of the torpedo. In 1868 a committee of Austrian naval officers experimented with two Whiteheads whose dimensions were as follows:—

The trials were carried out at Fiume; the Austrian gunboat Genese was handed over to Mr. Whitehead to fit with a bow ejecting tube, and the target consisted of the yacht Fantasie. The result was the adoption of the Whitehead by the Austrian Government in 1868.

Although the Austrian Government purchased the secret of the Whitehead torpedo, they were unable to secure the exclusive right of manufacture. On the invitation of the English Admiralty, Mr. Whitehead came to England in 1870, bringing with him two torpedoes and a submerged tube.

The first two English torpedoes were of two sizes and of the following dimensions:—

The trials were carried out on board the Oberon, an old paddle-wheel sloop. Over 100 runs were made and the average speed obtained was 8·5 knots for a distance of 200 yards, and 7·5 knots for 600 yards. The balance chamber proved capable of keeping the torpedo at the required depth, although at times it behaved in an erratic fashion. After the trials, the committee of investigation reported that in their opinion “any maritime nation failing to provide itself with submarine locomotive torpedoes, would be neglecting a great source of power both for offence and defence.” Acting on this verdict the English Government, in April, 1871, purchased the secret and right of manufacture of the Whitehead torpedo for £15,000.

Naturally certain conservative officers, incapable of recognising the possibility of improvement in the weapons of naval warfare, sneered at the torpedo, but their scorn had little effect, and in a short time all the great navies of the world had adopted the Whitehead or some similar form of fish torpedo. One instance will be sufficient to show that naval men failed in many cases to realise the potential value of this instrument of destruction.

Commander W. Dawson, R.N., in a paper read before the Royal United Service Institution, commenting on the drawbacks of the Whitehead, remarked that he did not attach much value to self-contained powers of locomotion in submarine projectiles, and said that he believed that progress must be looked for in modification of the outrigger and the towing torpedoes which were free from complicated mechanism, simple in their application, and above all safe to the operators and to friendly vessels.

In 1876 Mr. Whitehead produced an improved torpedo. It had a diameter of only 14 inches, a speed of 18 knots for a distance of 600 yards, and a charge of 26 lbs. of gun-cotton. It was fitted for the first time with the “servo-motor,” which, as Lieutenant Armstrong remarks, makes the steering almost as perfect as if a mannikin helmsman were steering the torpedo from the inside. In 1884 it was still further improved. The speed was raised to 24 knots and the explosive charge was increased. In 1889 the speed was again raised to 29 knots for 1,000 yards, and the charge was 200 lbs. of gun-cotton.

The Whitehead torpedoes carried in His Majesty’s ships to-day are of two dimensions:—

Several different patterns of Whitehead torpedoes are turned out at the various factories, but they all resemble each other in their main characteristics.

The “baby,” as the seaman calls it, is a cigar-shaped object made of steel or of phosphor-bronze. It is divided into compartments, and in the foremost of these is placed in war time the explosive charge. At the head is the end of a pointed rod penetrating the explosive, and when the torpedo comes into contact with a solid object, the point of the rod is driven in against a detonator which explodes the charge and tears a hole in the ship’s bottom. Abaft the explosive chamber comes the air chamber; herein is stored the compressed air which acts as the motive power of the torpedo. Behind this is the balance chamber, where all the automatic steering apparatus is fixed. Abaft this are the engines; these are worked by the compressed air from the air chamber and revolve a shaft, on to the end of which are two screw-propellers working in opposite directions. Furthest aft of all is another hollow air compartment termed the buoyancy chamber. There are four rudders, two horizontal for steering from right to left, and two vertical for maintaining the proper depth.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the narrower the fore part of the torpedo the faster would be its speed; a study of fishes shows, however, that this is not Nature’s principle, and the Whitehead is therefore thicker at the fore than at the tail; technically, it has “a full entrance with a very fine run.” The Whitehead is divided into eight sections, containing:—

1.

The firing arrangement.

2.

The explosive chamber.

3.

The air chamber.

4.

The “balance” chamber.

5.

The engine chamber.

6.

The buoyancy chamber.

7.

The bevel wheel chamber.

8.

The horizontal and vertical rudders and propellers.

1 and 2. The Firing Arrangement and Explosive Chamber.

At the head of the Whitehead is the end of a pointed steel rod which penetrates the chamber containing the explosive. When the torpedo’s nose comes into contact with a ship’s side, or in fact any rigid object, the point of this rod is driven in against a detonator cap inserted in the centre of the charge: the immediate result is an explosion sufficient to tear a large hole in the ship’s hull. The detonator is fulminate of mercury, which, when ignited by a sudden blow, expands to about 2,500 times its own size. The sudden expansion gives such a severe blow to the gun-cotton around it that it at once explodes. Special precautions have to be taken to prevent the torpedo from damaging the ship from which it is fired: it might happen through carelessness that a lieutenant would fire one with the port closed, and so three checks are provided. The rod is so arranged that it cannot go back until a small “collar” with propeller fans on it has revolved off. When the torpedo enters the water the fans begin to turn, and when it has run some 30 yards the collar is worked off. Even then the charge will not explode unless the blow to the rod is severe enough to shear off a little copper pin standing in the way. Lastly there is a third precaution in the shape of a safety pin which holds the collar fixed until it is withdrawn at the last moment as the torpedo is launched into the tube.

It happened in the Russo-Turkish war that a Russian lieutenant in command of a torpedo-boat forgot to haul out the “safety pin” and the consequence was that though the torpedo reached the target it failed to explode. From what has been said it will be understood that torpedo warfare is not quite so simple as it looks. In time of peace the torpedo is not fitted with its war head, and so for daily purposes a steel dummy head is used, while there is an arrangement that causes it to rise to the surface on completion of their run. To facilitate its recovery, a “Holme’s light” is carried on to the head. This consists of an arrow-headed tin canister pierced with tubes and full of phosphide of calcium, which on contact with the water gives out both a strong light and a strong smell.

3. The Air Chamber.

This contains the motive power of the torpedo and it comes just behind the explosive chamber. The air is compressed into the compartment by means of air-compressing pumps fitted on board ship, and the latest types are tested to a pressure of 1,700 lbs. to the square inch.

4. The Balance Chamber.

Next the air chamber comes the balance, or secret chamber, although the secret is now universally known. Here is contained the mechanism for automatically transmitting to the horizontal rudders the movements necessary for keeping the torpedo at a uniform and pre-arranged depth below the surface during its run. It consists of a hydrostatic valve and a pendulum whose combined movements are transmitted to an air cylinder called a “servo-motor,” placed in the engine room. The hydrostatic valve is kept in its place by a spring that is forced in by the pressure of the water when the torpedo goes below a certain depth to which the valve has previously been adjusted. If the pressure be less than that of the set depth the opposite action takes place. This valve is connected with the servo-motor, which in its turn acts on the horizontal rudders. The pendulum consists of a heavy iron weight curved to correspond with the circular section of the torpedo and suspended by the pivoted steel rods or arms. It swings in a fore and aft direction and is connected by rods to the rudder for a certain distance after the discharge of the torpedo. A controlling gear is provided which keeps the rudders fixed. It will thus be seen that by the combined actions of the hydrostatic valve and the pendulum the Whitehead, after leaving the tube, is brought to the proper depth very rapidly and is held at this depth throughout her run. Both these devices are necessary, as the torpedo has a great tendency to run down an inclined plane at great speed, and this requires to be checked. In addition the balance chamber contains various valves (the stop valve, the charging valve, the starting valve, the delay action valve and the reducing valve) through which the air passes on its way to the engines from the air chamber.

Inside the engine room are the propelling engines and the servo-motor. The engines are of the single-acting three-cylinder Brotherhood type. The compressed air, after leaving the air reservoir, passes through the main pipe to the pressure-reducing valve. In the latest pattern 18 inch Whitehead the indicated horse power is 56. The torpedo is started by means of a trigger which projects a little beyond the casing of the torpedo, and which automatically opens the starting valve when the torpedo is fired, the trigger just before leaving the tube is caught by a catch in the tube which draws it back when the catch releases itself.

The Servo-Motor.

This ingenious apparatus was called into existence owing to the fact that the mechanism of the balance chamber was unable, through its feeble power, to work the horizontal rudders of the faster Whiteheads direct. The servo-motor is, then, the air engine from which is derived the power to move the diving rudders. It is only about 4 inches long, but so great is its power that with only half-an-ounce pressure on the slide valve the piston is capable of lifting 180 lbs. It consists of a cylinder, a piston, and a cylindrical slide valve. Its balance mechanism acts on the slide valve of the servo-motor, and this acts on the piston, and the motion of the piston is transmitted to the diving rudders by means of a rod and a system of levers.

6. The Buoyancy Chamber.

Abaft the engine room is the buoyancy chamber which gives the necessary buoyancy to the torpedo: to guard against the collapse of the chamber flat steel rings are fitted into it for support. In the “Tail,” the rearmost compartments of the torpedo, are carried the bevel wheel mechanism, the vertical and horizontal rudders and the propellers, and the counter mechanism for adjusting the length of run.

The Gyroscope.

From the foregoing description of the many devices employed to enable the Whitehead to accomplish the tasks for which it is intended, it might be thought that everything that science could imagine has been done to ensure its efficiency. There still, however, remained one great drawback to the efficiency of the torpedo, and this was its deflection from right to left, which was often so serious as to prevent it from striking the object at which it was aimed. The hydrostatic valve and the pendulum were sufficient to keep the torpedo at the required depth without diverging from her true vertical course, but it was apt to swerve from its course in a right or left direction either by reason of the blow it received on striking the water, by dents on its shell, by air leakage, or other causes. An error of only one degree in its course means a lateral error of nearly 50 feet at 800 yards, and it was in order to prevent the deflection of the Whitehead out of the line of fire that the principle of the gyroscope has been applied to the torpedo. In addition to her pair of ordinary vertical rudders, which may be set to any angle up to 20 degrees by means of a clamping screw, the torpedo carries a pair of movable vertical rudders placed in recesses in the vertical fins and controlled by the gyroscope through a servo-motor. The ordinary vertical rudders are usually discarded if the latter are carried.

In a manifesto issued in July, 1901, the Navy League declared that owing to the lack of prevision no adequate provision for gyroscopes and other “essentials of efficient fighting” had been made. Soon afterwards, in the House of Commons, Mr. Arnold Forster, referring to the condition of the navy, remarked that the gyroscope was an exceedingly complicated and beautiful appliance, which from its nature and mechanism you could not get by sending round the corner. Its manufacture, he said, was a long process, involving considerable skilled labour, but still it had been carried out with unremitting zeal, and a great many vessels were supplied with them, He assured the House that there had been no relaxation in the effort to provide all torpedoes with this necessary and desirable accomplishment.

The working of the gyroscope as applied to the Whitehead torpedo may now be described. In the centre of the lower part of the buoyancy chamber is placed a small heavy-rimmed flywheel or gyroscope about 1¾ lbs. in weight, carefully suspended on gymbals (like a ship’s compass) in a vertical position and transverse to the axis of the torpedo. The apparatus is “set” by winding up a strong spring, and the action of firing the torpedo from the tube releases the spring and causes the gyroscope to spin round at a rate of about 2,200 revolutions a minute. The use of the gyroscope is based on the fact that if a wheel be set spinning on its axis with any considerable velocity, it will always tend to revolve in the same place to which it is set spinning. The gyroscope works a servo-motor, which in its turn works a pair of movable vertical rudders, and the slightest deviation from the direction in which the torpedo was originally fired causes the gyroscope to move the rudders and bring back the torpedo to its pre-determined course. Thanks to the hydrostatic valve, the pendulum, and the gyroscope, the Whitehead torpedo is almost certain to hit the object at which it is aimed. In peace manoeuvres the Whitehead has often been run absolutely dead straight, with no divergence either up or down, or from right to left, to a distance of 2,000 yards. In 1890 the range of the Whitehead (Mark X R.L.) was officially placed at 800 yards, so the value of the gyroscope is quite evident.

Torpedoes are fired in four ways—

1.

By submerged tubes.

2.

By above-water tubes.

3.

By revolving tubes.

4.

By boat’s “dropping gear.”

The torpedo is blown out of the tube either by compressed air suddenly injected into the rear end, or by an impulse charge of a few ounces of powder, usually cordite. The air pressure varies from 300 to 600 lbs. to the square inch, and the powder charge from 4 oz. to 6½ oz. Submerged tubes are of course tubes below the water-line, and all the most recent ships are fitted with these, as their advantages over above-water tubes are universally recognised. After the Chino-Japanese war all governments, when demanding designs for new warships, made it almost a sine qua non that the torpedoes should be discharged from below water. In firing torpedoes from above-water tubes the torpedo is liable to be hit by the enemy, and it is generally considered that if the tube be hit by even a small projectile it must inevitably explode; the submerged tube affords protection both to the men and the weapon, while the torpedo is less deflected on entering the water. The weight of the submerged tube is some 7 tons, 2 tons more than an above-water one. In order to avoid any possibility of the Whitehead inflicting injury on the vessel firing it, and in order that it may be as little deflected as possible, a guiding bar is run out of the tube by means of pneumatic power when the torpedo has been placed in it. The guiding bar holds and guides the torpedo until quite clear of the ship, when by means of a secret apparatus it releases the torpedo at the end simultaneously; without this arrangement the torpedo would be enormously deflected towards the stern directly it began to leave the tube, and would probably strike the ship from which it had just been fired.

Revolving tubes are carried either singly or in pairs on board torpedo-boats and destroyers, and the torpedoes are fired from them by powder impulse only. “Dropping gear” is only used on second-class torpedo boats and picket boats. It consists of a pair of clip tongs suspended from pivoted davits; the tongs being opened, the torpedo falls into the water, the engines are set in motion, and it speeds off to do its deadly work. The torpedoes for the English Admiralty are made at the Royal Gun Factory, by Messrs. Greenwood and Batley, of Leeds, and by Mr. Whitehead’s factory at Portland.

Mr. Whitehead has another factory at Fiume, whence he supplies almost all the Great Powers with his torpedoes. In time of war the torpedo would be discharged by an officer in the conning tower; by the aid of a torpedo directory he would make the necessary adjustments and would fire the torpedo down below by pressing his hand on an electric key, thus completing a circuit connected with the firing apparatus in the tube.

About the year 1878 a gentleman in holy orders, Mr. Garrett by name, designed a submarine boat, which was built by Messrs. Cochrane, of Liverpool. It was 45 feet long, of the shape of two cones, with a central cylindrical portion. This vessel, to which the name of Resurgam was given, was tried in the Birkenhead Float in 1879. It descended by means of pistons which varied the displacement of the boat by being drawn in and pushed out, as well as by central rudders which steered it up and down. Compressed-air tanks were provided, and chemicals were stored to purify the air after use.

Soon after a larger boat was constructed in which steam replaced manual labour as the motive power; when about to sink the chimney was removed and an air-tight stopper fitted on the opening to the up-take; the furnace mouths were similarly closed by doors, like those of a gas retort, and the boat sank. Power was supplied on Lamm’s system by the hot water in the boiler. After a number of experiments she was finally lost off the Welsh coast.

The attention of Mr. Thorsten Nordenfelt (the inventor of the gun which bears his name) was directed to Mr. Garrett’s design, and the result was that he decided to build a submarine vessel himself. He acknowledged that the negative experience gained during the trials of the Garrett boat had been of advantage to him in avoiding the faults which made that boat unsuccessful.

Mr. Nordenfelt’s first submarine boat was built at Stockholm, and was tried in the Sound of Landskrova, in Sweden, in September, 1885, in the presence of delegates from most of the leading Governments.

Its dimensions and details were as follows: Length 64 feet, beam 9 feet (over sponsons 12 feet), draught 11 feet, displacement 60 tons; speed on measured mile 9 knots; distance travelled without re-coaling 150 miles; depth to which safe descent was possible, about 50 feet. Engines, surface condensing compound type, with two cylinders and cranks at 90°; at pressure of 100 lbs. to square inch, indicating 100 horse-power. Boiler of ordinary marine return tube type, having one furnace, and about 200 square feet of heating surface; two hot-water cisterns, rhomboidal in body with spherical ends. The boilers and cisterns contained about eight tons of water. Both boilers and cisterns were made for a working pressure of 150 lbs. to square inch. One fish torpedo, 14 feet long, was carried outside on the bow and discharged mechanically. The sinking apparatus consisted of two vertical propellers driven by a 6–h.p. double-cylinder engine, and placed in sponsons on each side of the boat. The revolution of these caused the boat to descend horizontally when its buoyancy had been sufficiently diminished. There was one cold-water tank in the centre of boat, holding about four tons of water, for regulating buoyancy. This tank was used as coal bunker when doing long surface runs. In the stern was a four-bladed propeller 5 feet in diameter, and the rudder for port and starboard steering was placed aft of this propeller.

In the bow on either side were balanced rudders on one and the same axle, always maintained in the horizontal position. The crew consisted of three men, and when the boat was closed up there was sufficient air to supply three men for six hours without causing discomfort, and this was not supplemented by any storage of compressed air or restorative chemicals. The depth below the surface at which the boat travelled could be varied in two ways; either by varying the speed of the vertical propellers, or by reducing the speed of the engines driving them by an automatic valve controlling the steam supply. On the surface the boat was driven by working the boiler in the usual manner, and the temperature of the water in the cisterns was kept up to a degree corresponding to a steam pressure of 150 lbs. When it was desired to descend, the ashpit and fire door were closed, as also the funnel inside the boat, and the vertical propellers were started. For sub-surface travelling there was available, as propelling power, the steam given off by the heated water (about eight tons), and this was found sufficient for a distance of 14 knots; on one occasion, when the boat was opened up, there was still over 20 lbs. pressure in the boiler.

Mr. Nordenfelt recognised that for the defence of open coasts and for operations where it might be necessary to keep the sea for days together without being able to seek the shelter of inlets or the mouths of rivers, other and larger proportions than those of his first 64 foot-boat would be desirable.

He accordingly constructed a boat on such larger lines, the details of which are as follows:—

Length 100 feet, beam 12 feet, displacement 160 tons, speed on measured mile 12 knots, distance travelled without re-coaling 900 miles, depth to which descent could safely be made, about 50 feet. Engines, surface condensing compound type, with two cylinders, and cranks at 90°, and at a pressure of 100 lbs. of steam indicating 250 h.p. Boiler, of the ordinary marine return tube type, having two furnaces; about 750 square feet of heating surface. Hot-water cistern, rhomboidal in body with spherical ends. Both boiler and cistern made for a working pressure of 150 lbs. per square inch. Armament, two fish torpedoes, 14 feet long, carried outside on the bow and discharged mechanically. Two Nordenfelt quick-firing machine guns consisting of 1–inch calibre. Sinking apparatus, two vertical propellers, driven by two engines, each indicating 6 h.p.; these propellers were placed in the fore and aft line. This was an improvement on the earlier boat whose screws were fitted in side sponsons. The mere arrest of these propellers sufficed to bring the boat to the surface, as it had a reserve buoyancy. Bow fins, whose action was both automatic and controllable, maintained the boat in the horizontal position. The main propeller was placed abaft the rudder. Two main cold-water cisterns placed at each end, and containing 15 tons of water each, also one in centre of boat for regulating buoyancy containing 7 tons; coal bunkers on the side of boiler; 8 tons of coal carried at the side of hot-water cistern and in middle of boat. Crew, three men in a watch: two watches carried. With coal in the bunkers only, this boat could keep the sea for five days or more. No attempt was made to purify the air when submerged. When descending, the boat was perfectly horizontal, and was invariably kept so when moving under water by means of the bow rudders operated by a plumb weight.

Nordenfelt II. had two distinct conditions of existence as a torpedo craft—that of a surface boat and a submarine one. The sinking operations were as follows: the furnaces were hermetically closed, upon which combustion was soon brought to an end. The piece of funnel connecting the boiler with the outward portion was then removed and the doors placed in position. Whilst these changes were being effected, water was allowed to run into the ballast tanks to reduce the buoyancy to its proper limit, and this arrived at, nothing remained but to close up the conning tower and to set in motion the vertically acting screws to place the boat quite out of sight.

In a paper which he read before the Royal United Service Institution, on February 5, 1886, Major-General Sir Andrew Clarke in the chair, Mr. Nordenfelt after mentioning previous under-water vessels, gave his views as to the reason of their failure.

First of all he said they were always built too small and too weak. The longest was 45 feet, and their small dimensions and weak plates made them useless in bad weather and dangerous for submersion; the small air space available forced the crew to use chemical means to obtain pure air. Secondly, they were never made for firing a fish torpedo; consequently they had to endeavour to fix a mine to the bottom of a vessel, a feat which Mr. Nordenfelt considered impracticable, owing to the risk of contact with the vessel, which, especially if it were pitching or moving, might easily destroy the boat. Thirdly, in all the early boats, the mines were charged with only black powder, the effect of which was less destructive than that of the gun-cotton or dynamite in the fish torpedoes. The effect of the explosion, again, against a wooden ship, was nothing like as serious as against the thin bottom plates of an ironclad. Fourthly, all the boats hitherto in use were propelled by hand power; this gave too much hard work to the crew, who could not take the boat any distance on the surface previous to the actual attack, and made it quite impossible for it to face any rough weather. In the Nordenfelt boat the use of steam diminished the number of men, and they had so little to do when below the surface that the temperature, lower than in modern stokeholes, was no detriment. Fifthly, all previous boats had most unreliable means of descending and ascending. The descent by steering downwards in the American boats of the Civil War period was quite as dangerous as the attempts before and after that time to lower and raise the boats and to keep them steady at any desired depth, by means of increasing and decreasing the weight of the boats by more or less water-ballast or by altering their displacement.

None of these boats used the principle which Mr. Nordenfelt applied to pull his boat down by mechanical means, while relying upon its always retained buoyancy for rising; so that if the mechanical apparatus failed the boat rose at once to the surface. Again, they did not have the tendency to steadiness given by the two forces of constant pulling down by the vertical screws, acting all the time, whether still or moving, against the pulling upwards caused by the buoyancy.

Mr. Nordenfelt considered it most dangerous to rely upon a detachable weight in case of emergency, as the apparatus for detaching it would be always liable to fail. He confessed that he could not imagine how the longitudinal instability of a submerged boat could possibly have been satisfactorily controlled by any of the means applied to the previous boats. Even Goubet’s system of moving water or weights fore and aft inside the boat must act more slowly and cause more diving and oscillation than his rudders which always remained in the horizontal, and thus controlled the slightest tendency of the boat to get out of the longitudinally horizontal position. He considered it absolutely essential to keep the boat horizontal when moving, as he believed that any inclination downwards with the impetus of a heavy boat would almost to a certainty carry the boat below its safe depth before it could be effectually counteracted by shifting weights.

The reason which led Mr. Nordenfelt to construct his submarine boats was the almost insuperable difficulty in carrying the Whitehead and Schwarzkopf fish torpedoes with any degree of certainty up to the short distance at which they could be considered infallibly effective. It seemed to him that a much greater chance would be given for carrying the torpedoes within striking distance, if, instead of trying to rush the distance by many boats, all the time exposed to the destructive fire from machine guns, he could carry the torpedo secretly up to this distance without the probability of being seen at all, and without any probability of being struck by the enemy’s shot even if seen.

The tactics to be adopted by his submarines in action were thus laid down by Mr. Nordenfelt. Out of sight of the enemy the vessel ran on the surface with its cupola and about three feet of its turtle back out of water, but by forced draught, blowing out its smoke under the surface. When she arrived within such distance of the enemy that she might be discovered, she descended into the water so far that the cupola alone appeared above the waves, this was done by taking in water into the cold-water tanks sufficient to reduce the floatability to what the horizontal screws were capable of overpowering. The “reduced floatability” was never done away with, but the descent from the “awash” position was effected by starting the vertical screws, thus overcoming mechanically the buoyancy of the boat, which was pulled down to a less or greater depth depending upon the speed given to the screws.

The three main points in Mr. Nordenfelt’s system on which he laid special stress were these:

1. That by using water as the means of storing up energy he was in possession of a reservoir which could never get out of order, and which could be replaced at any hour in any part of the world, and without any extraneous assistance from shore or other ships. The reason of all others which at once decided him to adopt the hot-water system was the enormous factor of safety obtained by his being able to blow out, by steam pressure without the use of machinery, large weights of water which would lighten the boat and counteract any leak likely to occur. Mr. Nordenfelt had little faith in electricity as a motive power, which is not surprising considering the accumulators then in use.

2. The submerging the boat by mechanical means: Mr. Nordenfelt was convinced that previous attempts had proved unsuccessful, mainly because either they depended upon varying the displacement of the boat by taking in water to submerge her and to regulate the depth at which they desired to operate, or they descended by steering downwards. His objection to the first-named method of descending, by taking in water and thus increasing the specific gravity of the boat, was that practically there was no difference in the specific gravity of water on the surface or at 50 feet depth; thus when the boat had lost its buoyancy at the surface it had also no buoyancy at any given depth, and the risk was thus very great of suddenly descending beyond a safe depth.

3. The horizontal position Mr. Nordenfelt found to be a sine qua non for a submarine boat.

When Mr. Nordenfelt built his boats electric accumulators were very much inferior to those of to-day; no designer of an under-water vessel would think nowadays of using the steam given off by heated water for under-water propulsion. As to his theory that a submarine boat must always descend on an even keel, this has since proved to be entirely erroneous; the modern diving torpedo boat goes down at an angle and is brought to the horizontal position at the required depth either automatically or by hand-worked mechanism.

“NORDENFELT II.” AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

During her trials Nordenfelt I. hardly did herself justice, but nevertheless in the beginning of 1886, she was bought by the Greek Government, and in April, 1886, trials took place in the Bay of Salamis, when Mr. Nordenfelt’s agent carried out the various conditions imposed.

Shortly after the first boat had been bought by Greece, Turkey ordered two submarine boats (Nordenfelt II. and III.) from the inventor. Both boats were sent to Turkey in sections, but only one was assembled and tested. In 1887 it underwent trials at Constantinople, which were witnessed by the Sultan himself, who expressed himself highly satisfied with the performance of the boat.

Mr. Nordenfelt’s fourth vessel was built by the Barrow Ship Building Company, the machinery being supplied by Messrs. Plenty & Sons, Newbury.

The principal dimensions were: Length, 125 feet; diameter, 12 feet; displacement fully immersed, 245 tons; in light surface condition, 160 tons. The engines turning the main propeller were especially designed for using steam at varying pressures, and indicated 1,000 h.p. when working with steam at a pressure of 150 lbs. At that power her estimated speed was 15 knots. Submerged, her speed was 5 knots. Fourteen auxiliary engines were carried for driving air circulating and feed pumps for steering and sinking. In the middle was the entrance to the stokehole through a scuttle 4 feet in diameter. Fore and aft of this scuttle were two funnels, and about 30 feet from the stem and stern of the boat were the conning towers, 2 feet high and of the same diameter. They were of 1–inch steel and were considered perfectly impervious to any shot which in warfare would ever be directed against them. In the forward tower were placed at the hands of a commander means of controlling every motion of the vessel. The boat was divided into five compartments: (1) The torpedo chamber containing two tubes; (2) Quarters for four officers; (3) The boiler room; (4) The engine room; (5) The men’s quarters, cooking galley, stoves, &c. The crew consisted of nine men all told; 35 tons of cold water were carried in the tanks; and 27 tons of hot water in the boilers. These latter were expected to store sufficient heat for a run of 20 knots under water. The coal bunkers held stores of coal which, at a speed of 8–9 knots, could drive the boat a distance of 1,000 miles. Should it be necessary to transport her to a greater distance, her water tanks could be filled with coal, enabling her to steam 2,500 miles. Two vertical propellers, one forward and one aft, kept the vessel submerged and overcame the retained force of buoyancy (500 lbs.). The boat was lighted by candles; without any special provision of air it contained enough for a crew of nine men for about six hours.

Nordenfelt IV. made her passage from Barrow-in-Furness to Southampton through some heavy seas, and during the voyage she was tested by her commander in every wind and every condition of wave and sea, and she proved that she was capable of being manoeuvred in any weather, however bad.

On the 26th of May, 1887, she underwent her first examination before a body of critics, composed for the most part of skilled, experienced scientific officers of both branches of the Service. She was first run with nothing above water save the two conning towers and a few inches of her back, at the rate of about six miles an hour. The time occupied by the trial in the awash condition was 1½ hours, and at the end of the time a sufficiency of steam was stored up in the boilers to drive her a distance of about 24 miles. On the pumps being put in motion, some 20 tons of water were pumped out in eight minutes. The funnels were then fixed, the fires relighted, and the Nordenfelt was soon making 15 knots on the surface.

On December 19, 1887, a semi-official trial of the Nordenfelt took place, when she manoeuvred successfully both on the surface and submerged, but no attempt was made to fire the torpedoes.

“The neutral tint she was painted,” wrote the special correspondent of the Engineer, “rendered her almost invisible at the distance of even a few hundred yards, while as a target she presented nothing to attack save the two conning towers and a few inches of her turtle back, and as these were of great strength and rendered still more invulnerable by their shape, it is all but certain that no gun carried on any other torpedo boat would ever do her the slightest injury, while she at the same time possesses the enormous advantage of being able to attack without smoke, or fire, or noise. Indeed, given these advantages of a minimum of target and a total absence of noise and smoke, we fail to see what more could be desired in any vessel of war.”

In a leading article in the issue of December 23, 1887, the Engineer said: “We may—we hope we shall—have quite a little fleet of Nordenfelts when Christmas comes round again. When once Columbus had shown the way to America, the water was freely traversed.”

The correspondent of the Army and Navy Gazette said that the Nordenfelt had a great and assured future before it, that with a gun or two on her turtle back, and working as an above-water torpedo boat, she certainly possessed many advantages over the ordinary first-class torpedo boat, and that her powers of submersing should make her the more valuable craft, the cost being the same. “It is not likely or advisable that a number of such boats should be at once built, but the country which can give £100,000 for a Brennan torpedo would do well to further, in every possible manner, trials and experiments with a boat so simple, yet possessing such possibilities in the future.”

It will be very naturally wondered why, in spite of these favourable opinions, the Nordenfelt was so soon forgotten. The answer may be found in some recent issues of the Engineer. This journal published, during the years 1886–1888, all the information that was suffered to leak out concerning the experiments with the Nordenfelt boats. In 1901, by the courtesy of Mr. P. W. D’Alton (now Chief Engineer to the Central London Railway), who was associated with Mr. Garrett and Mr. Nordenfelt, it was enabled to state much more than had hitherto been made public.

Taking first the Turkish boat, it was easily proved that as a boat working near the surface, but not wholly submerged, she was fast, manageable, and a very dangerous foe because of the difficulty of finding her, and the very small mark which she offered.

As a submarine boat, she was entirely a failure.

“She had the fault of all submarine boats, viz., a total lack of longitudinal stability. All submarines are practically devoid of weight when under water. The Nordenfelt, for example, weighed by a couple of hundredweights less than nothing when submerged, and had to be kept down by screw-propellers provided for the purpose. The Turkish boat was submerged by admitting water to tanks aided by horizontal propellers, and raised by blowing the ballast out again and reversing the propellers. Nothing could be imagined more unstable than this Turkish boat. The moment she left the horizontal position the water in her boiler and the tanks surged forward and backwards and increased the angle of inclination. She was perpetually working up and down like a scale beam, and no human vigilance could keep her on an even keel for half a minute at a time. Once, and we believe only once, she fired a torpedo with the result that she as nearly as possible stood up vertically on her tail and proceeded to plunge to the bottom stern first. On another occasion all hands were nearly lost. Mr. Garrett was in the little conning tower. The boat was being slowly submerged—an operation of the utmost delicacy—before a committee of Ottoman officers, when a boat came alongside without warning. Her wash sent a considerable quantity of water down the conning tower, the lid of which was not closed, and the submarine boat instantly began to sink like a stone. Fortunately Mr. Garrett got the lid closed just in time, and Mr. Lawrie, the engineer, without waiting for orders, blew some water ballast out. It was an exceedingly narrow escape. In spite of these difficulties, the Ottoman officers were so impressed that the Turkish Government bought the boat. It goes without saying that it was only with the greatest difficulty the price was extracted from the Sultan’s treasury. But no use whatever has been made of her, and she lies rotting away in Constantinople, unless, indeed, she has found her way piecemeal to the marine-store dealers. A paramount difficulty in the way of utilising her was that no engineers could be got to serve in her. If men were appointed they promptly deserted. Indeed, it may be taken as certain that not one man in five hundred is fit to take charge of any submarine boat.”

The Engineer is not less severe on Nordenfelt IV.

“To all intents and purposes the Nordenfelt was a total failure as a submarine boat. She began badly. As soon as she was launched from the stocks at Barrow it was seen that a mistake had been made in calculating weight, as she was down by the stern, drawing 9 feet aft and about 4 feet 6 inches forward. This would have been partially rectified by her torpedoes, but she never had one on board. Extra ballast had to be put in forward, and it was always held, rightly or wrongly, that this made it all the more difficult to keep her on an even keel, when submerged. The extra weight carried militated greatly against her speed as a surface boat. Another mistake was that the water ballast tanks were too large, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that they were not sufficiently subdivided. When she was in just the proper condition to be manoeuvred by her horizontal propellers the ballast tanks were only about three-quarters full, and the water being left free surges backwards and forwards in them. It must not be forgotten, however, that ample tank capacity was necessary because the quantity of ballast needed, depended on the number of tons of coal and stores on board. Subdivision would, however, have prevented the surging of the ballast water. If, for example, the boat was moving forward or on an even keel at, say, two knots, if a greaser walked forward a couple of feet in his engine room her head would go down a little. Then the water surged forward in the tanks, and she would proceed to plunge, unless checked, and in shallow water would touch the bottom, as she did on the Mother Bank in the Solent, or if in deep water she would run down until the pressure of water collapsed her hull. No one who has not been down in a submarine can realise their extraordinary crankness. The Nordenfelt was always rising or falling, and required the greatest care in handling.”