SUBMARINE BOATS.

Evening Star, Issue 3089, 13 January 1873, Page 3

SUBMARINE BOATS.

Wo give the following account of the submarine boat, a company for the application of which to river gold minim: in Few Zealand, has been formed. It is taken from “Household Words” of 1800, and will be read with interest by all classes, but espepecially by those engaged in gathering gold from our rivers’ beds : The Auguste—the name of the first diving boat, and therefore worthy to bo recorded—the Auguste lay, on the first of September in this present year of grace one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, moored by four anchors exactly over the point on which her crew were to continue their work of excavation. The sea was calm; and though a certain buoyancy was perceptible in the vessel, there was nothing approaching to heaving or tossing. You will first want to know what the Auguste was like. T answer that she had a resemblance to nothing so much as to some strange sea-monster come up from the abyss of the ocean to take a breath of air and a glim vac of sunshine, and then go down again a simile which wid not give you a very clear idea of the object of your curiosity. Thcrcf to, to be more precise and homely in my comparisons, the Auguste in color is bright red, like a boiled lobstc r. As to shape —take two boiled lobsters, remove their heads, clap the two decapitated portions to-, gether, contri' e to float them in the sea, back upwards, in such a way that only the thicker part of the body is above water—of course, greatly magnify them in idea—and you have the best notion 1 can give you of the Auguste lying at anchor. t-be is built entirely of iron? and the joinings of the pieces and the bands encircling the structure increase her lobster-like appearance. The windows - small circular plates d inch thick glass, here and (here let in as firmly as iron can fix them are not noticed at a distance ; but, when you are walking on the surface of the Plunger, they remind you of the '.n eon glimmering eyes which a magnifier will show you upon a spider’s back.' In short, M. Payerne has in vented a new species of marine crustacean, which is naked and worm-like externally, having neither claws nor tins ; but, which is provided internally with an air-bladder like that of many fishes ; with lunss which are reservoirs of air, as those of the camel are reservoirs of water ; and with spiracles ami siphuncles capable of producing various effects, in imitation of the functions they would perform in the entrails of the nautilus and the ammonite. Fins and claws, or legs and fest, a screw tail for locomotive purposes, or perhaps, wings even—for who can tell ? - may one day sprout through the shed of the Auguste. In which case she must be considered at present as a mere larva or grub, or at most only in the chrysalis state, from which the perfect full-fledged insect is to burst forth some bright sunshiny morning.

I ought to mention that the Auguste, though called a Diving Bateau, or boat, has not m herself the means of progressive motion through the waters, as by sail or oar, which the word “boat” suggests to the mind. She can sink, and she can rise to the surface without assistance. But, in order to arrive at the spot where a de-cont is proposed to be made, she has to be towed through the waves by a steamer or a sailing vessel. The only things which interrupt the surface, or grow out of the hard smooth shell of thr Auguste’s back, are Firstly, a ring on what may be called the croup of the creature, behind, and another on the back of its nock, before ; these are for the purpose of towing it ; they are buttonholes in which to fix its Fading-strings when it is sent out from its home-pond, like a trained hippopotamus, to perform its task under water. Secondly, quite in the middle of the back, there is a small rectangular hole, or trapdoor, which might bo called in French either a porte or a tvou d'homme— this is the place of exit and entrance for the crow. ' ver it springs an arch of har iron, about five feet high and two or three inches thick, which is technically styled a potenee , or gallows, only in the pla e where a strangled man should be suspended, there bang a pulley and r pes, that can be attached to the trap-door, for a purpose which you will understand by and bye. The entire length of the Auguste, is thirteen metre*, a metre being somewhat more than an English yard. Fall it a vessel fortyfeet long. The internal chamber, or hold, or submarine workplace, is five metres, or fifteen feet long. Nine men go down in it comfortably ; a dozen find themselves a little crowded. The two extremities, that is to say, the whole remaining apace, arc employed for the double purpose of reservoirs of condensed air, and hydrostatic regulators of equilibrium. These last words may, perhaps, sound a little hard, but they shall soon be made considerably plainer. The extremity—which we may call the tail —of the crustacean is bend-spherical, or rounded off in a circular form ; the front oi snout end is conical, or very bluntly pointed, with, however, a tend ncy to bulge out, wards, The apparatus at each extremity it similar, and outside, close to certain pumps at each end of the chamber, are the Auguste’s breathing holes or spiracles—tubes fitted with valves for the discharge ol water, mainly, but, sometimes, of air, Suppose, then, the Auguste lying at anchoi iu diving trim, waiting for nothing but th< bold crew who shall man her. The inventoi pushes off in a boat, in company with hi; inquisitive visitor; wc soon touch th' Plunger vessel, and I jump on board, auc am taken into the interior through th< little square trap door. The air reservoir: are indeed charged, for the doctor, ii proof thereof, touches a screw, and ou whistles a blast worthy of the imprisonec winds of .Bolus, The floor of iron is alsi an entire trap-door, into which other sraal ones are let, to be opened, as most con venient, at the bottom of the sea whereve search is to be made, or work performed Many of the present details, however, ma; be considered as not final, but as temporal" arrangements ; for almost every day suggest improvements in an invention which is a once so novel and so bold. The grand prir ciple alone must remain unchanged. Yo will not suppose that the cabin of the August (for it has only a single apartment) is a ver luxurious retreat; that it is panelled wit mahogany and looking-glass, hung with fes toons of muslins and silk, or strewn wit cushions of velvet padded with down. Ihj first submarine boat is asfar from the though of such superfluities as was the first surfacr going steamer. It is of no use calling for th steward to bring you an ice, a pint of chair pagne, or a new-laid egg warranted never f hpye kpown the touch of terra fh'ina ; nor ar you put to the inconvenience of puzzlin your brains as to which of the Wavi-rl novels you shall take down from their stylis bookcase. In the first steamer, the stoker

apartment would be the place of honor, and perhaps almost the only place ; on board the Auguste, the wind-man’s and the bellowsman’s cabinet is everything—quarter-dock, fore-cabin, aft-cabin, state-room, kitchen, and all. You find yourself in a low apartment, in which you cannot stand upright after the awful uppbr trap door is closed • but that does nob matter, because you have not time to be cramped, and, as soon as you pet to the bottom, you open the trap in the floor, cause the waters to retreat by the force of your condensed air, and find yourself standing on the actual bed of the sea—on rock, or sand, or shingle, or whatever else it may be. The walls, too, are iron, and round them runs a low divan, likewise of iron, on which the company seat themselves until they commeneb their aquatic 1 labors—their waterworks, if I may so denominate them. The only decorations observable are sundry screws and cocks and pump handles and pipes, thenecessary agentafor thernanreuvring of the vessel; the only furniture a pailful of thick creamy whitewash, and a large pair of bellows. j {To le continued.)