ADMIRALTY NEGLECT.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 19 October 1901, Page 4

ADMIRALTY NEGLECT.

The lot of the unknown inventor is provorbally hard. When he tries to gain the ear of the British Admiralty his cup of bitterness generally overflows, particularly when his eloquent appeals produce only the stereotyped reply that the matter will he “laid before the Board.” Such has been the experience of a Mr T. H. Williamson, the inventor of a “deadly submarine” with entirely new features, to which he has devoted nearly £SOOO and four years’ hard work. A London paper to which Mr Williamson has carried his plaint publishes some particulars of the invention which a cold hearted Admiralty persists in ignoring It states that a large and expensive model of the submarine has been constructed by the inventor, and operated with great succuss, so that it is certainly beyond the theoretical stage. The length of the full-sized sub-marine as planned by Mr Williamson is ICO feet, and the diameter 12 feet, The ends are sharpiy conical, and carry two propellers each, sot at an angle to the centreline of the vessel. Six fins issue from the vessel’s hull —two set perpendicularly on the sides to aid in steering the boat; two placed horizontally to assist the vessel in diving and rising; and two emerging fanliko from the heavy keel to act as centre boards. By an ingenious device each end of the boat can be opened, to allow torpedoes to be launched, and other contrivance secures a supply of purified air that will sustain the crew, while under water, “for many hours.” The inventor claims for his machine “novelty in shape, construction, armament, air supply, and motive power” —a fairly comprehensive list of items 1 The elective motor for propelling the boat is one of his own invention; “wonderfully economical of power,” and capable, he asserts, of maintaining a speed of twenty miles an hour under water. The submarine may or may not be all that its inventor claims, but the Admiralty have not even troubled to send an engineer to look at it.