THE ROMANCE OF THE SUBMARINE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 193, 18 September 1909, Page 3

THE ROMANCE OF THE SUBMARINE

TlnTo are probably many that look on the submarine as one of the latest of scientific marvels who will be 6urpris<?d to learn that it was no great novelty to our ancestors three centuries ago, when Milton was in his cradle and Raleigh was busy writing his "History" in the Tower of London. The seventeenth century was but an infant when Cornelius Drebcll, a clever Dutchman, brought his wonderful boat, which "could swimtnc under tho water like a fyshe," to the Thames, and all London flocked to the riverside to watch the antics of this new monster. James | L. was among the thousands of spec-' tators, his Royal mouth agape with wonder; and probably Shakespeare and Bacon were also among the crowd. LIKE A FISH. Drebcll's boat was a weird-looking craft, carrying twelve rowers besides passengers; and she seeui6 to have done, all her designer claimed for her—sinking j and rising and moving under the water j like a fish. The chief marvel of this: Dutch submarine was "a liquid that l would speedily restore to the air such a j proportion of vital parts as would make' it again for a good while fit for respiration. But although a learned Bishop, in 1048. published a treatise "Concerning the Possibility of Framing an Ark for Submarine Navigation," we read nothing more of the submarine for a century and a quarter, when, in 1774, an inventor named Day startled the world by announcing that he would descend in a boat i Plymouth Sound and remain under water for a quarter of an hour, The descent was successfully made in the presence of thousands of onlookers,' but the adventurous Mr. Day was seen' no more. He was the first on the long roll of victims of the submarine. I A WONDERFUL VESSEL. ; I In the following year an American inventor called Bnslinell produced a really . wonderful vessel for submarine use. J ' strange-looking boat it was, it is true,' resembling two upper tortoise-shells joined together, the operator (there .was] only room for one man inside) cntcrhg| through an opening in the head. It i was sunk or raised by means of an oar I in the form of a screw, and was pro-1 polled, by another oar. Such, in rough outline, was Bushnell's boat, in which he was able to remain under the surfa.ee for half an hour at a time, moving swiftly and easily in any direction. Behind; the vessel was "a magazine containing 1501b of powder,' for attachment, by means of a screw, to I the hull of an enemy's ship. I AN OPERATOR'S BLUNDER. ' During the War of Independence an; attempt was made to destroy the • British warship Eagle, but through tie) operator's bungling the magazine floated awav from the ship and exploded harm-' lossly. ■ After Bushnell came Fulton, the clever i Irishman who was the first to make a success of steam navigation. Tn 1801 j Fulton built three submarine boats, onel of which, the Nautilus, which was pro- • pellcd by manual power and supplied! with compressed air, Fulton once stayed; under water for hours, placing a tor-' pedo, also of his own invention, under: a vessel provided for the purpose and! blowing it "to atoms." But Fulton, in spite of the pronounced success of his boat, received so little encouragement! that he abandoned his experiments In' clisL'llst. I EGA-SHAPED BOAT. Hut submarines now began to follow' one another in rapid succession. Tn 1859 Mr. Delaney, a. Chicago inventor, pro-1 duced an ingenious vessel, shaped 'ike I an egg, and raised or sunk by the pumping of water out of or iiito a tank. Four years later the Plongeur. a vessel I4llft long and driven by an SO-h.p. engine, appeared in France; and the fol-' lowing year saw the submarine fully launched as a weapon of war. During the American Civil War a submarine, called the David, after her designer, was expected to do deadly work against the enemy. Sl lo was a cigarshaped vessel made of boiler-plates, and propelled by a hand by n crew of nine men. at a speed of fniir knots an hour. Three times she made a trial trip, and every time she sank and failed to rise again, drowning her crew. At her fourth attempt, however, she got successfully out of the harbor, launched a torpedo at; the Federal ship TTousatonie, and blew her up. lint, alas! she was too slow in samink her escape, and w.is carried to the liottom of the sea with her victim, having thus destroyed thirty-six lives during her brief andil!starrcd existence,—Tit-Bits.