Show iii iH fay r V fak f J V A s A i fi t i S lv l v f x i A ay A A yat ti yx cwi w t t ste 0 t aai i Ai arf tx t i y c f t S kf w aws 1 lt f V 1 I 1 l fuji Y I 1 w ay i s J S s I 1 av byaw t A i A ay 1 f I 1 il wl y f 1 1 bilas i ji y I 1 axt jy J y ltv tai ta lofy i f sf A A I 1 Y r 1 l 1 l 0 eminent an authority as admiral W sir percy scott of the british navy alte declared the other day that the doom arb ot the dreadnought dread naught had been bounded by the development of sub y marines he asserted unequivocally a that even the V were archaic and that experiments had proved conclusively that no fighting ship was safe from the at tack of the submarine day or night why then spend millions or armor clad he asked the pronouncement Is the more impressive because admiral scott has probably done more than any other living naval man to make the battleship the offensive fighting machine it Is today dy a system of director firing he improved the capability of making hits quite per cent and showed how a whole battery of monster rifles could be manipulated as a unit and the tremendous salvo brought to bear upon a distant target with amazing precision in a word he made the dreadnought dread naught a wonderful ly formidable instrument of attack and yet today in the face of that unparalleled record he says I 1 see no use for battleships there Is in this country an authority of a kindred way of thinking simon lake who has done a great deal toward making the submarine what 3 on lake anticipated ad maral mr sir percy scott by many years in predicting the passing of the heavy ships of the battle line Q a okd the other for panon 01 the r british admiral s sweeping views I 1 still believe as I 1 always have that the sub marine will drive the heavy armored battleship from the seas he replied and that it will be the means employed by all countries with a sea board to prevent invasion from the sea the partisan of the battleship points with reasonable pride to the spectacular performances of his giant turret guns and he tells you of the many inches of hardened steel that the points of his armor piercing projectiles can perforate truly these doings are little short of marvelous out the advocate of the gun Is a prejudiced ex pert withal for he will not believe the torpedo to be a formidable rival why simply because gen brally he takes little interest in this order of weapon but the torpedo Is coming into its own it Is an instrument of precision and stupendous destructive tive might where it could not travel more than 1800 yards with any chance of hitting the target a few years back it can now cover a als tance of 12 yards and make that run at an average of nearly 30 knots in some particulars it Is even more accurate than the gun it travels far enough below the surface to be unaffected by the state of the sea with its warhead charge of several hundred pounds of high explosive attacking a ship where she is least prepared for assault the detonation of that substance will cause a far greater wound than it Is possible to produce with ft number of the biggest projectiles yes I 1 think sir percy scott is right and his admission means much more because it comes from an expert who has heretofore favored the gun and the what do I 1 think of the submarines of the fu ture how big do I 1 think they will be well I 1 have done some prophesying in the past and have been frankly pooh by the unbelievers believers un so you will understand my present reluctance to predict just how large submarines will eventually be built there are mechanical problems that must be overcome first the development of the submarine has not been aa rapid as I 1 anticipated and this has been due to the difficulty of securing satisfactory engines the gasoline engine has been somewhat als credited as a motor for underwater boats because of the explosive character of its fuel we have bad a number of distressing accidents due to the unexpected ignition of the fumes of gasoline yes the heavy oil engine promises to meet the needs but there has been a good deal of difficulty in a reliable heavy oil reversible internal combustion engine thanks to the genius of dr rudolf diesel the way to success has been blazed nd as the heavy oil engine evolves the size and he speed of submarines will increase proportion bely As a mattar of fact wa have already lo 10 mind f s r A 2500 tons with the speed of a bat and it may be possible to build them ot a speed equal to that of the fast cruisers but the handicap in properly them has caused us to hesitate in putting propositions forward for their construction the moment a reliable engine Is provided that will furnish a speed equal to that of the surface vessel of whatever type such sur face vessel may be that moment surface vessels of that order will become obsolete for purposes of war their only use will be to train seamen and to carry the flag in times of peace how did I 1 begin my work in submarine favl well the story is not a long one of course you will expect me to tell you that julea verne s twenty thousand leagues under the sea was my inspiration and you shan t be disappointed from my boyhood days that scientific romance gripped me irresistibly and I 1 was not more than nineteen when I 1 began experimenting in a crude way it was then and I 1 was living at toms river N J my preliminary investigation was in an overturned rowboat under which I 1 crawled to see how long I 1 could survive in the air confined close up to the inner bottom of that craft I 1 stayed there so long that a passing fisherman thought me drowned and righted the boat ex to tow it ashore and to report my loss in 1893 as you possibly recall the navy department part ment asked for bids for a submarine boat I 1 submitted the design of one intended to travel on the surface in between the bottom and the surface or on the waterbed water bed a sort of underwater automobile so to speak I 1 bad no financial backer and the government exacted that the successful bidder should put up a bond as a guarantee of contract fulfillment needless to remark I 1 did not get any recognition of a substantial sort but I 1 did obtain favorable comment from some of the official critics that at least gave me encouragement shortly afterward I 1 moved to atlantic high lands and there thanks to the financial assist ance of an aunt I 1 built the submarine which I 1 jok angly named argonaut jr that was in 1894 the argonaut jr was a box built of yellow pine timber in two layers coated with coal tar and lined with felt to make it water tight it was 14 feet long 4 feet wide and had a depth of 5 feet it was mounted upon wooden wheels the vessel was intended to navigate only on the bottom and was driven by hand power a crank shaft ending outside with sprocket wheels was geared by a chain belt to the two rear drivers inside the bow part of the boat was partitioned oft by an air tight bulkhead which made the fore moat compartment a veritable diving bell with a water tight door in the floor that could be opened for air storage the boat carried a soda water tank and a plumbers hand pump did duty as an air compressor when the confined air reached a suitable pressure the bottom door could be dropped without tear of the water coming in when the argonaut jr was submerged the craft was finished on christmas day of 1894 and then launched but ehe was not in the water more than a quarter of an hour when a sudden storm swept her ashore and damaged one of the wheels when the spring of 1895 came I 1 was face to face with something of a problem the argonaut jr was at the bottom of 14 feet of water and partly burled in soft mud my task was to her and to make her ready tor further experiments and tor demonstrations looking to the interesting of very much needed capital now regular diving suits are an expensive matter and my funds were so extremely low that I 1 bad run around well nigh barefooted during the winter in order that every penny available could be used in connection with my embryo sub marine when milder weather came 1 had ready a diving dress of my own devising for a helmet I 1 llred a framework of light iron rods covered with painted can vas and made it fit snugly over my shoulders and to strap under my arms for a face plate I 1 used the glass deadlight from the air port of an abandoned sloop and to help me to submerge I 1 tied sash weights to mv legs common garden hose wound with wire served to carry my air supply from the surface in this fashion I 1 reached the ar bonaut jr closed her up and put in pipes to pump out in my anxiety to succeed I 1 tolled under water tor several hours and in consequence spent the better part of a week in bed afterward in that brief time I 1 lost 40 pounds in weight but I 1 mind that because the boat was afloat again the argonaut jr was not designed to submerge deeper than 20 feet and my main object in building her was to show how a craft of that nature could e made to travel around on the bottom and by means of the diving compartment make it possible to recover things lying upon the waterbed water bed to make a long story short my performances were so successful that I 1 obtained money and we organized a company in november of 1895 but we did not have funds enough to build the big boat I 1 had planned and accordingly we had to curtail our am and confine our efforts to a smaller craft tor the purpose of demonstration and as an inducement to additional capital fortunately I 1 won the confidence of the late william T malster of gal almore then president of the columbian iron works and afterward mayor of the town the argonaut was a cigar shaped structure of steel 36 feet long and 9 feet of beam and was fitted with an SO b p gasoline engine a dynamo an air compressor a searchlight water ballast pumps the apparatus necessary tor successful submarine navigation she bad accommodations inside her for a crew of five and during 1898 a cruise of more than 2 miles was made in the chesapeake bay and on the atlantic coast travel ing both on the surface and submerged and over all kinds of bottom that boat designed for commercial purposes was the pioneer of a larger military underwater craft which we built in bridgeport some years later As far back as 1801 I 1 offered our navy depart ment a boat that could carry guns in addition to torpedoes I 1 was generally laughed at as I 1 was for my bottom traveling wheels As you know most of the big british submarines now carry guns and other nations are profiting by those ex amples the big boats built by me in russia for the azars czars navy were designed to have this very feature in view of the actual advances and knowing the increasing destructive might of the torpedo 1 find no difficulty in subscribing to admiral sir percy scott s prediction yes of course the idea Is of revolutionary portent but with the gun to batter her above water and the torpedo to do even greater damage below what chance of surviving has the accepted order of dread the proctor was the first underwater craft to provide comfortable quarters for her crew and to be equipped with cooking facilities in order that they might live aboard of her even so the ruling spirit of our naval board of inspection in 1903 pooh this provision declaring that a moth er ship would always be necessary and that the men would live aboard the larger craft how far that mistaken authority erred can be gathered from the performance of a sister boat after that little vessel became part of the azars czars fleet she made a run from kronstadt to elbau in october of 1905 the official report of tho commander of the vessel best tells the story this trip confirms once more the good sea going qualities of boats of this particular type as several times we were out in cold weather and ex posed to high winds and heavy seas yet standing these conditions the submersible stood the weather every time quite easily at one time for 24 hours by reason of the violence of the wind and the nature of the sea it was not possible to pass food from the convoying vessel during that period the deck was swept by heavy jeaa and the crew were able to take the air only on top of the conning tower but notwithstanding this when I 1 proposed to them the next day that they might go over to the convoy it they liked they again asked permission to remain on the submersible yes the underwater craft are coming into their own j v x |