Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/165

Rh it since, that if they (the Spanish) had had two of those things in Manila, I never could have held it with the squadron I had."

Rear-Admiral Philip Hichborn, Chief of the Bureau of Construction, writes in 'Engineering Magazine' for June, 1900: "Submarines can secure our coasts more perfectly than they can be secured in any other way at present practicable."

Mr. W. E. Eckert, consulting engineer of the Union Iron Works, of San Francisco, which built the 'Oregon' and the 'Olympia,' said, after the trial of the 'Holland' of September, 1899, in Peconic Bay, Long Island: "I have been on the trial trips of many of the new vessels built for the Government, and would say that I would feel safer in the Holland boat when under water than in the engine or fire rooms of any of the fast torpedo boats."

Rear-Admiral Endicott says: "The Holland submarine torpedo boat will revolutionize the world's naval warfare. It will make the navies of the world playthings in the grasp of the greatest naval engine in history."

However successful or safe submarine navigation may be to-day, the story of its development shows sufficiently that the risks to be taken have been very great, even though the actual loss of life incurred has been, on the whole, remarkably slight. To the venturesome spirits who have sought thus to master the ocean depths the risk involved has only added a new fascination.

The history of man's attempts to penetrate the depths of the ocean is not brief. The diving-suit, indeed, is modern, but the diving-bell appears to have been known in the time of Aristotle and diving itself is as old as man.

But essential mastery of the depths can never be attained by these means. The expert diver can remain below but two minutes or so, at the most. The tenant of a diving bell or suit is not, indeed, so limited in time, but, because absolutely dependent upon the flexible tube by means of which air is pumped down to him by companions at the surface, he is limited in space, and, by conditions of weather and sea, is limited also as to times. In no such sense is he independent as is the captain of an ocean greyhound or man-of-war, or even as the lone lobsterman at the helm of an undecked boat. To be master under water one must navigate under water, and any contrivance deserving the name of submarine boat must be able not only to sink beneath the surface, but also by its own power to move about under water for a reasonable time freely and independently. They who go down to the sea in suits and bells are not navigators.

The number of recorded attempts truly to navigate under water is surprisingly large. In a report of the United States Fortifications