Aircraft and Submarines Part 21

The second part of this article was called "A Voyage on the Bottom of the Sea." It was written by Ray Stannard Baker, who had been fortunate enough to receive an invitation from Mr. Lake to accompany him on one of the trips of the _Argonaut_. Any one who has read Jules Verne's fascinating story _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_ must be struck immediately with the similarity between Mr.

Baker's experiences and those of Captain Nemo's guests. It is not at all surprising, therefore, to have Mr. Baker tell us that during this trip Mr. Lake told him:

"When I was ten years old, I read Jules Verne's _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_, and I have been working on submarine boats ever since."

Mr. Baker's record of what he saw and how he felt is not only a credit to his keen powers of observation, but also a proof of the fact that, in many ways, there was little difference between the _Argonaut_ of 1898 and the most up-to-date submarine of to-day. In part he says:

Simon Lake planned an excursion on the bottom of the sea for October 12, 1898. His strange amphibian craft, the _Argonaut_, about which we had been hearing so many marvels, lay off the pier at Atlantic Highlands. Before we were near enough to make out her hulk, we saw a great black letter A, framed of heavy gas-pipe, rising forty feet above the water. A flag rippled from its summit. As we drew nearer, we discovered that there really wasn't any hulk to make out--only a small oblong deck shouldering deep in the water and supporting a slightly higher platform, from which rose what seemed to be a squatty funnel. A moment later we saw that the funnel was provided with a cap somewhat resembling a tall silk hat, the crown of which was represented by a bra.s.s binnacle. This cap was tilted back, and as we ran alongside, a man stuck his head up over the rim and sang out, "Ahoy there!"

A considerable sea was running, but I observed that the _Argonaut_ was planted as firmly in the water as a stone pillar, the big waves splitting over her without imparting any perceptible motion.

We scrambled up on the little platform, and peered down through the open conning-tower, which we had taken for a funnel, into the depths of the s.h.i.+p below. Wilson had started his gasoline engine.

Mr. Lake had taken his place at the wheel, and we were going ahead slowly, steering straight across the bay toward Sandy Hook and deeper water. The _Argonaut_ makes about five knots an hour on the surface, but when she gets deep down on the sea bottom, where she belongs, she can spin along more rapidly.

The _Argonaut_ was slowly sinking under the water. We became momentarily more impressed with the extreme smallness of the craft to which we were trusting our lives. The little platform around the conning-tower on which we stood--in reality the top of the gasoline tank--was scarcely a half dozen feet across, and the _Argonaut_ herself was only thirty-six feet long. Her sides had already faded out of sight, but not before we had seen how solidly they were built--all of steel, riveted and reinforced, so that the wonder grew how such a tremendous weight, when submerged, could ever again be raised.

I think we made some inquiries about the safety of submarine boats in general. Other water compartments had been flooded, and we had settled so far down that the waves dashed repeatedly over the platform on which we stood--and the conning-tower was still wide open, inviting a sudden engulfing rush of water. "You mustn't confuse the _Argonaut_ with ordinary submarine boats,"

said Mr. Lake. "She is quite different and much safer."

[Ill.u.s.tration: U. & U.

_For Anti-Aircraft Service._]

He explained that the _Argonaut_ was not only a submarine boat, but much besides. She not only swims either on the surface or beneath it, but she adds to this accomplishment the extraordinary power of diving deep and rolling along the bottom of the sea on wheels. No machine ever before did that. Indeed, the _Argonaut_ is more properly a "sea motorcycle" than a "boat." In its invention Mr. Lake elaborated an idea which the United States Patent Office has decided to be absolutely original.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by Bain News Service.

_The Latest French Aircraft Gun._]

We found ourselves in a long, narrow compartment, dimly illuminated by yellowish-green light from the little round, gla.s.s windows. The stern was filled with Wilson's gasoline engine and the electric motor, and in front of us toward the bow we could see through the heavy steel doorways of the diver's compartment into the lookout room, where there was a single round eye of light.

I climbed up the ladder of the conning-tower and looked out through one of the gla.s.s ports. My eyes were just even with the surface of the water. A wave came driving and foaming entirely over the top of the vessel, and I could see the curiously beautiful sheen of the bright summit of the water above us. It was a most impressive sight. Mr. Lake told me that in very clear water it was difficult to tell just where the air left off and the water began; but in the muddy bay where we were going down the surface looked like a peculiarly clear, greenish pane of gla.s.s moving straight up and down, not forward, as the waves appear to move when looked at from above.

Now we were entirely under water. The rippling noises that the waves had made in beating against the upper structure of the boat had ceased. As I looked through the thick gla.s.s port, the water was only three inches from my eyes, and I could see thousands of dainty, semi-translucent jellyfish floating about as lightly as thistledown. They gathered in the eddy behind the conning-tower in great numbers, b.u.mping up sociably against one another and darting up and down with each gentle movement of the water. And I realized that we were in the domain of the fishes.

Jim brought the government chart, and Mr. Lake announced that we were heading directly for Sandy Hook and the open ocean. But we had not yet reached the bottom, and John was busily opening valves and letting in more water. I went forward to the little steel cuddy-hole in the extreme prow of the boat, and looked out through the watch-port. The water had grown denser and yellower, and I could not see much beyond the dim outlines of the s.h.i.+p's spar reaching out forward. Jim said that he had often seen fishes come swimming up wonderingly to gaze into the port. They would remain quite motionless until he stirred his head, and then they vanished instantly. Mr. Lake has a remarkable photograph which he took of a visiting fish, and Wilson tells of nurturing a queer flat crab for days in the crevice of one of the view-holes.

At that moment, I felt a faint jolt, and Mr. Lake said that we were on the bottom of the sea.

Here we were running as comfortably along the bottom of Sandy Hook Bay as we would ride in a Broadway car, and with quite as much safety. Wilson, who was of a musical turn, was whistling _Down Went McGinty_, and Mr. Lake, with his hands on the pilot-wheel, put in an occasional word about his marvellous invention. On the wall opposite there was a row of dials which told automatically every fact about our condition that the most nervous of men could wish to know. One of them shows the pressure of air in the main compartment of the boat, another registers vacuum, and when both are at zero, Mr. Lake knows that the pressure of the air is normal, the same as it is on the surface, and he tries to maintain it in this condition. There are also a cyclometer, not unlike those used on bicycles, to show how far the boat travels on the wheels; a depth gauge, which keeps us accurately informed as to the depth of the boat in the water, and a declension indicator. By the long finger of the declension dial we could tell whether we were going up hill or down. Once while we were out, there was a sudden, sharp shock, the pointer leaped back, and then quivered steady again. Mr. Lake said that we had probably struck a bit of wreckage or an embankment, but the _Argonaut_ was running so lightly that she had leaped up jauntily and slid over the obstruction.

We had been keeping our eyes on the depth dial, the most fascinating and interesting of any of the number. It showed that we were going down, down, down, literally down to the sea in a s.h.i.+p. When we had been submerged far more than an hour, and there was thirty feet of yellowish green ocean over our heads, Mr. Lake suddenly ordered the machinery stopped. The clacking noises of the dynamo ceased, and the electric lights blinked out, leaving us at once in almost absolute darkness and silence. Before this, we had found it hard to realize that we were on the bottom of the ocean; now it came upon us suddenly and not without a touch of awe. This absence of sound and light, this unchanging motionlessness and coolness, this absolute negation--that was the bottom of the sea. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment we realized acutely the meaning and joy of suns.h.i.+ne and moving winds, trees, and the world of men.

A minute light twinkled out like a star, and then another and another, until the boat was bright again, and we knew that among the other wonders of this most astonis.h.i.+ng of inventions there was storage electricity which would keep the boat illuminated for hours, without so much as a single turn of the dynamo. With the stopping of the engine, the air supply from above had ceased; but Mr. Lake laid his hand on the steel wall above us, where he said there was enough air compressed to last us all for two days, should anything happen. The possibility of "something happening"

had been lurking in our minds ever since we started. "What if your engine should break down, so that you couldn't pump the water out of the water compartments?" I asked. "Here we have hand-pumps," said Mr. Lake promptly; "and if those failed, a single touch of this lever would release our iron keel, which weighs 4000 pounds, and up we would go like a rocket."

I questioned further, only to find that every imaginable contingency, and some that were not at all imaginable to the uninitiated, had been absolutely provided against by the genius of the inventor. And everything from the gasoline engine to the hand-pump was as compact and ingenious as the mechanism of a watch. Moreover, the boat was not crowded; we had plenty of room to move around and to sleep, if we wished, to say nothing of eating. As for eating, John had brought out the kerosene stove and was making coffee, while Jim cut the pumpkin pie. "This isn't Delmonico's," said Jim, "but we're serving a lunch that Delmonico's couldn't serve--a submarine lunch."

By this time the novelty was wearing off and we sat there, at the bottom of the sea, drinking our coffee with as much unconcern as though we were in an up-town restaurant. For the first time since we started, Mr. Lake sat down, and we had an opportunity of talking with him at leisure. He is a stout-shouldered, powerfully built man, in the prime of life--a man of cool common sense, a practical man, who is also an inventor. And he talks frankly and convincingly, and yet modestly, of his accomplishment.

Having finished our lunch, Mr. Lake prepared to show us something about the practical operations of the _Argonaut_. It has been a good deal of a mystery to us how workmen penned up in a submarine boat could expect to recover gold from wrecks in the water outside, or to place torpedoes, or to pick up cables. "We simply open the door, and the diver steps out on the bottom of the sea,"

Mr. Lake said, quite as if he was conveying the most ordinary information.

At first it seemed incredible, but Mr. Lake showed us the heavy, riveted door in the bottom of the diver's compartment. Then he invited us inside with Wilson, who, besides being an engineer, is also an expert diver. The ma.s.sive steel doors of the little room were closed and barred, and then Mr. Lake turned a c.o.c.k and the air rushed in under high pressure. At once our ears began to throb, and it seemed as if the drums would burst inward.

"Keep swallowing," said Wilson, the diver.

As soon as we applied this remedy, the pain was relieved, but the general sensation of increased air pressure, while exhilarating, was still most uncomfortable. The finger on the pressure dial kept creeping up and up, until it showed that the air pressure inside of the compartment was nearly equal to the water pressure without. Then Wilson opened a c.o.c.k in the door. Instantly the water gushed in, and for a single instant we expected to be drowned there like rats in a trap. "This is really very simple,"

Mr. Lake was saying calmly. "When the pressure within is the same as that without, no water can enter."

With that, Wilson dropped the iron door, and there was the water and the muddy bottom of the sea within touch of a man's hand. It was all easy enough to understand, and yet it seemed impossible, even as we saw it with our own eyes. Mr. Lake stooped down, and picked up a wooden rod having a sharp hook at the end. This he pulled along the bottom....

We were now rising again to the surface, after being submerged for more than three hours. I climbed into the conning-tower and watched for the first glimpse of the sunlight. There was a sudden fluff of foam, the ragged edge of a wave, and then I saw, not more than a hundred feet away, a smack bound toward New York under full sail. Her rigging was full of men, gazing curiously in our direction, no doubt wondering what strange monster of the sea was coming forth for a breath of air.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MODERN SUBMARINE

Holland and Lake must be considered the fathers of the modern submarine. This claim is not made in a spirit of patriotic boastfulness, though, of course it is true that the latter was an American by birth, and the former by choice, and that, therefore, we, as a nation, have a right to be proud of the accomplishments of these two fellow-citizens of ours. Without wis.h.i.+ng to detract anything from the value of the work done by many men in many countries towards the development of the submarine after and contemporaneously with Holland and Lake, it still remains true that the work which these two did formed the foundation on which all others built. To-day, no submarine worthy of the name, no matter where it has been built and no matter where and how it is used, is without some features which are typical of either the Holland or Lake type. In many instances, and this is true especially of submarines of the highest type and the greatest development, the most significant characteristics of the Holland and Lake boats have been combined.

During the years that followed the small beginnings of Holland and Lake, vast and highly efficient organizations have been built up to continue and elaborate their work. Death claimed Mr. Holland shortly after the outbreak of the great war, on August 12, 1914. Mr. Lake in 1917 was still personally connected with and the guiding spirit of the extensive industrial establishments which have been created at Bridgeport, Conn., as a result of his inventions. He, too, surrounded himself with a corps of experts who in co-operation with him have brought the Lake submarines to a point of perfection which at the time of the _Argonaut's_ first trip would have appeared all but impossible.

Roughly speaking, the beginning of the twentieth century may be called the turning point in the history of submarine invention and the beginning of the modern submarine. Although, as we have heard, various governments, especially those of France and the United States, interested themselves in the submarine question and appropriated small sums of money towards its solution previous to 1900, it was only after that year that governmental interest and influence were set to work with determination and purpose on behalf of submarine inventors.

Quite naturally this resulted in increased popular interest.

Experimental work on and with submarines no longer had to rely exclusively on private capital, frequently inconveniently timid and limited, but could count now on the vast financial resources of all the great nations of the world. This also made available the unlimited intellectual resources of serious scientists in every part of the universe. Mechanical and electrical engineers, naval designers and constructors, active men of finance and business, and quiet thinkers and investigators in laboratories began to interest themselves in the further development of the submarine.

The United States for a number of years after its adoption of the Holland type remained true to its first choice. Between 1900, when the first Holland boat was bought by the United States Government, and 1911 all the United States submarine, boats were of the Holland type. In the latter year, however, it was decided to give the Lake boat a trial and since that time a number of boats of this type have been built. In all essential features both the Holland and Lake boats of later days were very similar to the original boats of these two types. In all the details, however, immense progress was made.

Each new boat thus became greatly superior to its predecessors. This was especially true in regard to size and speed and the improvements made in these two respects naturally resulted in a corresponding increase in radius of activity. The pa.s.sing years also brought a wonderful refinement of all the technical details of the submarine boats. Practically every feature was developed to a remarkable degree. There is, indeed, a great difference between the submarine boats of the early twentieth century which had to rely on their conning-tower for steering, and more recent boats with their wonderful periscopes and gyro compa.s.ses. Similar progress was made in the development of the means of propulsion. The engines used for surface travelling became more powerful and efficient. This was also true of the electric motors, batteries, and acc.u.mulators employed in the submerged state. The problem of ventilation likewise has been worked out to such an extent that in the most modern submarines most of the inconveniences experienced by the crews of earlier boats have been removed. This perfection of technical details which was thus gradually approached also permitted a very considerable increase in the fighting power of submarine boats. The number of torpedo tubes was increased and it became possible to carry a larger reserve stock of torpedoes. Submarines of to-day furthermore carry guns varying in calibre, attaining in some instances four inches, and when in later years it became evident that one of the most dangerous enemies of the submarine was the airplane, some of the boats were equipped even with anti-aircraft guns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Munn & Co., Inc. From the _Scientific American_.

_Modern German Airplane Types._]

In the United States Navy the submarine has never been popular.

Indeed it is by no means certain that in comparison with other navies of the world the United States was not better off in underwater boats in 1911 than she was three years later when the warcloud broke. The bulk of our naval opinion has always been for the dreadnoughts. A change of political administration at Was.h.i.+ngton in 1912 gave a temporary setback to naval development, and the submarines, being still a matter of controversy, languished. Few were built and of those few many showed such structural weakness that the reports of their manoeuvres were either suppressed, or issued in terms of such broad generality that the public could by no possibility suspect, what all the Navy knew to be the fact, that the submarine flotilla of the United States was weak to the point of impotence.

Happily we had nearly three years in which to observe the progress of the war before becoming ourselves embroiled in it. During this period our submarine fleet was somewhat increased, and upon our actual entrance upon the struggle a feverish race was begun to put us on an equality with other nations in underwater boats. It would have been too late had any emergency arisen. But Germany had no s.h.i.+ps afloat to be attacked by our submarines had we possessed them.

Her own warfare upon our merchant s.h.i.+pping could not be met in kind, for submarines cannot fight submarines. We have, therefore, up to the present time, not suffered from the perilous neglect with which we long treated this form of naval weapon.

Indeed the submarine fleet of the United States Navy at the beginning of the war was so inconsiderable that foreign writers on the subject ignored it. In 1900 we had purchased nine of the type of submarines then put out by the Holland Company. One of these, the first in actual service, known as the "Baby" Holland was kept in commission ten years and upon becoming obsolete was honoured by being taken in state to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and there mounted on a pedestal for the admiration of all comers. She was 59 feet long and would make a striking exhibit placed next to one of the new German submersible cruisers which exceed 300 feet and have a displacement of 5000 tons. These first Holland s.h.i.+ps which long const.i.tuted the entire underwater force of the United States were but trivial affairs compared with the modern vessel. Their displacement was but 122 tons, their engines for surface navigation were of 160 horse-power, gasoline, and for underwater navigation 70 horse-power, electric. They carried but one torpedo tube and two extra torpedoes and had a radius of action of but 300 miles. At that time in fact the naval theory was that submarines were coast defence vessels altogether. After this war they are likely to form part of the first battle line of every navy. Yet these pioneer vessels established their seaworthiness well in 1911, when four of them accompanied by a parent s.h.i.+p to supply them with fresh stocks of fuel and to render a.s.sistance in case of need, crossed the Pacific Ocean under their own power to the Philippines. This exploit tended to popularize these craft in the Navy Department, and soon after larger vessels known as the "Viper" cla.s.s were ordered. One of these was called the _Octopus_, the first submarine to be fitted with twin screws. In many ways she represented a distinct advance in the art of submarine construction. She was in fact the first vessel built with the distinct idea of being a cruising, as well as a harbour defence s.h.i.+p. Her type proved successful in this respect. The _Octopus_ further established a record for deep sea submergence in 1907 when she descended to a depth of 205 feet off Boston, returning to the surface in entire safety.

The ability to withstand the pressure of the water at great depths is a vital quality of a successful submarine. One American submarine narrowly escaped destruction because of structural weakness in this respect. She had by accident descended a few feet below the normal depth at which such boats navigate. The water pressure affected the valves which refused to work and the vessel slowly sank deeper and deeper. At a recorded depth of 123 feet the sinking of the vessel became so much more rapid that the crew with frantic endeavours sought at once to stop the leaks and pump out the water which had entered. At that depth there was a pressure of 153-1/2 pounds upon every square inch of the surface of the submarine. This the workers at the one hand pump had to overcome. It was a savage and a desperate struggle but the men finally won and the vessel regained the surface. As a result of this experience every navy prescribed submergence tests for its submarines before putting them into commission. How to make these tests was perplexing at first. A government did not want to send men down in a steel casket to see just how far they could go before it collapsed. But if no observer accompanied the s.h.i.+p it would be impossible to tell at what depth leakage and other signs of weakness became apparent. An Italian naval architect, Major Laurenti, whose submarines are now found in every navy of the world, invented a dock in which these tests can be made up to any desired pressure while the observers inside the submarine are in communication with those without and the pressure can be instantly removed if signs of danger appear. In the United States Navy boats to be accepted must stand a pressure equivalent to that encountered at 200 feet. In the German navy the depth prescribed is 170 feet. Under normal conditions submarines seldom travel at a depth of more than 100 feet although the "F-1" of the United States Navy accomplished the remarkable feat of making a six-hour cruise in San Francis...o...b..y at a depth of 283 feet. At this depth the skin of the s.h.i.+p has to withstand a pressure of no less than 123 pounds per square inch.

Specific information as to the nature of submarine construction in the United States since the beginning of the war in 1914 is jealously guarded by the Navy Department. In broad general terms the number of s.h.i.+ps under construction is revealed to the public, but all information as to the size of individual vessels, their armour or the qualities of novelty with which every one hopes and believes American inventive genius has invested them, are kept secret. The _Navy Year Book of 1916_ summarized our submarine strength at that time as follows: