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Dy 30 | | MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. and the examples selected for illustration will be limited, generally speaking, to the first of the most prominent types, either in point of time or importance. _ Up to the seventeenth century man's work under water was apparently confined to experiments with crude forms of the diving bell. In 1624 Cornelius Yon Drebbel, a Hollander, invented and built the first real submarine boat, oar propelled, and capable of obtaining a submergence of 15 ft. No reliable data as to the dimensions and construction of this boat are available, but. his- tory tells us that she could carry twelve persons, and 'was ren- dered habitable for a considerable period of time by the use of "quintessence of air'--probably compressed air or oxygen. 'The credit for the first boat is frequently given to an Englishman, Wm. Bourne, but there are good reasons for believing that his invention, which antidated Von Drebbel's, really belonged to the diving bell class; 'The history of the remainder of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth, shows that little 'real progress, for, although some of the most important princi- ples were grasped and recorded, the practical results achieved were unimportant. During the seventeenth century the center of activity remained on the continent of Europe, but in the following ' Fig. 2. Fulton's Nautilus. : AA, hull proper; B, hollow iron keel; CC, pumps; D, propeller; E, vertical rudder; F, horizontal; G, anchor; H, mast and sail; I, conning tower; K, torpedo spike; L, torpedo; M, gear; N, watertight bulkhead; O, mast gear. century the problem received its principal attention in England and America, and from the latter country in 1775 came the first important solution, namely, Bushnell's boat. On the intervening work it is unnecessary to touch here ex: cept to note that in 1772 the crushing of a submarine vessel by water pressure resulted in the death of its sole occupant, an Eng- lishman named Day, who has long been heralded as the first victim of the submarine. On close inspection it appears, how- | €ver, that he is not entitled to that doubtful honor, as the trap in which he met his death was not a submarine boat, but a sim- ple diving machine, and his object under water was not to investi- gate or attempt submarine navigation, but to win a bet. Day be- ing rejected, the position of first victim remained vacant. until 1834, when a French inventor named Petit lost his life by asphyx- iation. With one possible exception, this is the only fatality in the history of the submarine up to date. The long casualty list of the confederate boat David is here excluded, as her misfor- _ tunes all happened while she was employed as a low free-board surface boat. : With the appearance of Bushnell's boat--the pioneer torpedo boat, submarine or surface--the art of submarine navigation took a long stride forward, and torpedo warfare made its bow as did also the screw propeller, for although the latter had been ' invented in England some years previous, it had never been prac- tically applied. Three views of the Bushnell vessel are given _ herewith, a plan view, an outboard profile and an inboard profile, The information contained in the plans and explanatory legend gives a clear idea of the arrangement and relation of parts, so it _ will only be necessary hére to touch on the general features of the design which, all things considered, were well adapted to the purpose in view, namely, the attack upon ships at anchor. The form, a sort of flattened ellipscid with the depth exceeding the _ length and the length exceeding the breadth, was suitable for the ' strength and stability required. 'The balance of buoyancy and weight was effected by the water ballast system in the bottom -. which also served as a compensating system for weights ex- _ pended or received. A vertical screw, hand operated, controlled » movements in the vertical plane, indicated by a depth gauge. 'The horizontal movement gained by a bow propeller, was controlled 'by an ordinary rudder on the stern, the vessel being steered when _ submerged by compass. The air supply when sealed up was sufficient to sustain for half an hour the one man required to operate the vessel, and was renewed upon coming to the surface [Nov. 27. by exhaust and supply ducts with automatic operation. Lead ballast, detachable at the will of the cperator, was fitted at the bottom, and was intended to be used as an anchor and emergency safety appliance. The armament consisted of a gunpowder tor- pedo a trifle larger than the water it displaced. This was carried on the stern of the boat and was intended to be attached to the hull of the enemy by a vertical detachable screw operated from the interior of the submarine. 'The release of the mine served to start the clock-firing mechanism which was set to admit of ample time for the submarine to clear the radius of explosion. The fact is worthy of note that before building this vessel the inventor was required to educate his generation up to the possibility of exploding gunpowder under water, and the result- ing destruction of floating bodies in the immediate. vicinity, so that he was practically the originator of the modern fixed mine as well as of the torpedo boat. As to the qualities peculiar to the submarine it will be noted that efficient means were provided for varying the relation of displacement to weight, and it is possible that some reserve buoyancy might have been forced under by the vertical screw. Apparently, however, this was not the de- signer's intention, nor was the boat so operated, so she must be classed with the latter boats designed on the principle of equality of weight and submerged displacement. BUSHNELI/S WCRK TAKEN UP BY FULTON. The fact that this boat never succeeded in blowing up an enemy's vessel, though she made three attempts, was due solely to bad luck. The only adequately trained operater fell sick before the opportunity for action presented itself, and the initial attempt was made by a half-trained man, who, starting from the New York shore succeeded in reaching unobserved a fifty-gun British ship lying off Governor's island. He attempted to fix his torpedo withcut anchoring and failed, as at the first attempt the screw struck an iron rudder hinge pad, and in seeking a new spot he lost the ship and was surprised by daylight before he could renew the attempt. Two subsequent attempts upon British ships oc- curred in the Hudson river, above New York, and were also dis- appointments on account of the operatcor's failure to use his' an- chor. Eventually lack of encouragement and funds put a stop to the enterprise. The work thus abandoned by Bushnell was taken up shortly afterwards by Robert Fulton, who, in 1801, after some years of ge: Fig. 3. Bauer's Plongeur-Marin. AA, entrance hatch; B, driving wheel for screw; C, hand wheel for rudder control; D, pump for draining ballast tanks; E, trimming and diving weight; F wheel for moving weight E; G, ballast tanks. preliminary work, launched his first submarine, the Nautilus, into the Seine at Paris. This vessel, an imperfect ellipsoid in form-- extreme length about 21 ft., extreme beam about 6 ft.--carried a hollow iron keel of a capacity equal to the reserve buoyancy in the light condition, which appears to have been very small. A double-cylinder suction and force pump controlled the water ballast carried in this keel. The anchor and torpedo gear were carried in a non-water-tight bow compartment, and both were operated from the interior of the boat. The vessel was naviga- ted from a hemispherical conning tower fitted on the bow; an ordinary stern rudder controlled the motion in the horizontal plane and a pair of horizontal rudders were fitted at the stern for control in the vertical plane. 'Iwo methods of propulsion - were provided--first, a hand-operated screw-propeller fitted at the stern, and second, a single mast and sail so arranged as to permit of folding and stowing from the interior of the boat. The propeller originally fitted consisted of a single convilution as did Bushnell's.. This was later replaced by one of several blades, apparently the first propeller of modern form put to practical use. A compass and depth gauge completed the original equipment, which was augmented later by a pipe ventilation system and a crude compressed air system for breathing purposes only. The armament consisted of a gunpowder torpedo towed by the sub- marine and fired by contact. The plan of this vessel gives a clear idea as to the method of operating the tcrpedo and as to the general arrangement of the vessel. Eventually, Fulton and his crew of three men succeedéd in remaining under water for a period of 4 hours and 20 minutes without ill effects. The | :