SUBMARINE NAVIGATION 275 



a submarine should be the post of observation from which informa- 

 tion should be telephoned to the submarine as to the position of an 

 enemy, lie evidently had little trust in periscopes, and overlooked 

 the dangers to which the observers in the car of the balloon would 

 be exposed from an enemy's gun-fire. Quite recently a proposal has 

 been made by M. Santos Dumont to use airships as a defence against 

 submarines; his idea being that a dirigible airship of large dimensions 

 and moving at a considerable height above the surface of the sea, could 

 discover the whereabouts of a submarine, even at some depth below the 

 sin rare and could effect its destruction by dropping high explosive 

 rharges upon the helpless vessel. Here again, the inventor, in his 

 eagerness to do mischief, has not appreciated adequately the risks which 

 the airship would run if employed in the manner proposed, as sub- 

 marines are not likely to be used without supporting vessels. Hitherto, 

 submarines themselves have been armed only with torpedoes, but it has 

 been proposed recently to add guns, and this can be done, if desired, in 

 vessels possessing relatively large freeboard. No doubt if gun arma- 

 ments are introduced, the tendency will be to further increase dimen- 

 sions and cost, and the decision will be governed by the consideration 

 of the gain in fighting power as compared with increased cost. 



Apart from the use of submarine vessels for purposes of war, their 

 adoption as a means of navigation has found favor in many Cjuarters. 

 Jules Verne in his ' Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea/ has 

 drawn an attractive picture of what may be possible in this direction, 

 and others have favored the idea of combining the supposed advan- 

 tages of obtaining buoyancy from bodies floating at some depth below 

 the surface with an airy promenade carried high above water. Not 

 many years ago an eminent naval architect drew a picture of what 

 might be accomplished by utilizing what he described as the ' un- 

 troubled water below ' in association with the freedom and pure air 

 obtainable on a platform carried high above the waves. These sug- 

 gestions, however, are not in accord with the accepted theory of wave 

 motion, since they take no note of the great depths to which the dis- 

 turbance due to wave-motion penetrates the ocean. The problems of 

 stability, incidental to such plans, are also of a character not easily 

 dealt with, and consequently there is but a remote prospect of the use 

 of these singular combinations of submarine and aerial superstructures. 

 There is little likelihood of the displacement of ocean steamships at an 

 early date by either navigable airships or submarines, and the dreams 

 of Jules Verne or Santos Dumont will not be realized until much 

 further advance has been made in the design and construction of the 

 vessels they contemplate. 



