156 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SUBMARINE NAVIGATION. 



By Professor W. P. BRADLEY, 



WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 



IN a paper read before the Society of Naval Architects, Nov. 11, 

 1898, Lieut. Commander W. W. Kimball, who commanded the 

 torpedo flotilla during the war with Spain, said: "If it be granted 

 that the surface torpedo boat has a place in naval warfare, and that 

 her primary duty is the attack by night upon ships attempting blockade 

 or raiding operations, then most assuredly the submarine torpedo boat 

 has a most important tactical place, since she, and she alone, is com- 

 petent to deliver a torpedo attack by day upon ships attempting 

 blockading, bombarding or raiding operations. She is the only kind 

 of inexpensive craft that can move up to a battleship in daylight, in 

 the face of her fire and in spite of her supporting destroyers, and force 

 that ship to move off or receive a torpedo. That there is no physical 

 difficulty in the problem, is amply proved by the accurate functioning 

 of the boat now in this harbor (the 'Holland'), which has shown to 

 scores of doubters that perfect control in both the vertical and hori- 

 zontal planes has been accomplished, that the boat can be held at any 

 depth to within a foot, and be made to take porpoise-like dives, ex- 

 posing the conning tower for only six or eight seconds, and can be 

 steered on any desired course." 



Rear-Admiral Jouett testified before the Senate Committee on 

 Naval Affairs: "If I commanded a squadron that was blockading a port, 

 and the enemy had half a dozen of these Holland submarine boats, I 

 would be compelled to abandon the blockade and put to sea, to avoid 

 destruction of my ships from an invisible source from which I could 

 not defend myself." 



Lieut. A. P. Niblack, who commanded the torpedo boat 'Winslow' 

 during the latter part of the war, wrote in 'Marine Engineering/ 

 December, 1898: "The crowning virtue of a submarine boat is that it 

 makes blockades almost impossible. Strategically in war, it has a 

 place all to itself." He is authority also for the statement: "If Spain 

 had had the 'Holland' at Santiago, the blockade of that port by the 

 United States would have been impossible, within the radius of action 

 of the boat." 



Admiral Dewey testified before the House Committee on Naval 

 A Hairs, April 23, 1900: "I saw the operation of the boat ('Holland') 

 down off Mount Vernon the other day. I said then, and I have said 



