158 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Board made in 1885 to the Forty-ninth Congress may be found a 

 selected list of about fifty submarine boats. This list extends over a pe- 

 riod of three centuries. It includes no boats which have been projected 

 or described merely, nor even those which have been patented merely, 

 but only such as had been actually built and practically tried up to 

 that date. In the invention of these boats and in experimenting with 

 them have been engaged the citizens of England, France, Holland, 

 Spain, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, Eussia and the United States 

 — nearly all of the civilized countries. England has probably accom- 

 plished as little in this direction as any nation. France has shown 

 by far the greatest zeal as a nation, and, on the whole, has been the 

 most prolific. But the greatest practical success has been attained un- 

 doubtedly in our own country. 



It would be a thankless as well as a wearisome task merely to enu- 

 merate the vessels of this list, still more so to describe them all, how- 

 ever briefly. Most of them were of ephemeral interest only. But there 

 are some which should be mentioned in any account of submarine 

 navigation, however concise. 



Thus, in 1624 a Hollander named Cornelius Van Drebbell con- 

 structed a boat which was tried with some success in the Thames at 

 London. James I. is said on one occasion at least to have been a 

 witness of the experiments. But navigation under water in that day 

 was an uncanny thing. Drebbell was regarded first as a magician, then 

 as a madman, and then as an agent of the devil. Meeting no encourage- 

 ment he died, and his secret died with him. It is curious to notice that 

 Drebbell claimed to have discovered a certain fluid which possessed the 

 power of purifying air vitiated by respiration. He called it 'Quint- 

 essence of Air.' From the standpoint of present knowledge this singu- 

 lar name and Drebbell's claim for the liquid are very suggestive. Oxy- 

 gen was not discovered, as we believe, until a century and a half after 

 Drebbell's time. But oxygen is the life-giving component of air. 

 Moreover, volumetrically oxygen is the 'quintessence' — the fifth part — 

 of air. Is it possible that Drebbell had discovered some liquid which 

 easily disengaged the then unknown oxygen gas and thus was able to 

 restore to vitiated air that principle of which respiration deprives it? 

 Undoubtedly not. It is much more likely that he possessed a solution 

 capable of absorbing the carbonic acid gas which is produced by respi- 

 ration, and that the name given it was entirely fanciful and without 

 special significance. But even if Drebbell's claim was a piece of pure 

 quackery, with no substantial basis at all, it is nevertheless not without 

 interest, for it shows, as we might have anticipated, that the problem of 

 ventilation, one of the most important with which the inventors of 

 submarines have had to deal, was at least appreciated by Drebbell the 

 pioneer. 



