

734 THE SUBMARINE BOAT. 



Although the last six boats contracted for are nearly a year late in 

 delivery, friends of the Holland Company made the modest request of 

 the Congress that the Secretary of the Navy be required to contract 

 with the Company for thirty of its most improved types of submarine 

 boats. A still more modest request was presented that no contract 

 shall be made with the said company for thirty boats until one of the 

 Holland boats now being built for the Navy Department shall have 

 been accepted by the Secretary of the Navy. 



The Department certainly expects that all the six boats under con- 

 struction will be compelled to make contract requirements. In case 

 of failure the contractors have recourse for relief by officially appeal- 

 ing to the Department. It certainly would be a remarkable precedent 

 to establish to contract for more boats of this type after only one of 

 the six under construction performed in a satisfactory manner. 



THE HOLLAND AND LAKE COMPANIES CLAIM TO BE DESIROUS OF 

 ENTERING THEIR BOATS INTO COMPETITION. 



The Holland boats now nearing completion will have to contend for 

 superiority during the coming year with a boat of the Lake design. 

 These rival boats are of quite different type. The issue at stake is of 

 moment to both companies and to the naval service. In an official 

 hearing on submarine boats before the Senate Committee on Naval 

 Affairs, a representative of the Lake Company declared: 



"As has been said, we are merely on the verge of submarine knowl 

 edge. We do not know much about it yet, and much will be a mat- 

 ter of experiment; but of the two boats we are very confident that the 

 Lake boat, all around, is a superior boat to the Holland: and if it is 

 not, the gentlemen who are back of it, and who have confidence in it, 

 are willing that the $250,000 that they have invested shall go on the 

 scrap heap. They have confidence to believe that their boat has merit, 

 and all they ask is that it shall be submitted to a test." 



At the same hearing on submarine boats a representative of the 

 Holland Company spoke thus in regard to the outcome of a possible 

 test: 



"We do not object to competition in the slightest degree. If Mr. 

 Lake has a better boat than ours, if he will conform to all the require 

 merits that have beem required of us, let him come in; and if he beats 

 us, we will simply go out of business." 



CONSTRUCTIVE FEATURES OF THE LAKE AND HOLLAND BOATS. 



As the Lake design is the latest Richmond in the field of submarine- 

 boat construction, although its inventor has given twenty years of 

 study to the question, it may be pertinent to show in a comparative 

 and comprehensive manner the constructive features of the rival types. 



