48 PROTO-BATHYSPHERES 



the Spanish Armada, many of the ships sank in compara- 

 tively shallow water near the Isle of Mull off the west coast 

 of Scotland. The Spanish castaways told of great treasure 

 contained in some of these wrecks, and this caused more 

 than one attempt to be made to salvage this fortune. In 

 1665 someone was lucky enough to bring up some old 

 cannon, but no more valuable booty. But the diving bells 

 were becoming more and more efficient. 



Seventeenth century inventors were not satisfied with 

 helmets and bells, but turned their minds to more elaborate 

 structures, even submarine boats. These, however, were 

 rather pitiful emanations of the brains of those days. As 

 an example we might take the Rotterdam Ship (Fig. 16) 

 which was built sometime before 16^4, and was of goodly 

 size, being seventy-two feet long by twelve high. As can 

 be seen from the illustration it had two extended ends, in- 

 tended as rams for enemy ships. Its inventor called it Ful- 

 fnen Maris — the Thunder-bolt of the Sea — and he proph- 

 esied that it could demolish one hundred ships in a day 

 and could reach the East Indies in six weeks. It had an 

 efficient-looking but hopeless rudder, and a paddle wheel 

 turned by hand which could not have worked. It was a 

 success only as a curiosity, and the inventor derived ad- 

 vantage by exhibiting it — for a consideration — "as though 

 it were a bearded lady or a two-headed calf." 



It is not easy to believe the statement that a submarine 

 vessel, made by the Belgian, Cornelius Drebel, in 1620, 

 was tried out in the Thames by order of James I, and car- 



