SUBMARINE 



5601 



SUBMARINE 



reason for existence. It is true that one sub- 

 marine made two trips on commercial errands 

 from Bremen, Germany, to Baltimore, Mary- 

 land, but these were occasioned by war condi- 

 tions ; such necessity would never arise in times 

 of peace. 



The modern submarine is the invention of 

 John P. Holland, an American, but it remained 

 for European nations to bring it to a remark- 

 able degree of perfection and efficiency. To Ger- 

 many is due the credit of developing an under- 

 sea fleet which became the terror of the seas; 

 the United States, which gave this craft to the 

 world, has made slight use of the marvelous 

 invention. 



What the Submarine Is. The submarine is a 

 kind of mechanical fish. Though it is neither 

 so comfortable nor so commodious as the ship 



be extended twenty feet or so above the con- 

 ning tower. Through this pipe the captain can 

 command the part of the horizon in front of 

 him when he is under water (see PERISCOPE). 

 The ventilators of the submarine are so built 

 that they may be telescoped and the openings 

 through the deck sealed. 



Interior Arrangement. The engines and mo- 

 tors are stored in the stem. Each of the two 

 propellers is driven by a separate engine. The 

 storage batteries that feed the motors are under 

 the floor of the cabin. In the largest German 

 submarines of 1917 they have sufficient capacity 

 to run the vessel 200 miles or more under water. 

 When the submarine returns to the surface, the 

 motors are run as dynamos, and the batteries 

 are recharged. The walls amidship and the bows 

 are occupied with huge ballast tanks, into which 



CROSS SECTION OF STANDARD SUBMARINE 



1. Periscopes 



2. Steering wheel 



3. Engine telegraph 



4. Air renewing 



appliance 



5. Torpedo tube 



6. Disappearing gun 



7. Stairway 



8. Torpedo 



9. Diving tanks 



10. Flooding valves 



11. Ballast tanks 



12. Men's cabin 



13. Accumulators 



14. Officers' cabin 



15. Oil fuel 



16. Wheels to diving 



rudder 



17. Fresh-water tank 



18. Oil engine 



19. Electric motor 



20. Ventilator 



21. Torpedo hatch 



22. Collapsible boat 



23. Inner hull 



24. Outer hull 



25. Steering rudder 



26. Propeller 



described by Jules Verne in his engaging book, 

 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 

 nevertheless it can dive and travel under water, 

 sinking if need be to a depth of 200 feet, where 

 the pressure on each square inch of surface is 

 133 pounds, nine times as great as air pressure 

 at sea level. 



External Appearance. A submarine afloat 

 looks not unlike a huge cigar of steel plates. 

 It carries a conning tower set in the middle of 

 a flat deck tapering to a point at either end 

 and about twenty-five or thirty feet long. This 

 conning tower, which serves as the captain's 

 bridge when the craft is not submerged, is fit- 

 ted with a lid about the size of the manholes 

 seen in city streets; when the boat is ready to 

 dive, the captain withdraws into the interior 

 and the lid is screwed down so as to be water- 

 tight. In front of the conning tower is the 

 periscope, which is the ship's eye when it is 

 submerged. The periscope is a long, jointed 

 pipe, fitted with reflecting mirrors, which can 

 351 



water is drawn through valves when the vessel 

 is to be submerged. From four to twenty tor- 

 pedoes, the number depending on the size of 

 the boat, weighing 1,500 to 2,000 pounds each 

 and over sixteen feet long, are stored under 

 the sleeping bunks along the side. The tor- 

 pedo tubes, which are guns for hurling the tor- 

 pedoes at the enemy at a rate of thirty-five 

 miles an hour, are in the bows. Air for the 

 crew is carried in steel cylinders under great 

 pressure. 



Submarine Service. Submarines of the type 

 described above may be only 100 or 135 feet 

 in length, or they may be 250 feet long. In 

 1914 these vessels had a steaming radius of 

 about 700 miles; in 1916 larger boats could 

 travel 5,000 miles from their base. With so 

 much machinery and such a weight of guncot- 

 ton stored in a craft of small dimensions, it 

 can readily be seen that there is not much 

 room left for the crew. Space is, indeed, at a 

 premium on board a submarine. Crowded into 



