Ill 



SUBMARINE VESSELS 



THE development of submarine vessels has been 

 one of the slowest in the history of modern 

 inventions. Submarine boats, using sub- 

 marine torpedoes, were able to destroy ships a hun- 

 dred years ago; and a little less than half a century 

 ago naval vessels were destroyed in actual warfare by 

 these boats. But curiously enough no vessel has ever 

 been destroyed in actual warfare by a submarine boat 

 since that time. Yet these boats are essentially war- 

 vessels, and, with the exception of boats of the Lake 

 type, of no use whatever for commercial purposes. 



Perhaps the explanation for this tardy development 

 lies in the fact that until recent years naval men have 

 not looked with favor upon this style of fighting craft. 

 In Admiral Porter's book, written in 1878, he makes 

 the statement that one of the reasons why they did not 

 show more enthusiasm about the submarine made by 

 Robert Fulton early in the nineteenth century, was 

 that such boats "menaced the position of the naval 

 men, whose calling would be gone did the little sub- 

 marine boat supplant the battle-ship." We need not, 

 however, depend upon this statement, made as it was 

 three-quarters of a century after the demonstrations by 

 Fulton, for there are many similar statements made at 



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