120 ON THE SUITABILITY OF CURRENT DESIGN OF SUBMARINES 
gret that in our navy we have not balanced the two types a little better as to numbers. I do 
not think we have quite favored one side as much as we have the other. 
Mr. W. L. R. Emmet, Member of Council:—I was made chairman of the Committee 
on Submarines by the Naval Consulting Board and thought it my duty to inform myself 
somewhat on the subject. Although I have not come directly in contact very much with 
such vessels, my experiences and inquiries have led to a few generalizations on the subject. 
I have in the course of my association with the Navy Department in connection with tur- 
bine propulsion work for several years past come in contact with three or four different 
submarine experts who were serving in the department at different times. These gentlemen 
are possibly serving as navigators now, and other navigators are in preparation for the sub- 
marine expert job in Washington. 
This is not a criticism of the Navy Department, but it is a sort of suggestion of the fact 
that the Navy Department is, it seems, hardly doing enough to develop such a complicated 
engineering problem as the building of submarines. To do anything with such a problem, 
the most expert engineers must devote a vast amount of time and attention to it, and a 
great deal of money must be spent upon its development and perfection. 
As I have looked at the submarine situation, it seems like a fruitful field for engineer- 
ing activity, and the impression which I have formed is that our navy seems a little too much 
disposed to regard the submarine as having arrived, that certain types have been developed, 
and that those are the ones to build. It seems to me there are enormous possibilities in the 
submarine. One little detail which came to my attention the other day was this—I have 
talked with several different submarine experts in Washington concerning the possible pro- 
pulsion of submarines by steam instead of by oil engines as a measure of simplification, a 
slight possible disadvantage in fuel consumption being incident to the use of steam, but a very 
great mechanical simplification, I have always been told that while they figured on it a 
little, it was impossible and could not be considered, and that there were various good rea- 
sons for not doing it. 
The other day we had a visit in Schenectady from the Glasgow representative of the 
British Thomson-Houston Company, which is our English branch. He told me they had 
furnished blowers for forty steam-driven submarines built within the last two or three 
years in England. These boats are about 12,000 horse-power each, and many of them were 
at sea. He reported they were very successful and that he had been informed by the authorities 
in the British Navy that such boats were considered vastly superior to the oil-engine-driven 
boats and that they were not going to build any more of that type. My information may 
not be exactly right, but it is so strikingly different from what I hear on the same subject 
at Washington that it seems rather significant. 
There is another matter which I have considered in connection with submarines. I find 
there is nothing original in the idea, but it strikes me as interesting, and it is this—the stor- 
age battery affords a means of storing oxygen and other combustible materials which, be- 
ing combined, produce electricity. It was suggested a long time ago, I believe, that, as a 
substitute for the storage battery oxygen be stored in submarines and used for combustion. 
Recently methods of producing oxygen by the liquid air process have been greatly improved, 
and theoretically it can be produced extremely cheap in large quantities, and can be stored 
under pressure in liquid form by methods recently discovered. With a steam-driven vessel it 
would, I believe, be quite easy to use oxygen for under-water combustion; that is, you could 
