Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-02-23

This Now the Greatest Question in Ma
val Warfare.

The greatest question III naval war
fare to-day is not about the big battle
ships or saucy tOrpedO-boatS. already
pictured and described i'll St. Nicholas
but how to get boat that will safely
dive below the keel OF Il hostile vessel
and blow her 10 destruction with 4
charge of dynamite or guncotton. This
mode of attacking an enemy is not en-
tirely new. for. nearly twenty-five hun
bred years ago, divers We're lowered III
to the water in simply constructed
air-boX, to peIforate the wooden bot
toms Of an adversary's war-galleyS, III
order to sink them, and drown and cap
ture their rowers and lighting men
The diving warrior and his box did
not Outlast the great galleyS they had
uied to sink, and the history of these
boats passes over two thousand years
to the American captain Bushnell. OF
the Revolutionary army, and his diving
boat. This was a tiny, walnut-shaped
vessel. sculled by a single oar, and hay
ing a crew of one man. The boat sat
low in the water while on the surface,
enabling it at night to get near its in
tended victim without detection. Then
the hatch was closed, shutting in air
enough to last half an hour and by let
ting in little water and turning an
upright screw-bladed oar, the boat was
sunk to near the keel-level of the enc
my's, and Sculled under the hull. A
torpedo outside the boat carried hea-
Wy charge o gunpOWder, and was pro-
vided with clockwOrh to fire the charge
alter the little torpedo-boat should have
retrcated to a safe distance The torpe-
do had a pointed screw stem, by which
it was to be attached to the doomed
vessel, the screw being turned from
inside the torpedo-boat Except for
the breaking Of this screw, it is posi-
BILE that the Birth admilars flagship
might have been blown up as she lay
at anchor in New York harbor; but that
is mere suesswOrk, for, as Geneal Wash
ingtCn said of the boat, too many thin-s
wee necessary to be combined in it."
Yet it was ingenious, 4 credit to Ameri-
can skill and daring, and its arrange
mentS are still studied by those inter-
eSted in submarine navigation.
Twenty-Five years later, Robert Full
ton, who did sc much for steam navi-
CATION, took the Bushnell boat for Il
mdel, and greatly improved upon it.
He made the hull of thin copper sheets,
instead Of wood, and changed the scull-
ing-oar into apaddle-wheel worked by
hand. He forced into Il copper tank
enough air to supply a crew of four
men while under water for six hours.
FO use while at the surface, the boat
was provided with removable masts
and sails. His experiments lasted some
twelve years, the governments Of
France, Great Britain and the United
States successfully supplyig the means.
But naval experts everywher secuted
the selviceableness Of the boat, and the
higher authorities denounced its mode
Of warfare as no better than murder
or assassination. The device, however,
was employed without official permits
sion against some Of the British vessels
blockading the New England coasts in
the War Of 1912. Though no actual
damage was done, the blockaders were
badly frightened by the attempts.-Feb-
ruary st. Nicholas.