Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-08-29
INSIDE A SUBMARINE
You Are Greeted by a Deafening,
 Ear Splitting Racket.
WORSE THAN A BOILER SHOP.
To Make Yourself Heard at All You Must Shout Into the Eae of a com- panion--The Economy of Space and the Simplicity of Arrangements.

Must Shout Into the Eae of a Com-
 panion--The Economy of Space and
 the Simplicity of Arrangements.
 Climbing down ten rungs of an iron ladder into the interior of a sub- marine is like going into boiler shop where theIS is one continuous, deafen- ing, ear splitting racket like a dozen trip hammers chattering tattoo amid a grind and rumble and thump of ma chinery as if especially designed to burst your eardrums.
 At first the noise in that narrowly confined space is painful and bewilder- ing. To make yourself at all heard you must shout into the ear of a con- panion. So intense is the strain, says a writer in St. Nicholas, that you mar vel how day in and day out human ears can withstand the ordeSi.
 You find yourself inside what seems an enormous steel cigar painted neat pearl gray, color which is serviceable and does not dazzle the eye Light comes to you partly through portholes and in part from incandescent lamps placed fore and aft in the darker parts of the hull.
 You have expected, of course. to land in tangle of whirling machinery that fills the inside of the boat from stem to stern, threatening with every revolution to take an arm or leg of. Instead the first thing you see is an uninterrupted working space" or deck, measuring ' by 9 or 30 feet.
 At the stern, far in the background, are the machines and engines. In fact. this section of the vessel is nothing but machinery, runbling mass of silvery steel and glittering brass revolving at the rate of 300 times minute, so com pact that you wonder how the various parts can turn without conflicting or how it is possible for human hands to squeeze through the maze to oil the machinery.
 But this economy of space is as noth- ing to what you will see. The floor LII the storage batteries wherein is pent up the electricity with which your boat will propel herself when she runs sub merged. The walls amidships and the space in the bow are gigantic ballast tanks to be filled with water that will these are tool boxes and hinged hunks for the crew to sleep in.
 The four torpedoes, measuring six teen feet three inches long, eighteen inches in diameter and weighing 1.5OO pounds each, are dashed end for end in pairs at either side, and directly over these are tool boxes and hinged hunks for the crew to sleep in.
 The very air which is taken along to keep life in you in case the boat should be detained beneath the surface longer than usual is compressed in a steel cyl finder 2,O00 pounds per square inch, a pressure so intense that were the cyl finder to spring q leak no larger than pin hole and were the tiny stream of air to strike human being 1t would penetrate him through and through and drill a hole through an Inch thick board behind him.
 And yet everything about the inte- rior arrangements of this boat is so sim pie that you can see at glance its purpose. Away forward, where the tip of the cigar comes to a point. are the two torpedo tubes out of which the gunner will send his deadly pro- jectiles seething beneath the waters at the rate of 35 knots an hour against m unsuspecting hull.
 Directly under the coming tower is a platform. three feet square and ele- vated three feet from the deck, upon which the captain stands, head and | shoulders extending into the tower, so that while at his post he is visible to the crew only from the waist line ! town. and at the feet of the captain | md on a level with his platform Is stationed another of the officers. in | charge of the wheel that controls the living rudders and the gauges that | register the angle of ascent and de- cline and show how deep the boat is down.
 The two officers are in personal com 1 so that in case of heart i disease or other mishap either can lump to the other mans place.
 rcvx queen Ress pined.