The Sentinel=record., 1915-03-03
popclNo THE SUBMARINES.

q Writing in the March number of Everybody's Magazine, Henry Reuter- { dahl, the artist and student on naval affairs. announces his conclusion that s the only defense against submarines
 is speed plus zigzag courses" Up to the time his article was written he de- :. clared that only one vessel steaminS above ten knots an hour had fallen < prey to these devils of the deep
 The unlucBy exception was a German k destroyer, torpedoed by the British
 E-9 The early successes of the Ger
 man submarines he explains upon the
 theory that the British had not then 2 learned the all-important lesson of safety. The Hogue, Greasy and Abou-
 Rir were "patrolling at a speed Of
 seven knots in waters infested by the
 enemy's submarines and unattended by destroyens The German U-9 tor s pedoed the Aboulir and succeeded in bagging the other two because they halted to rescue the crew of their sinking consort,
 MT. Reuterdahl's theory has been tested, since it was put in type, by some of the merchant ships which the i Kaiser's submarines have been stalk
 ing these past two weeks. Passengers of the Grampian arrived at Halifax,
 N &, last Saturday, told how that 1. ship, warned of the presence of hos tile submarines shortly after clearing from Liverpool, cracked on speed and /Nsas kept on a "bigzag course until 4 she cleared the danger zone. The crews of other ships have related how
 they were chased" by the subma- rines and escaped by use of the same
 tactics.
 If speed and the zigzag constitute
 the only defense against the subma
 rine, as the American observer testi- ? fies, that defense seems to have been reasonably effective thus far. Ger many's "blockading" submarines have accomplished, in the first fortnight Of their new campaign, considerably less than the German admiralty apparent ly expected of them. Their "kill" has been comparatively trivial. How far they havc interfered with the Channel and North Sea traffic of the Allies is not positively known this side of the ocean, but the transatlantic traffic seems to have Ieen very little dis turbed. Cargo ships cleared from American ports for destinations within the war zone" in the face of Germanys warning. There is as yctI no indication either of impressive losses or slaekening of this trade. Whether it is due to speed and the zigzag, or to unceasing vigilance and energy on the part of the Allied pa trols, the German submarines have not up to this time come within sight ing distance of realizing the dream of the British novelist whose tale of an effective blockade achieved by four submarines of a minor power was published as the war began.
 Before the conflict is closed, how. ever, the submarines may develop ani attack against which speed and zig gag courses will prove a less sure de- fense. The underwater fighters may themselves develop greater speed, or ! a new projectile may be devised toI circumvent the lodging and twisting
 of their quarry It is quite as con-
 oeivable, too, that new and better
 means of defense may be devised,
 Submarine warfare is still very much
 in the experimental stage and few of
 the experts show any disposition toI
 commit themselves regarding it evenI
 so positively as MT. Reuterdahl aas
 done.