The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-29
REAL SUBMARINE
BUILT 297 YEARS
AGO IN ENGLAND
King James Said to Have
Taken Ride in First
Practical Undersea
Boat.

| DOdC.
| The submarine is much older thar
the German Empire, and the credit OF
being the first sovereign to make q
| trip in one is given to James l. OF
England, a monarch who has gener-
ally been. represented as a man OF
more than ordinary timidity.
Doubt has been cast on the story
but whether it is true or not that
James actually made a trip in a sub
marine, it is interesting to recall that
one of James friends did undoubtedly
construct the first practical submersi-
BILE boat recorded in history.
| Alexander the Great is said to have
employed diving bells at the siege of
Tyre, 1872 B. C. An Arabian historian
named Bohaddin, who lived about
1850 A. D., relates that a diver enter
| ed Ptolemais during siege by means
of submarine apparatus An inven-
ton for descending into the sea was
heard of at Toledo in 1888. and
Charles V is said to have interested
himself in it,
Forty-two years later an English
man, William Boone, was credited
with inventing "a plunging apparatus
similar to a device produced nearly
200 years later by one Symons, which
was galley shaped, with dome-like
roof, but differing in the manner of
submersion.
Boone's plunger was submerged by
contraction of the hull through the
fundamentally of hand vises, which
reduced it's volume, while Symons
made use of leather bottles, which he
\ e ~ -,
1903 made a similar device, which
According to Alan H. Burgyne, F.
r. G. S.. 'the honor of having con-
structed the first submarine boat un-
doubtedly belongs to Cornelius van
Drebel, a Dutch physician. His first
submarine was made in 1920, when he
built and launched navigable sub
prove that he had two others en-
structed on the same plans, in the
largest of which James I. Of whom van
| Drebel was an intimate friend, made
a lengthy trip.
''These early craft were built of
wood and rendered watertight by
stretching creased leather al lover the
hull. The following is from a descrip-
ton of the largest:
"She carried II rowers, besides pas
sengers and made a journey of several
hours at depth of from IL to Is feet
The holes for. the oars were made to
hid water boytleather jints.
Evan Drebel accounted his chief Sc
cret to be the composition of liquid
that would spe. lily restore to the
troubled air such a proportion Of vital
parts as would make it again for a
good while fit for respiration. The
composition of this liquid for enabling
air to be used again was never made
public.
ivan Drebel died, i'm 1884 without
having completed ahis experiments,
leaving no document relative to his
work on the subject"
According to the Able de Haute-
feuelle, who some years later publish
ed a pamphlet on the art Of breathing
under water, there was no liquid en-
ployed.
1.-The secret of Drebel," he says,
twas in an apparatus which consisted
of bellows with two pipes and two
valves coming on to the surface of the
water, one bringing pure air down.
and the other conveying the foul air
away"
Van Drebel constructed his Boats
with two bottoms and submerged
them by filling the space between the
two with water. He conducted his ex-
periments on the Thames and is said
to have made a trip under water from
Westminster to Greenwich, a distance
Of about 10 miles,
Commander Murray F. Sueter of the
Royal Navy, who has written a work
on submarines, while giving full cred
it to Van Drebel for his submersible,
is inclined to doubt that it was prac-
tically navigable under water. AS to
James trip, after referring to the
Kings reputation for timidity, he says:
This is extremely doubtful, as even
with submarines of the present time
people who are timid would scarcely
be keen for facing this somewhat I'M
usual experience. There can be little
doubt, however, that James inspected
and watched with great interest a
craft rowed with the top of the hull
on the water, or just under occasion
ally, as with the crude devices then
available an even depth line would
not have. been maintained"