The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-07-22
BY HOWARD W.. BLAKESLEE
Associated Press Science EditOrl

ASSOCIATED Press Science Editor
New York.-R-When Sir HUI
bert wilkins submarine sails under
the ice to the north pole next
summer, what will protect her from
crashing into sub-surface blocks OF
ice?
This question, always the first
asked about this project, was put to
Lieut. Com. Sloan DanehoWer, who,
with Simon Lake, the submarine
builder, will rebuild the United States
navy submarine O-l2 for the voyage
and himself sail he under the polar
ice.
The answer Is a law Of nature, the
operation of which Commander Dan
enhower found for himself last sum-
mer at the bottom of Long Island
Sound in the tiny submarine Defend
er. It is an action of buoyancy which
he said even few naval men have
realized.
The Defender had wheels to run on
the bottom. But when she hit a rock
the wheels seemed TO be rubber balls,
bouncing her easily upward out OF
harms way.
Her weight was close to nothing,
that is, just a little heavier than the
water. She was not greatly differ
ent from a balloon bouncing along.
The same principle, with the wheel
over the subs back, and the bouncing
done downward, will be used under
the ice. The wheel will run OF q
stocky trolley above the coming
tower. The lower end of the trolley
arm will be pivoted like al automo-
bile shock absorber within the sub.
The ships buoyancy will be about
1000 pounds, sufficient to keep her
trolley humping lightly along the
under surface of ice.
A protective arch-called a jumper
bar, like q wartime net protective
device-will curve above her back
from bow to stern. Commander
Danenhower said she will be strong
enough to withstand collisions at four
knots an hour-the highest under
water speed contemplated.
Even so, the sub is not made tc
crash icebergs nor the underwater ice
crags called RATS" These obstacles
are not believed to exist in the polar
sea.
In their request to the navy for the
OLE, wilkins and Dan,nhower wrote
There are no icebergs of great sizt
| within the Arctic. Large pressure
ridges have been observed only neal
the coast and the deepest of these ex
tend not more than 100 feet under
sea level"
The Ola can descend 200 feet
Icebergs come from glaciers far south
of the pole and float always south
ward. Behring'S by hansen in the Ice
pack of this ocean showed the aver.
age thickness 10 feet.
mo one has yet see great. un-
broken ice-floeS in that sea during
summer" the letter says. Wilkins
believes it will not even be necessary
to rise in the leads" dangerous places
which wind closes like jaws.
He says floes always have quiet all
openings in their interiors and but q
few miles apart.
There will be a t~elescoping coming
tower capable of thrusting upward
through 10 feet of pack ice. There
will be a new kind of periscope capa-
BILE of boring upward through so feet
of ice to get air for men and batteries
There will be an air lock in the
subs bottom for divers to step Out
into the half mile or more depth o.
water believed to cover the polar
bottom. These divers will climb the
subs side by ladder, equipped with
underwater lamps for exploring. an0
in emergency with explosives to BIZ
fastened beneath the ice and set of
from a distance with wires.
Two forward torpedo tubes will be
turned into high power eyes with