THE SUBMARINE: 1812-1907.
; Submarino battleships . aro : not' novelties, and, as • might;bo ■ expected,' tho ingenious Yankee led the:way in this bfancli of- uiicomfortablo mechanics. 'So-Icing''ago as' 18124on July 13 of - that-year, tobocxact—when 'we were at war with the United State's,' lI.M.'S. "Ramilies" was lying at 'anchor off Now London, blockading that town. • Tho' "Ramilies" was commaiidcd by' Captain Hardy, tho Hardy of' Nelson famo. The deck sentry on duty, happening'to'look astern, observed an object rise to tho surfaco close to tho ship. Ho sang out,' "Boat ahoy I " Ori this the submarine —for • such it was—immediately disappeared.' An alarm gun was at onco fired, and all hands woro piped to quarters. Tho cables were cut and tho vossel got under /tray. Onco more tho mysterious stranger rose to the surfaco, but bofbro tho guns could be trained upon it it dived again, and fastened itself on tho keel of tho British ship. Tliero it remained' for half' an hour, during which" time, the man who'wa's .iji it succeeded in drilling a hole "through' tho copper of tho "Ramilies,'v hilt the' screw with which ho was attaching" the oxjilosivp. to the bottom broke, so that tho attempt to'; "sink tho ship failed". ' .' Still earlior, in 1776, no less, than three unsuccessful , attempts woro mado to sink liritisb war-vessels in American ports—we woro then at war with the American colonios—by submarines. In 1797' Fulton, who invontod tho steamboat, designed a submarino, olferod it to Napoleon, and actually blew up an old schoonor at Brest in oiMer to prove the efficiency of his invontion. But to-day, in a siVont and almost unobserved fashion, submarino warships aro being multiplied in wholo (loots. Tho submarino" to quoto tho: "Daily Mail," seems likoly to bocomo "tho "reed-like bacillus of the narrow seas.". : .
Tlio J'Vonch- havcv as many- as 0110 hundred' of those uncanny -little craft, while up to the prosent there are: sixty British boats eitherbuilt or. building. The first-submarines ; llad a tonnage of onlv 120 in 1901, and this roseto ISO in 1902,, 200 in 1903,: and 300; in 10031907; whilo tho latest British D-type boats, as yet not finished, are to be of still larger
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Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 86, 4 January 1908, Page 10
Word Count
360THE SUBMARINE: 1812-1907. Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 86, 4 January 1908, Page 10
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