Submarine torpedo-boats are actual, practical working vessels to-day,
and already they have to be considered in the naval plans for attack and
defense.

Though the importance of submarines in warfare, and especially as a
weapon of defense, is beginning to be thoroughly recognised, it took a
long time to arouse the interest of naval men and the public generally
sufficient to give the inventors the support they needed.

Americans once had within their grasp the means to blow some of their
enemies' ships out of the water, but they did not realise it, as will be
shown in the following, and for a hundred years the progress in this
direction was hindered.

It was during the American Revolution that a man went below the surface
of the waters of New York Harbour in a submarine boat just big enough to
hold him, and in the darkness and gloom of the under-water world
propelled his turtle-like craft toward the British ships anchored in
mid-stream. On the outside shell of the craft rested a magazine with a
heavy charge of gunpowder which the submarine navigator intended to
screw fast to the bottom of a fifty-gun British man-of-war, and which
was to be exploded by a time-fuse after he had got well out of harm's
way.

Slowly and with infinite labour this first submarine navigator worked
his way through the water in the first successful under-water boat, the
crank-handle of the propelling screw in front of him, the helm at his
side, and the crank-handle of the screw that raised or lowered the craft
just above and in front. No other man had made a like voyage; he had
little experience to guide him, and he lacked the confidence that a