TORPEDO EXPLOSION.
The "cigar boat" steamed silently on its course until within about fifty yards of the Ironsides, without being discovered. Everything on the immense ship seemed as quiet as the grave. Suddenly, in the still night, the lieutenant cries, "Ship ahoy!" "Where away?" is the answer. "We have come to attack you," cries the lieutenant, at the same time firing his fowling-piece, checking the engine, and directing the torpedo. It struck, but before the "cigar boat" could retire, with a gurgling roar it exploded. The explosion sounded like the discharge of a submerged gun. Water mixed with flame was forced by the explosion far up above the gunwales of the ship, and bearing up the bows of the smaller craft, poured back in torrents through the chimney, put out the fires, and rendered the "cigar boat" helpless.
For a moment everything on board the Ironsides was in confusion; but the discipline of the navy was equal to the emergency. The drums beat to quarters, the guns were manned, and the marines poured a steady fire upon the little craft, now floating helplessly on the sea. Lieutenant Glassells jumped into the water, to escape death from the shower of balls; the pilot followed him, but the fireman remained at his post, as the boat drifted away from danger. Glassells then called for help; the marines ceased firing, and a small boat from the Ironsides rescued him from the water. The pilot swam back to the "cigar boat" and he and the fireman bailed her out, rekindled the fire, and escaped to Charleston. Glassells was afterwards sent North, and under confinement his health broke down. The Ironsides was sufficiently injured by the explosion to be sent from her station for repairs. Had the torpedo struck her further below, it is thought to be probable that she would have been sunk.
Another torpedo boat was also built in Charleston, upon a different model. This was called the "fish boat." It was built of boiler-iron, was thirty feet long by five feet eight inches deep, and about four and a half feet wide, amidships. Its middle section was an ellipse flattening to a wedge shape at both ends, which were alike. It was intended to rise or sink in the water, like a fish, and in order to do this its specific gravity had to be kept equal that of water. In navigating under water the boat had also to be kept upon an even keel. On her bowsprit, which projected ten feet, the torpedo was secured, and in order to balance the hundred and fifty pounds this weighed, an equal amount of ballast was stowed at the stern. Ten feet from her bow she had two iron fins, one on each side, about four feet long, seven inches wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. These fins were fastened to an inch rod of iron passing through water-tight fittings in her sides, and provided with a crank inside, so that the fins could be worked in any direction, or at any angle, forcing the craft to the surface, or below, or forward or backward. By working them also in opposite directions the vessel could be turned as a row-boat is by pulling with one oar and backing water with the other. At the stern, midway between the top and bottom, she was provided with a propeller, worked by a shaft, fitted water-tight, and propelled by hand-power inside the hold. On her deck were two round hatches, or man holes, about ten feet apart, and fitted with plates of such thick glass as is used in side-walks, for cellar lights, set in iron frames, working upon hinges, fastened on the inside, and fitting water-tight when closed. Between these hatches were two flexible air pipes, with air-tight valves, so that when within a foot of the surface, by opening the valves, fresh air could be drawn into the hold. The crew depended upon the violent action of their hats, when the valves were open, for making a current sufficient to displace the foul air, and bring in a supply of fresh.
When the boat was finished, in the first experiment made with her, she carried a crew of eight men, and a shifting ballast of iron plates. She moved from the wharf, passed down the river, just showing the tops of the hatches, dove under a ship lying in the stream, rose on the other side, and returned to the wharf. This was done successfully a second time, when the chief of the crew left her for some purpose, and the rest of the men, though unaccustomed to the work, undertook to perform the experiment alone. She moved out, dove down, but never came up. About a fortnight afterward she was found, raised, the dead removed, and the whole inside disinfected, cleaned and painted white. On the second trial she filled just as the crew had manned her, and sunk. The captain and one other saved themselves, but the rest of the crew, consisting of five, were drowned in her. Another crew volunteered to man her, and on the night of the 17th of February, 1864, she set out from Sullivan's Island, to which place she had run from her anchorage, to attack the blockading fleet, carrying a torpedo affixed to her bowsprit.
During the whole night the bombardment of the city was kept up, and nothing was heard of the fish boat. The next morning a heavy fog hung over the coast, clearing up about eight in the morning, and the sloop-of-war Housatonic was discovered to be sunk in about six fathoms of water, her crew swarming in her rigging for safety. The fish boat had destroyed her, and destroyed herself in doing so. This was the first time that she had ever been used in exploding a torpedo, and the cause of her destruction is supposed to have been as follows: The weight of the torpedo, on her bowsprit, was balanced by the shifting ballast in her stern, and thus she was kept on an even keel. As soon, however, as the torpedo struck and exploded, the balance was destroyed, her bows were lifted by the weight in the stern, control was lost of her, and the Housatonic, sinking from the damage done her by the explosion, settled upon the "fish boat" and carried her and her crew to the bottom.
Disastrous as these attempts at submarine navigation were, yet they are the most successful yet made. We have seen else where that men have, for other purposes than war, been able to descend under the surface of the sea, and stay there quite a time without injury; but their appliances are not vessels intended for navigation.
Let us turn, then, from this record of how human ingenuity has been taxed to devise means to destroy men, to the consideration of the new devices made for their comfort or safety in crossing the sea. One of the most useful of these is a life raft or bolsa, one of which is represented in our cut. This consists of three elastic cylinders, made of india-rubber cloth, each twenty-five feet long. When empty they are easily packed in a very small compass. For use they are blown up, and fastened to a prepared staging. The cut represents one which crossed the Atlantic in 1867, arriving at Southampton July 25, having started from New York forty-three days before. She was rigged with two masts secured to the staging, and her crew consisted of three men, John Wilkes, George Miller and Jerry Mallene. A bellows to fill the cylinders, should they require it, was an important item in her cargo. The crew kept alternate watch, sleeping, by turns, in a tent spread on the staging. Their supply of water they carried in casks. The experiment of crossing the Atlantic was made to show the safety of a raft thus constructed.
LIFE RAFT.