In that curious old volume entitled “New Experiments Physico-mechanical touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects,” by the “Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq.,” mention is made of Drebbel’s boat, and it may be interesting to transcribe the passage. It occurs, on p. 188 of the second edition, published at Oxford in 1662.
THE EARLIEST KNOWN PICTURE OF AN UNDER-WATER VESSEL.
“But yet on occasion of this opinion of Paracelsus, perhaps it will not be impertinent if before I proceed, I acquaint your lordship with a Conceit of that deservedly Famous Mechanician and Chymist, Cornelius Drebell, who among other strange things that he performed, is affirmed (by more than a few credible Persons) to have contrived for the late learned King James, a vessel to go under Water; of which tryal was made in the Thames with admirable success, the vessel carrying twelve Rowers besides Passengers; one of which is yet alive, and related to an excellent Mathematician that informed me of it. Now that for which I mention this story is, That having had the curiosity and opportunity to make particular Enquiries among the Relations of Drebell, and especially of an ingenious Physitian that marryed his daughter, concerning the grounds upon which he conceived it feasible to make men unaccustomed to continue so long under Water without suffocation, or (as the lately mention’d Person that went in the Vessel affirms) without inconvenience, I was answered that Drebell conceived, that ’tis not the whole body of the air but a certain Quintessence (as Chymists speake) or spirituous part of it that makes it fit for respiration, which being spent the remaining grosser body, or carcase (if I may so call it) of the Air, is unable to cherish the vital flame residing in the heart: so that (for ought I could gather) besides the Mechanicall contrivance of his vessel he had a Chymicall liquor, which he accounted the chief secret of his Submarine Navigation. For when from time to time he perceived that the finer and purer part of the Air was consumed or over-clogged by the respiration, and steams of those that went in his ship, he would, by unstopping a vessel full of the liquor speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts as would make it again for a good while fit for Respiration. Whether by dissipating or precipitating the grosser exhalations, or by some other intelligible way, I must not now stay to examine, contenting myself to add, that having had the opportunity to do some service to those of his Relations, that were most intimate with him, and having made it my business to learn what the strange liquor might be, they constantly affirmed that Drebell would never disclose the Liquor unto any, nor so much as tell the matter whereof he made it, to above one Person, who himself assured me what it was.”
It is much to be wished that fuller accounts were extant respecting Drebbel’s boat, and the methods he employed to enable his passengers to breathe under water. W. B. Rye in one of the notes to his work “England as seen by Foreigners” (1865, p. 232), gives a carefully compiled account of Drebbel’s inventions and quotes from a Dutch Chronicle of Alkmaar, by C. van der Wonde (1645), a passage relating to his submarine boat.
“He built a ship in which one could row and navigate under water from Westminster to Greenwich, the distance of two Dutch miles; even five or six miles, or as far as one pleased. In this boat a person could see under the surface of the water and without candle-light, as much as he needed to read in the Bible or any other book. Not long ago this remarkable ship was yet to be seen lying in the Thames or London river.”
As to what Drebbel’s “Chymicall Liquor” really was there is no chance of discovering. Professor W. P. Bradley has pointed out that the name “Quintessence of Air” is very suggestive of oxygen. The life-giving component of air (not discovered until a century and a half after Drebbel’s time) is volumetrically the “quintessence,” the fifth part of air. “Is it possible,” he asks, “that Drebbel had discovered some liquid which easily disengaged the then unknown oxygen gas and thus was able to restore to vitiated air that principle of which respiration deprives it? Undoubtedly not. It is much more likely that he possessed a solution capable of absorbing the carbonic acid gas which is produced by respiration, and that the name given it was entirely fanciful and without special significance. But even if Drebbel’s claim was a piece of pure quackery with no substantial basis at all, it is nevertheless not without interest, for it shows, as we might have anticipated, that the problem of ventilation, one of the most important with which the inventors of submarines have to deal, was at least appreciated by Drebbel the pioneer.”
A writer of the period, one Harsdoffer, tells how Drebbel was led to the construction of his boat:—
“One day when walking along the banks of the Thames Drebbel noticed some sailors dragging behind their barques baskets full of fish; he saw that the barques were weighed down in the water, but that they rose a little when the baskets allowed the ropes which held them to slacken a little. The idea occurred to him that a ship could be held under the water by a somewhat similar method and could be propelled by oars and poles. Some time afterwards he constructed two little boats of this nature, but of different sizes, which were tightly closed with thick skin, and King James himself journeyed in one of them on the Thames. There were on this occasion twelve rowers besides the passengers, and the vessel during several hours was kept at a depth of twelve to fifteen feet below the surface.” This royal excursion under water terminated, we read, “fort hereusement.”
The Abbé de Hautefeuille, in a brochure which appeared in 1680 entitled “Manière de respirer sous l’Eau,” writes thus:—