The interior of the Sea Diver lacked nothing in the way of equipment and appointment.
There were supplies of all kinds aboard for a cruise of two years.
Amidships and under the big dome were the wonderful electric engines, by means of which power was furnished for all the mechanism of the boat.
In the pilot-house was the electric keyboard. Here were the various little buttons and brass levers by means of which the doors and windows could be hermetically sealed, the huge tank filled with water instantly for the sinking of the boat, or again for raising it by the expulsion of the water with pneumatic pressure.
Thus the boat could be made to sink or rise at any desired depth; to go forward or back at the pressure of a button.
As wonderful as anything was the system of circulation by means of chemically-made oxygen. Under the pilot-house there was placed a generator which was capable of manufacturing pure oxygen, and also of extracting and destroying the bad air or gases as fast as they were created.
Little pipes and open valves extended to every part of the boat through which the oxygen was continually disseminated, so that the submarine boat might remain an indefinite time under water and the voyagers could be sure of breathing pure air all the time.
In fact, not a detail was lacking to make the Sea Diver a safe vessel, a comfortable home and a symmetrical, beautiful craft.
It was true that Frank Reade, Jr., had done his best to perfect the new submarine boat.
That he had been successful it was easy enough to see. Nobody had more confidence in him than his friend, Mr. Wilbur Wade.