I have always had some little sympathy for the sensations or fears which those without a knowledge of natural physics might experience on going down into the water; but I have had little sympathy for those who by their education should know and understand the principles of submarine navigation, when operating with a properly designed boat with an experienced crew.
Now, one of the features which the Argonaut possessed, which was new in its application to submarine boats at that time, was the use of a diving compartment and air-lock connected with the main hull of the vessel, which would permit divers to leave the vessel when submerged by opening a door in the bottom of this diving compartment after first filling the compartment with compressed air corresponding to the pressure of the water outside of the vessel, which varies in accordance with the depth of submergence.
Every schoolboy is taught the principle of the diving bell, which can be illustrated by the use of a tumbler or glass. If a tumbler is turned upside down and forced into water, the water will not rise to fill the tumbler, owing to the fact that the air, being the lighter, will remain in the tumbler and the water will simply rise, compressing the air to the same pressure per square inch as the pressure surrounding it. Now if you push a tumbler down into the water a distance of thirty-four feet the tumbler would be about one-half full of water and one-half full of air, which corresponds to one atmosphere in pressure. Now if an additional tumbler full of air was compressed to the same pressure and released in that tumbler it would force the water out, and there would be a double volume, or two atmospheres of air, in the tumbler, or just twice what there would be on the surface and under normal atmospheric pressure. This is the principle on which the diving compartment in the Lake type boat operates, it being only necessary to admit air into the diving compartment until the pressure equals the outside water pressure; then a door opening outwardly from the bottom may be opened to permit ready egress or ingress, and so long as the air pressure is maintained no water will rise in the boat.
A professor of physics in the University of Pennsylvania visited the Argonaut in Baltimore during some early experiments with her, and in discussing the features of the diving compartment with which, from his position as a professor of natural physics, he should have been entirely familiar, expressed some doubt as to its practicability. He said he understood the theory of it all right, but thought there might be some difficulty in carrying it out in a practical way as I had explained. I invited him into the diving compartment and told him that I would submerge the boat and open the door for him for his benefit, so that he could explain to his students that he had actually seen it done. He turned pale and said, "Oh, no; I would not put you to that trouble for the world"; but by that time I had the heavy iron door closed between the diving compartment and the main hull, and had already started to raise the pressure of the air in the compartment, and assured him that it was not the least trouble in the world; on the contrary, it was a great pleasure. By this time beads of perspiration were standing on his face. When one undergoes air pressure for the first time considerable pain is ofttimes experienced in the ears, due to the pressure on the Eustachian tubes and ear-drums not becoming equalized. To equalize this pressure it is necessary for divers or those undergoing pressure to go through the movement of swallowing, which has a tendency to relieve the unequal pressure and stop the pain. I noticed that the professor was experiencing quite a little pain and consequently told him to swallow, and it was really amusing to see the rapidity with which he worked his "Adam's apple" up and down. He then asked if there was any danger. I answered him that there was none, except to those who were troubled with heart-disease. He immediately put his hand up over his heart and said, "Well, my heart is quite seriously affected," but by that time we had secured the necessary pressure to enable me to open the diving door at the bottom, so I released the "locking dogs" and allowed the door to open, and when he saw the water did not come in, his face cleared and he said, "Well, you know I never would have believed it if I had not seen it," and then he added that he would not have missed seeing it for the world.
Another interesting incident in connection with undergoing pressure occurred while at Hampton Roads, Va. One day I received a visit from a professor of mathematics and his wife at the Hampton Institute, each of whom held a professorship in the college. They stated that the Argonaut had been discussed before the faculty and that they would like very much to go down in her and see the diving door opened, which I was very glad to show them. Just previous to going into the diving compartment Professor S—— explained to me that his wife was deaf in one ear, that she had been under a physician's care for about two years, and he wanted to know if undergoing pressure was likely to have an injurious effect upon her. Not being a physician or knowing what might occur, I advised against her undergoing pressure; but she insisted on going into the compartment, promising that if she felt any ill effect from the air pressure she would tell me and I could let her out. I was reluctant to have her go in, and when we entered the compartment I allowed the air to come in very slowly, in the meantime giving a general description of the vessel, and occupying as long a time in the procedure as possible. I noticed almost at once that she was in pain. Although she turned her back to me, I could tell by her clenched jaws and hands that she was probably suffering agony. I then stopped the pressure and suggested to the professor that he had better let his wife go out, but through clenched teeth she still protested, "No, go ahead; I can stand it!" Finally we got the pressure on and opened the door, but, while the professor seemed delighted, his wife made no remark. She simply stood with her hands clenched and I was afraid she was going to faint. Then all at once she screamed; but immediately after her face lighted up with a smile and she exclaimed, "It is all gone!" When she came out of the compartment, after the experiment was over, I noticed her put her hand up to one ear, and she said to her husband, "Do you know, I can hear as plainly out of that ear as I ever could!" About a year afterward I saw Professor S—— and he told me that apparently the experiment had cured his wife of deafness where physicians had failed to help her; that to date it had never returned, and that she could hear as well as she had ever heard. In discussing this matter with an ear specialist some time afterward, he explained to me that the lady had probably been suffering with a disease which caused the small bones connected with the ear-drum to freeze fast, so that the ear-drum did not vibrate. He stated that it is a very common cause of deafness and can seldom be cured; that the bringing of the uneven pressure on the Eustachian tube or other parts had broken away the secretion which had cemented these small bones together and permitted the ear-drum to vibrate as it should, and probably that was the only way in which she could have been helped. I am publishing this incident in the hope that it may lead to the construction of scientific apparatus for the cure of deafness in cases where the deafness is caused by trouble similar to that of the professor's wife.
After our experiments with the Argonaut in the Chesapeake Bay and on the Atlantic coast, she was enlarged and otherwise improved and in the winter of 1899 I brought her to Bridgeport, Connecticut, which offered excellent harbor conveniences and deep water, as well as providing the necessary manufacturing facilities for continuing my experimental work.
While there the request was made of me to let some of the newspaper people and some prominent men of the town witness her trials; I therefore invited them to take a trip out into the Sound. I remember that we extended in all twenty-eight invitations to the Mayor, to the press, and to some other prominent citizens, expecting that perhaps three or four of the number would accept. Very much to my surprise, twenty-nine appeared, and only one of those who had received the invitation failed to come, while two others brought their friends with them. Among the number was John J. Fisher, at that time quite a noted singer for the American Graphophone Company. I had planned to cook and serve a dinner for the party on board, and we intended to be back about two o'clock in the afternoon, but when we got out on the bottom of the Sound all the different members of the party wanted to see the bottom, so we travelled out over some oyster beds and clam beds and I opened the diving door and let the party all see the bottom of the Sound and pick up clams and "jingle" shells, in depths varying from twenty-four to thirty-odd feet, while running along the bottom. The air-lock was small and we could take only two at a time through it into the diving compartment. In the meantime a meal had been cooked for the others and served. Mr. Fisher amused the company by singing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" and other songs appropriate to the occasion.
We did not arrive at Bridgeport until after four o'clock, and then found the wharf black with an excited populace, largely composed of friends of those who had taken the trip. Tugboats had been engaged, and the editor of one of the afternoon papers gave me a very severe "dressing down" for having kept the party out so long, as the whole city was excited and every one feared that we had been lost. The afternoon editions of the papers had all been held up awaiting our return, and the editor of the paper in question informed me that they were just telegraphing New York for a wrecking outfit to come and raise us, as they had sent a tugboat out and the captain had reported that we were submerged off Stratford Point Light and that our red flag, which extended from the top of the mast, was above water, but that we were not moving at that time and hence they thought that all hands must have perished.
Working under water from a submarine boat is very interesting work. The Argonaut was built with the idea of demonstrating the practicability of conducting explorations under water, locating and recovering beds of shellfish, in addition to locating and recovering wrecks and their cargoes. This line of work is the most interesting of the submarine work in which I have been engaged, and offers, in my judgment, great opportunities for the benefit of the human race. A submarine boat is a rather expensive craft, however, for conducting such operations, and there are certain disadvantages in operating around wrecks in a submarine without any surface connections, as there is always a possibility of the vessel becoming entangled in the wreckage of the sunken ship. I remember in one case we had located a sunken wreck and had gone down alongside of her with the Argonaut. This sunken wreck had an overhanging guard and was quite strongly built. The tide carried the Argonaut up against the side of the sunken wreck, and after our divers had come in and made their report in regard to her we attempted to come up to the surface, but the Argonaut could not come up, because the current had carried her in under the guard, and it was necessary for us to wait until the tide turned to enable us to get away from the obstruction.
At another time we were operating alongside of a wreck in which we were demonstrating the practicability of removing cargo from the sunken wreck to a small experimental cargo or freight-carrying submarine. This freight-carrying submarine was practically a tank, and was built purely for demonstrating purposes. It was nine feet in diameter and twenty-five feet long, with conical ends (see illustration, [page 278]). It had wheels underneath so that it could be towed on the bottom by the Argonaut. The Argonaut had gone down alongside of a sunken wreck loaded with coal, with the freight submarine alongside opposite to the wreck. The Argonaut had a centrifugal wrecking pump mounted on her deck, driven by a shaft extending through a stuffing box, and to fill the little cargo-carrying submarine it was necessary for the diver only to place the suction pipe connected with the wrecking pump into the sunken coal barge and the discharge pipe into the hatch of the cargo submarine, start the pump, and transfer the coal from the sunken wreck to the cargo-carrying submarine. We made several successful demonstrations of this, and actually transferred fifteen tons of coal from the sunken wreck to the cargo submarine with a six-inch pump in nine minutes. It was then necessary for the diver only to close the hatch of the freight-carrying submarine, admitting compressed air into the interior which blew the water out through check valves in the bottom of the freight submarine, and then the freight submarine would come to the surface with her cargo, which could be towed into port on the surface by surface tugboats. One day, when down on the bottom repeating this experiment, the diver came back into the diving compartment and said that he wanted the Argonaut moved ahead about twenty feet. The divers, having become familiar with the operation at this time, were a little careless. There were three of us in the diving compartment at the time, and it was "up to me" to go back into the machinery compartment and move the boat forward twenty feet; we could tell the distance by the revolutions of her wheels over the bottom. I told them to close the bottom diving door, and when I left the diving compartment they were in the act of doing so. As I looked back through the lookout window in the air-lock door I saw that the diver had taken off his helmet and was smoking his pipe—this being the first thing a diver always wants to do when coming out of the water. I then started to move the boat, assuming that the diving door was closed, but the boat did not move. Having been at rest there for some time, I assumed that she had probably taken in through a leaky valve some additional water, and I decided that it was necessary to lighten her somewhat, so I called on the telephone and asked them if everything was all right in the diving compartment and they replied that it was. I then pumped and tried her again; still she did not move, so I pumped out a little more from the forward end of the boat for the purpose of lightening her burden some more. All at once she left the bottom with a rapid rush and ascended to the surface. There was something which held her down, I do not know what it was, but it was not released until we had given her a partial buoyancy of perhaps two or three tons. I submerged her again quickly and went back through the air-lock into the diving compartment and then observed that the diver was taking off his diving suit; he was pale and appeared to be very much excited. I asked his helper, who was laughing, what the matter was. To this question the diver himself replied, "I will tell you a funny story when we get ashore." The tender then explained to me that they had not closed the door entirely, but had left it open about four inches, and when the boat rose, the air, rushing out of the compartment with a noise like a thousand locomotive whistles, had scared Captain S—— half to death. The tender had been with me in the diving compartment once before when a similar accident occurred and consequently he was used to it. As soon as we got alongside of the dock the diver referred to jumped ashore and said, "The funny story I am going to tell you is this: I will never set foot in your d—— boat again."