[From The London Times, Jan. 16, 1915.]
The earliest description of a practical under-water boat is given by William Bourne in his book entitled "Inventions or Devices," published in 1578. Instructions for building such a boat are given in detail, and it has been conjectured that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch physician, used this information for the construction of the vessel with which in the early part of the seventeenth century he carried out some experiments on the Thames. It is doubtful, however, whether van Drebbel's boat was ever entirely submerged, and the voyage with which he was credited, from Westminster to Greenwich, is supposed to have been made in an awash condition, with the head of the inventor above the surface. More than one writer at the time referred to van Drebbel's boat and endeavored to explain the apparatus by which his rowers were enabled to breathe under water.
Van Drebbel died in 1634, and no illustration of his boat has been discovered. Nineteen years later the vessel illustrated here was constructed at Rotterdam from the designs of a Frenchman named de Son. This is supposed to be the earliest illustration of any submarine, and the inscription under the drawing, which was printed at Amsterdam in the Calverstraat, (in the Three Crabs,) is in old Dutch, of which the following is a translation:
The inventor of this ship will undertake to destroy in a single day a hundred vessels, and such destruction could not be prevented by fire, storm, bad weather, or the force of the waves, saving only that the Almighty should otherwise will it.
The figures on the drawing refer to the following explanations:
1. The beam wherewith power shall be given to the ship.
2. The rudder of the ship, somewhat aft.
3. The keel plate.
4. The two ends of the ship, iron plated.