The second part of this article was called "A Voyage on the Bottom of the Sea." It was written by Ray Stannard Baker, who had been fortunate enough to receive an invitation from Mr. Lake to accompany him on one of the trips of the Argonaut. Any one who has read Jules Verne's fascinating story Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea must be struck immediately with the similarity between Mr. Baker's experiences and those of Captain Nemo's guests. It is not at all surprising, therefore, to have Mr. Baker tell us that during this trip Mr. Lake told him:
"When I was ten years old, I read Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, and I have been working on submarine boats ever since."
Mr. Baker's record of what he saw and how he felt is not only a credit to his keen powers of observation, but also a proof of the fact that, in many ways, there was little difference between the Argonaut of 1898 and the most up-to-date submarine of to-day. In part he says:
Simon Lake planned an excursion on the bottom of the sea for October 12, 1898. His strange amphibian craft, the Argonaut, about which we had been hearing so many marvels, lay off the pier at Atlantic Highlands. Before we were near enough to make out her hulk, we saw a great black letter A, framed of heavy gas-pipe, rising forty feet above the water. A flag rippled from its summit. As we drew nearer, we discovered that there really wasn't any hulk to make out—only a small oblong deck shouldering deep in the water and supporting a slightly higher platform, from which rose what seemed to be a squatty funnel. A moment later we saw that the funnel was provided with a cap somewhat resembling a tall silk hat, the crown of which was represented by a brass binnacle. This cap was tilted back, and as we ran alongside, a man stuck his head up over the rim and sang out, "Ahoy there!"
A considerable sea was running, but I observed that the Argonaut was planted as firmly in the water as a stone pillar, the big waves splitting over her without imparting any perceptible motion.
We scrambled up on the little platform, and peered down through the open conning-tower, which we had taken for a funnel, into the depths of the ship below. Wilson had started his gasoline engine.
Mr. Lake had taken his place at the wheel, and we were going ahead slowly, steering straight across the bay toward Sandy Hook and deeper water. The Argonaut makes about five knots an hour on the surface, but when she gets deep down on the sea bottom, where she belongs, she can spin along more rapidly.
The Argonaut was slowly sinking under the water. We became momentarily more impressed with the extreme smallness of the craft to which we were trusting our lives. The little platform around the conning-tower on which we stood—in reality the top of the gasoline tank—was scarcely a half dozen feet across, and the Argonaut herself was only thirty-six feet long. Her sides had already faded out of sight, but not before we had seen how solidly they were built—all of steel, riveted and reinforced, so that the wonder grew how such a tremendous weight, when submerged, could ever again be raised.
I think we made some inquiries about the safety of submarine boats in general. Other water compartments had been flooded, and we had settled so far down that the waves dashed repeatedly over the platform on which we stood—and the conning-tower was still wide open, inviting a sudden engulfing rush of water. "You mustn't confuse the Argonaut with ordinary submarine boats," said Mr. Lake. "She is quite different and much safer."
