Photo by Bain News Service.
An Anti-Aircraft Outpost.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century the French Government, which for so many years had shown a strong and continuous interest in the submarine problem, was particularly active. Three different types of boats built in this period under the auspices and with the assistance of the French Government deserve particular attention. The first of these was the Gymnote, planned originally by a well-known French engineer, Dupuy de Lome, whose alert mind also planned an airship and made him a figure in the history of our Panama Canal. He died, however, before his project could be executed. M. Gustave Zédé, a marine engineer and his friend, continued his work after modifying some of his plans. The French Minister of Marine of this period, Admiral Aube who had long been strongly interested in submarines, immediately accepted M. Zédé's design and ordered the boat to be built. As the earliest of successful submarines she merits description:
© U. & U.
A Coast Defense Anti-Aircraft Gun.
The Gymnote was built of steel in the shape of a cigar. She was 59 feet long, 5 feet 9 inches beam, and 6 feet in diameter, just deep enough to allow a man to stand upright in the interior. The motive power was originally an electro-motor of 55 horse-power, driven from 564 accumulators. It was of extraordinary lightness, weighing only 4410 pounds, and drove the screw at the rate of two thousand revolutions a minute, giving a speed of six knots an hour, its radius of action at this speed being thirty-five miles.