TWO ELECTRIC-BOATS.
-LIVER since the great expansion of electrical engineering which has been the chief scientific feature of the last ten -12.1
years, the world has been eagerly looking for some practical application of electricity to the navigation of the sea. The notion of a boat in which, without any of the tiresome work of production, the motive-power shall lie ready for use at a moment's notice; of a force which, like the spirits that obey an enchanter, shall be able, with no more trouble than the turning of a handle, to give that greatest proof of man's victory over matter—the phenomenon of regular motion without life— is fascinating beyond expression. Steam, indeed, can be made powerful enough and swift enough for the wildest desires ; but it works with noise, only after a tiresome period of generation, and is too imperious a demon to await man's own time, but must be set to work as soon as called into existence,—cannot be conjured into a trance for days or mouths to await his behests. It will not wait silent and costless, but while waiting spends. Electricity applied to traversing water, on the other hand, means almost the enchanted boat of Shelley's dream,—a boat that might sail in silent strength " where never mortal pinnace glided," and which would ever be ready to obey its master's will. It really seems as if the discovery had at last been made, and as if the problem of a practical application of elec- tricity to navigation had been solved. On Monday, the 'Volta,' a steel-built screw launch, crossed and recrossed the Channel between Dover and Calais, propelled solely by electricity stored in the batteries which she carried with her. The 'Volta' is 37 ft. long, and with a breadth of beam of nearly 7 ft. She is fitted with an electric battery of sixty-one cells, which, before her voyage, was charged by a dynamo on shore at Dover. Her motors are so arranged that she can be propelled at a slow, a medium, or a fast pace, at will. These differences of speed, the starting, and the stopping, and the backing of the vessel, are all regulated with one switch. When the accumulators are once charged, the man who controls this switch can, without other aid, • and without the burden of fuel or dangers of fire, so long as the energy lasts make the boat take him where he wills. The actual voyage showed that the vessel could fulfil her constructor's utmost expectations. So smoothly and so noiselessly did the 'Volta' move, that a sea-gull asleep upon the water did not perceive her approach, and one of her crew was actually able to stretch out his band and seize the bird as the boat stole by on its silent way. (The temptation must have been irresistible ; but how like man it was to seize a creature quite happy, quite peaceful, and quite useless for food !) The pace made on the journey to Calais does not seem to have been very great; but on coming homeward, a speed of fourteen miles was at one time attained, the screw at that time making one thousand revolutions a minute. Even after the fifty miles' voyage, made in eight hours and a quarter, and with a crew of ten persons, a considerable amount of motive-power still remained unexhausted.
If this voyage, as, indeed, it seems to have been, is the begin- ning of a wide application of electricity to the propulsion of boats, what a vista of change is opened up ! How much increased will be the safety of the passengers when the great American liners can have their boats slung ready for emergency, not only stored with the necessaries of life; but with the means of pro- pelling the boats in safety to land ! A boat from a shipwreck which can go ten miles an hoar, if only for a couple of days, will have six times the chance of getting to shore or of being picked up that a rowing or sailing boat can have, or even of a steam-launch with plenty of coal, —for the electricity cannot be put out by a wave, as can the fires of the engine. If electric-ships could be stored for a voyage of two or three months, and there is little doubt that the means for such storage will be devised in time—for science, when it has conquered in kind, seldom fails to conquer in degree—how glorious would be the opportunity for river exploration ! The traveller with his fleet of electric. boats will thread the waterway of the Amazon and of the thousand tributaries that swell its stream, far more easily and far more safely than now. If the example of the sea-gull on Monday is to be a precedent, how greatly will the naturalist and the sportsman be indebted to the boat that will take them without alarm within capture distance of the quarry ! Bat for mere private pleasure, for the lakes and rivers of England, the electric-boat will perhaps give the greatest boon of all. The Thames need no more be befouled by the smoking, panting, shrieking steamer, and people will be able to enjoy in fall the quiet and charm of river-life when the birds and beasts will have been reassured at the supersession of the steam-launch by its even, gliding, noiseless rival.
To those who live by rivers or lakes, or by the sea, and who like to go farther than oars can take them, and with more precision than sails allow, but to whom a steam- launch is an impossibility, an electric-boat that needs no trained stoker and fireman will be the greatest of delights. But who shall say that if steam is once driven from the smaller craft it will not also be abandoned in the larger ; and that we may not see the new motive-forcs used for the Transatlantic ferry, the great ironclads filling their accumulators instead of their coal- bunkers, and the latest sensation for the evening newspapers, the lack of protection existing far the dynamos at Aden or in the Pacific ?
Yet, fall of food for the imagination as is the cruise of the Volta,' the interest of her performance is entirely eclipsed by the extraordinary record of a marine invention that has reached us from New York. The wonderful dream of Jules Verne, of a ship that would sail beneath the sea with men inside, and navi- gate in secret the unseen depths of the ocean, has actually been realised. A boat has been constructed at New York which has, remaining submerged for half an hour, explored the bed of the Hudson. And she has done more than merely sink like a diving-bell ; she has made her way beneath the waves, and plunging below at one spot, has reappeared at a mile's distance. This wonderful little vessel, bearing the sinister name of the Peacemaker,' is intended primarily as a torpedo-boat. It may, however, be safely predicted that commerce, science, and pleasure will soon claim their share in the marvellous invention. The Peacemaker' is 30 ft. long, has n ft. depth of hold, and 81 ft. breadth of beam. Those who remember the description of the 'Nautilus' in Jules Verne's romance, will seem to recognise old friends in the dome for the pilot, which protrudes above the top of the boat, and the turret hatchway by which the interior is reached. In addition to an ordinary rudder for lateral guidance, there are on the sides, near the stern, horizontal rudders which enable the pilot to steer upwards or down- wards at will, and for the same purpose there are also water-tanks that can be filled and emptied to raise or sink the vessel. A gauge is ingeniously devised for indicating the depth reached, while an incandescent electric-lamp furnishes the neces- sary light. Compressed air is stored "in 6-in, pipes running round the interior," and it is asserted that by a chemical device the air in the hold can be purified in such a way that the crew could exist for some time without a fresh supply. This all sounds very like the craft commanded by Captain Nemo ; but it is the account given by the reporters of the New York .Tferalel and of the New York Times, who each, but on different days, wit- nessed the performance of the boat, the former actually being on board during a submarine trip, the latter watching from the shore. The Herald reporter tells us that his sensations when beneath the sea for nineteen minutes were nothing different from those experienced in the engine-room of an ordinary steamer, and that a slight pitch forward was the only indica- tion that the 'Peacemaker' was making her dive to five fathoms below the surface of the Hudson. The reporter of the New York Times watched the boat from the shore. He saw the strange, low-lying vessel, with its pilot's dome and turret entrance just emerging from the water, cast off from the quay, "drift rapidly up the river for a few hundred yards, and then suddenly disappear beneath the waves." Strange to say, the troubling of the waters which marked the disappearance of the boat soon subsided, and there was in a short time nothing to show the direction in which the 'Peace- maker' was silently stealing beneath the water. It was half an hour before she reappeared a mile away, just floating along the surface of the river. If we remember rightly, Captain Nemo revenged himself upon the perfidious nation which not only destroyed the Vengenr,' but actually proved she never was sunk, by tactics of submarine ramming. Apparently the 'Peacemaker' is not built for such exploits. She carries, how- ever, two torpedoes joined by a chain, and "fastened to corked magnets, which will attach themselves to the iron or steel sheathing of a vessel to be destroyed," and which can, when the boat is out of harm's way, be fired by electricity. To show that the boat is not so dangerous a craft as might be expected, and that even if anything were to go wrong in the machinery, so as to prevent her upward movement when she had once sunk below the surface, her crew recently took her 50 ft. down, and then came to the surface without her, leaving the boat to be afterwards "raised by a derrick." If this is true, it will certainly give more confidence of escape to those who attempt
such voyages than could, under the circumstances, be very well expected. What the motive-power is by which this terrible little vessel goes on her deadly errands under the sea has been kept a complete secret,—a secret, however, which we may suppose will soon be offered for sale to the English Government, as the Power likely to give most for an engine of naval warfare.
The possibilities of extra destruction of life and property in time of war are by no means so wonderful or so Interesting to contemplate as are the opportunities of discovery that must follow if submarine navigation has really been accomplished. It is not stated whether the 'Peacemaker' has a window in her sides, as had the Nautilus ;' but it may be assumed that if she had not, one can easily be made. Through that window, how vast and how new a world will be visible ! Fancy the great sharks, the huge cuttle-fish, and all the monsters of the deeper sea that will come to stare in, and flatten their snouts against the glass, attracted by the blaze of the electric light from within ! How enchanting the sight for the voyager who first visits the deeps where the Spanish treasure.fleets are sunk, and where the galleons, as they break up, throw their freight of gold ingots on the ocean floor ! How weird a vision to navigate the clear, gray- green, unfathomed abysses of the Italian lakes ; to see what strange things lurk beneath the 3,000 ft. of water that lie below the surface of Como, or to cleave the sapphire waters of the Genevan lake ! How enchanting to steer through the coral groves of the Pacific ; to trace the course of continents long submerged ; to float amid the palaces of cities overwhelmed, er by those drowned churches where the tides still ring the bells to service; to explore the beds of the Thames, the Tiber, or of the Rhine, or any marine inlet—we may find Pharaoh's chariots yet—and note how they have worn their courses through the rock, and what traces of ancient races and forgotten kings the imperial streams yet secretly retain ! To do all this sounds like romance ; but unless two New York reporters have combined to contrive the biggest hoax the world has seen for many a year, this and more than this will some day—perhaps a day very little distant—be possible for those who are rich enough to own a submarine yacht.
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