CHAPTER X

EARLY EFFORTS IN SUBMARINE NAVIGATION

Who invented the first boat which was capable of being propelled beneath the water? Opinions differ as to the correct answer to this question. David Bushnell’s boat (_circa_ 1773) is the first of which we have any definite record, but William Bourne (1580), Magnus Pegelius (1605), and Cornelius Van Drebbel (1620) have all been credited with having constructed under-water vessels. In the previous chapter it has been shown that the earliest form of submarine attack was carried out by divers. The prototype of the submarine boat was undoubtedly the diving bell, the history of which contrivance, although presenting many points of interest, it will be impossible to relate here.

According to some writers to William Bourne, the English mathematician, belongs the credit (in 1580), of operating the first submarine boat as such, in contradistinction to a diving-bell, but there is nothing to show that Bourne did more than discuss the question, as did also Magnus Pegelius, although the latter is reported to have built a small submarine vessel in the year 1605.

[Sidenote: Drebbel’s Reputed Submarine.]

The Dictionary of National Biography credits Cornelius Drebbel, who was born in 1572, in the town of Alkmaar, in Holland, and who died in London in 1634, with the invention of a submarine boat “which was navigable without the use of artificial light, from Westminster to Greenwich.” We have spent some time in endeavouring to verify this assertion, but the references to the boat are vague and unsatisfactory. However, as Drebbel is by some accounted the “Father of Submarine Navigation,” it seems scarcely fitting to dismiss him without further thought.

In that curious old volume entitled “New Experiments Physico-mechanical touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects,” by the “Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq.,” mention is made of Drebbel’s boat, and it may be interesting to transcribe the passage. It occurs, on p. 188 of the second edition, published at Oxford in 1662.

“But yet on occasion of this opinion of Paracelsus, perhaps it will not be impertinent if before I proceed, I acquaint your lordship with a Conceit of that deservedly Famous Mechanician and Chymist, _Cornelius Drebell_, who among other strange things that he performed, is affirmed (by more than a few credible Persons) to have contrived for the late learned King _James_, a vessel to go under Water; of which tryal was made in the _Thames_ with admirable success, the vessel carrying twelve Rowers besides Passengers; one of which is yet alive, and related to an excellent Mathematician that informed me of it. Now that for which I mention this story is, That having had the curiosity and opportunity to make particular Enquiries among the Relations of _Drebell_, and especially of an ingenious Physitian that marryed his daughter, concerning the grounds upon which he conceived it feasible to make men unaccustomed to continue so long under Water without suffocation, or (as the lately mention’d Person that went in the Vessel affirms) without inconvenience, I was answered that _Drebell_ conceived, that ’tis not the whole body of the air but a certain Quintessence (as Chymists speake) or spirituous part of it that makes it fit for respiration, which being spent the remaining grosser body, or carcase (if I may so call it) of the Air, is unable to cherish the vital flame residing in the heart: so that (for ought I could gather) besides the Mechanicall contrivance of his vessel he had a Chymicall liquor, which he accounted the chief secret of his Submarine Navigation. For when from time to time he perceived that the finer and purer part of the Air was consumed or over-clogged by the respiration, and steams of those that went in his ship, he would, by unstopping a vessel full of the liquor speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts as would make it again for a good while fit for Respiration. Whether by dissipating or precipitating the grosser exhalations, or by some other intelligible way, I must not now stay to examine, contenting myself to add, that having had the opportunity to do some service to those of his Relations, that were most intimate with him, and having made it my business to learn what the strange liquor might be, they constantly affirmed that _Drebell_ would never disclose the Liquor unto any, nor so much as tell the matter whereof he made it, to above one Person, who himself assured me what it was.”

It is much to be wished that fuller accounts were extant respecting Drebbel’s boat, and the methods he employed to enable his passengers to breathe under water. W. B. Rye in one of the notes to his work “England as seen by Foreigners” (1865, p. 232), gives a carefully compiled account of Drebbel’s inventions and quotes from a Dutch Chronicle of Alkmaar, by C. van der Wonde (1645), a passage relating to his submarine boat.

“He built a ship in which one could row and navigate under water from Westminster to Greenwich, the distance of two Dutch miles; even five or six miles, or as far as one pleased. In this boat a person could see under the surface of the water and without candle-light, as much as he needed to read in the Bible or any other book. Not long ago this remarkable ship was yet to be seen lying in the Thames or London river.”

As to what Drebbel’s “Chymicall Liquor” really was there is no chance of discovering. Professor W. P. Bradley has pointed out that the name “Quintessence of Air” is very suggestive of oxygen. The life-giving component of air (not discovered until a century and a half after Drebbel’s time) is volumetrically the “quintessence,” the fifth part of air. “Is it possible,” he asks, “that Drebbel had discovered some liquid which easily disengaged the then unknown oxygen gas and thus was able to restore to vitiated air that principle of which respiration deprives it? Undoubtedly not. It is much more likely that he possessed a solution capable of absorbing the carbonic acid gas which is produced by respiration, and that the name given it was entirely fanciful and without special significance. But even if Drebbel’s claim was a piece of pure quackery with no substantial basis at all, it is nevertheless not without interest, for it shows, as we might have anticipated, that the problem of ventilation, one of the most important with which the inventors of submarines have to deal, was at least appreciated by Drebbel the pioneer.”

A writer of the period, one Harsdoffer, tells how Drebbel was led to the construction of his boat:—

“One day when walking along the banks of the Thames Drebbel noticed some sailors dragging behind their barques baskets full of fish; he saw that the barques were weighed down in the water, but that they rose a little when the baskets allowed the ropes which held them to slacken a little. The idea occurred to him that a ship could be held under the water by a somewhat similar method and could be propelled by oars and poles. Some time afterwards he constructed two little boats of this nature, but of different sizes, which were tightly closed with thick skin, and King James himself journeyed in one of them on the Thames. There were on this occasion twelve rowers besides the passengers, and the vessel during several hours was kept at a depth of twelve to fifteen feet below the surface.” This royal excursion under water terminated, we read, “fort hereusement.”

The Abbé de Hautefeuille, in a brochure which appeared in 1680 entitled “Manière de respirer sous l’Eau,” writes thus:—

“Drebbel’s secret was probably the machine which I had imagined consisting of a bellows with two valves and two tubes resting on the surface of the water, the one bringing down air and the other sending it back. By speaking of a volatile essence which restored the nitrous parts consumed by respiration Drebbel evidently wished to disguise his invention and prevent others from finding out its real nature.”

Ben Jonson, in his comedy, “The Staple of News,” first acted by His Majesty’s servants in 1625, has a hit at certain inventions of the time, and amongst these is the boat of Master Drebbel. Thomas, Act III., Scene I., says:—

“They write here one Cornelius’ son Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel To swim the tavel at Dunkirk and sink all The shipping there.

_Pennyboy, junior._ But how is’t done?

_Grabal._ I’ll shew you, sir, It is an automa, runs under water With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail Made like an auger with which tail she wriggles Betwixt the costs of a ship and sinks it straight.

_P., jun._ Whence have you this news?

_Fitton._ From a right hand I assure you. The eel-boats here, that lie before Queen-hythe Came out of Holland.

_P., jun._ A most brave device To murder their flat bottoms.”

That Ben Jonson should class the submarine boat of Drebbel with such a proposal as that of bringing an army over seas in corkshoes—

“All his horse Are shod with cork, all fourscore pieces of ordnance Mounted upon cork carriages, with bladders Instead of wheels, to run the passage over At a spring tide.”

and with the discovery of perpetual motion—

“By an ale-wife in St. Katherine’s At the sign of the Dancing Bear,”

gives one an idea of how the world in general viewed Drebbel’s invention, and yet the inventor found favour in the eyes of James I., who bestowed money upon him, gave him a lodging in Eltham Palace, took a great interest in his experiments, and when his life was in danger at Prague, owing to a revolution, succeeded in obtaining his release by personal intercession.

In return for his Majesty’s favour Cornelius invented an “ingenious machine” for producing perpetual motion, which became one of the wonderful sights of the day. According to a description in the _Biographie Universelle_ it consisted of a globe of glass in which by means of the four elements Drebbel imitated perpetual motion. In the space of twenty-four hours one could behold the course of the sun, the planets, and the stars. By means of this marvellous globe he showed “the cause of cold, of the ebb and flow of the sea, of storms, of thunder, of rain, of the wind, _enfin tout le mecanisme de la nature_.”

In the diary of Lewis Frederick, Prince of Wurtemberg, under date Tuesday, May 1, 1610, occurs the passage, “His Excellency went to Elham Park to see the perpetual motion; the inventor’s name was Cornelius Trebel, a native of Alkmaar, a very fair and handsome man, and of very gentle manners, altogether different from such-like characters; we also saw there Virginals, which played of themselves.”

Undoubtedly Drebbel was ahead of his time, but one cannot credit him with all the wonders he is reported to have achieved. Some of his biographers state that he invented a telescope, a microscope, and a thermometer; an incubator for hatching fowls; an instrument for showing pictures of portraits of people not present at the time, and a method of producing at will the most extreme cold. Drebbel was evidently highly thought of at the Courts of James I., Rudolph II., and Ferdinand II., but this was perhaps due more to his being “a very fair and handsome man of very gentle manners,” than to his scientific attainments.

One of his biographers refers to him thus: “Cornelius van Drebbel, ein Charlatan,” and others have dubbed him alchemist, empiric, magician, and professor of the Black Art.

Mr. Rye’s estimate is perhaps the truer:—

“But however extravagant and improbable some of the following descriptions may appear, yet, allowing as we ought to do for the crude state of physical science and the credulity of the times in which he lived, as well as the then prevailing tendency to clothe scientific investigation and experiment with an air of mystery, Cornelius Drebbel is entitled, we think, to hold a respectable position among the ingenious inventors and mechanicians of the early part of the seventeenth century.”

[Sidenote: Bishop Wilkins on Submarine Navigation.]

Drebbel’s boat attracted the attention of the Right Reverend John Wilkins, whose mathematical and philosophical works were published in London in the year 1708.

John Wilkins was a remarkable man, considerably in advance of his day in scientific speculation. As few people nowadays read his books a brief extract from his “Mathematical Magick: or the Wonders that may be perform’d by Mechanical Geometry” may be read with interest and amusement.

The book is divided into two parts, the first entitled “Archimedes, or Mechanical Powers,” the second, “Doedalus, or Mechanical Motions.”