It
is supposed that the _Hunley_ was drawn down in the suction of the
sinking war-ship; she could not arise from the vortex, and that was the
last of her and of her brave crew. The North was tremendously excited
over the incident and the South elated, but no other ship was attacked
from beneath the water in the course of the war.
Holland's boat, built in 1877, was the first to use a gas-engine as a
propulsive medium, but it was not until the final adoption of the
gas-engine for surface work, followed later by the internal-combustion
gasoline-engine and the use of electric storage-battery for subsurface
work, as well as the invention of the periscope and various other
devices, that the submarine was developed to a present state of
effectiveness, which sees it crossing the Atlantic from Germany,
operating off our shores and returning to Germany without being obliged
to put into port; which, also, sees it capable of navigating under water
at a speed of from seven to nine knots, with torpedoes ready for use in
the tubes and guns of effective caliber mounted on deck. It has, indeed,
been asserted that the airplane and the submarine have relegated the
battleship to the limbo of desuetude: but as to that the continued
control of the seas by Great Britain with her immense battle-fleet,
supplemented by our tremendous engines of war, certainly argues for no
such theory. What the future may bring forth in the way of submarines,
armored and of great size, no man may say.
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