Cube, and. the increasing likelihood that The opening of the autumn campaign in
the United States will ere long find herself involved in war with Spain, gives an added interest to the construction of the new Holland torpedo boats, ordered as an experiment by the last Congress. It was considered unwise to vote for the construction of many boats of the old class, when this new type of destroyer might prove so much more effective as to render present models obsolete. The inventor of the Holland boat has been at work upon it now for twenty p years, and his long series of experiments would seem to have been crowned at last with practical success. It is cigar shaped craft, 84 feet long; can speed 15 knots on the surface, 14 when partly submerged with only the smoke-stack in sight, and 8 when totally submerged. She can dive 75 feet, and can run at eight knots for sixty miles when under water. When on the surface, her engines ate propelled by steam, and when below the surface by electricity. When running at full speed she can dive from sight within twenty seconds of the giving of the order. That she may be able when submerged to follow- the movements of the enemy the navigator can thrust up to the surface a slender tube of steel, bearing " camera lucida. She carries five Whitehead -torpedoes, and provisions for three'days' stay: under water.
the craft does all that is claimed for her, she should be able to give the commander even of a first-class battle-ship some uncomfortable moments.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.