The Secret of the Art: The Holland in 1898

Its been a busy month gearing up for the holidays so its also been hard to sit down and post stories. I am finishing up a couple of other projects (including my book on Cassin Young) but ran across this story while researching old Navy stories.

Traditionally, the official start of the American Submarine Service is dated to April 1900 since that is when the first boats were actually purchased. I know that it actually goes back to the Revolutionary War and the Turtle, but the purchase of a steel boat in 1900 is a much more arguable date for the submarine since that date really launched a submersible that could dive, surface, maneuver, attack and hide for increasingly longer periods of time.

I love exploring the archives for relatively unique stories and this is certainly one of those. This book was published in 1898 so the stories in it…