All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

82 All About Inventions stantiate his claims by producing a vessel strictly according to his designs. The manoeuvring capacities of the little boat, her rapidity in diving and rising, and her control caused naval men to marvel. The Government, which had assumed an indifferent atti- tude towards submarines as a result of its experiences with the Plunger, was somewhat shaken by the un- expected development. It was realised that Holland certainly did know, as he had steadfastly asserted, more about submarine designing than any of the highly paid technical officials. The authorities sub- jected the little boat to exhaustive tests, Holland handing her over for this purpose, and were so impressed by her merits that they offered to buy the boat outright. She was sold to the Government for £30,000, and although the builders lost heavily over the transaction, the vessel havijig cost them some £45,000 in material and labour alone, they tolerated the loss. The Holland, as she was called, was admitted to be an experimental vessel, built exclusively to prove or disprove her creator’s claims. He had succeeded, and the future success of the company appeared to be assured, especially as the Government a few months later completed an order for six similar craft, though of larger proportions and higher power, the cost of the same not to exceed £34,000 each. But this was not all. The British Government was watching the developments with the Holland very closely, and, realising that the submarine had indeed issued from the chrysalis stage of experiment, and had become a fighting unit of incalculable possi- bilities, the right to construct vessels of this type