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

84 All About Inventions opposition for many years. He blindly believed that the submarine would render the waters so unhealthy as to bring about the speedy subjection of any Power depending upon its warships. In his eyes the sub- marine was absolutely invincible. He never appears to have given a thought to the possibility of effective counter measures being evolved and coming into existence. Holland was a strange personality, but a typical inventor. His faith in his creation was unique, while he always maintained that his designs were superior to those which any other man might evolve. In 1904, owing to differences arising between himself and his company, he retired from all active partici- pation in submarine construction. When he found that with the accumulation of experience and know- ledge radical departures from the lines, he had laid down with all the austerity of the Medes and Persians were being made, his wrath revived. He condemned the American submarines of the latest designs as “ death-traps,” and entertained but very indifferent opinions concerning those submarines for other Powers which had been evolved from his original Holland. He died a bitterly disappointed inventor, because no one would entertain his criticisms seriously. While Holland cannot possibly be described as the inventor of the submarine—seeing that Bushnell, Fulton, Bauer, Garrett, and others had wrestled with the problem previous to his success—the fact that the majority of the Powers have created their submarine fleets upon the foundation which his invention offered entitles him to be called the “ Father of the Modern Submarine.”