Holland and Lake must be considered the fathers of the modern submarine. This claim is not made in a spirit of patriotic boastfulness, though, of course it is true that the latter was an American by birth, and the former by choice, and that, therefore, we, as a nation, have a right to be proud of the accomplishments of these two fellow-citizens of ours. Without wishing to detract anything from the value of the work done by many men in many countries towards the development of the submarine after and contemporaneously with Holland and Lake, it still remains true that the work which these two did formed the foundation on which all others built. To-day, no submarine worthy of the name, no matter where it has been built and no matter where and how it is used, is without some features which are typical of either the Holland or Lake type. In many instances, and this is true especially of submarines of the highest type and the greatest development, the most significant characteristics of the Holland and Lake boats have been combined.
During the years that followed the small beginnings of Holland and Lake, vast and highly efficient organizations have been built up to continue and elaborate their work. Death claimed Mr. Holland shortly after the outbreak of the great war, on August 12, 1914. Mr. Lake in 1917 was still personally connected with and the guiding spirit of the extensive industrial establishments which have been created at Bridgeport, Conn., as a result of his inventions. He, too, surrounded himself with a corps of experts who in co-operation with him have brought the Lake submarines to a point of perfection which at the time of the Argonaut's first trip would have appeared all but impossible.
Roughly speaking, the beginning of the twentieth century may be called the turning point in the history of submarine invention and the beginning of the modern submarine. Although, as we have heard, various governments, especially those of France and the United States, interested themselves in the submarine question and appropriated small sums of money towards its solution previous to 1900, it was only after that year that governmental interest and influence were set to work with determination and purpose on behalf of submarine inventors. Quite naturally this resulted in increased popular interest. Experimental work on and with submarines no longer had to rely exclusively on private capital, frequently inconveniently timid and limited, but could count now on the vast financial resources of all the great nations of the world. This also made available the unlimited intellectual resources of serious scientists in every part of the universe. Mechanical and electrical engineers, naval designers and constructors, active men of finance and business, and quiet thinkers and investigators in laboratories began to interest themselves in the further development of the submarine.
