The last American steamer sunk during the war was the _Lucia_, known as the "non-sinkable" ship--and the reports indicate that it was the _Deutschland_ that sank her. The _Lucia_, a U. S. Shipping Board vessel used as an army cargo transport, had been fitted up with buoyancy boxes. There was considerable interest in this experiment, proposed and carried out by the Naval Consulting Board, accounts of which had been widely published. These boxes did not render the vessel unsinkable, but it is a significant fact that she remained afloat twenty-two hours after she was torpedoed. It was 5:30 p. m., October 17, when the torpedo struck in the engine-room, killing four men. Though the submarine was not seen, the naval armed guard stood at their guns, which were trained in the direction from which the torpedo came. The civilian crew took to the lifeboats as the vessel settled slowly. The gunners remained aboard until 1:30 o'clock the next afternoon, when the seas were breaking over the gun platform. The _Lucia_ did not finally disappear beneath the waves until 3:20 p. m., October 18th. After sinking the _Lucia_, the former _Deutschland_ cruised towards the Azores, and did not reach Kiel until November 15, four days after the armistice. There was one other submarine assigned to operate in American waters, and which started out from Kiel, late in August, for this purpose. This was the U-152, a large craft of the _Deutschland_ type, commanded by Kapitän-Leutnant Franz. Though she never got within hundreds of miles of our coast, on September 30th she sank the animal transport _Ticonderoga_, and caused the largest loss of life any of our ships sustained in action. But this took place in the Eastern Atlantic, latitude 43°-05' north, longitude 38°-43' west, nearer Europe than America. It was the U-152 with which the _U. S. S. George G. Henry_ had a two-hour running fight on September 29th, in which the _Henry_ came off victor. This was not far from the point where the _Ticonderoga_ went down. The nearest point she came to the United States was on October 13th, when she sank the Norwegian bark _Stifinder_, in latitude 37°-22' north, longitude 53°-30' west, 600 miles or more from our coast. Next to attacking vessels, the most menacing activity of the U-boats was mine-laying. They sowed mines at various points from Cape Hatteras to Nova Scotia and mine-fields were discovered off Fire Island, N. Y.; Barnegat, N. J.; Five Fathom Bank, near the entrance to Delaware River; Fenwick Island, off the Delaware Coast; Winter Quarter Shoal and the Virginia Capes, and Wimble Shoals, near the North Carolina coast. Single mines were picked up at other points.