Having thus assured myself of the ease of immersion and submersion of the _Nautilus_ and all its movements as well as the effect on the compass, on the 27th of August I half filled an ordinary barrel and placed it at anchor in the harbour at about 426 yards from the jetty;—I seated myself then in an ordinary boat at the distance of about 160 yards and placed in the sea a torpedo containing about 30 lb. of powder; the torpedo was attached to a small rope 200 yards long; the current going under the barrel, the torpedo passed without touching it; but turning the helm of the boat in which I sat, I made it go obliquely till I saw the torpedo exactly under the barrel; I then drew back the cable till at last the torpedo touched the barrel; at that instant the battery went off, the powder exploded and the barrel was reduced to fragments being lost in a column of water 10 feet in diameter that the explosion threw into the air to the height of 60 or 80 feet. On the 12th of September I left Havre for La Hogue and in this little voyage my _Nautilus_ sometimes did a league and a half (4½ miles) per hour and I had the pleasure of seeing it ride the waves like an ordinary boat. On the 15th of September I put into a little harbour called Growan near Isigny at 3 leagues from the islands of Marcou. The next day the equinoctial gales commenced and lasted 25 days. During the time I tried twice to approach two English brigs which were anchored near one of the islands, but both times, whether by accident or design, they set sail and were quickly at a distance. During one of these trials I remained during the whole of one tide of 6 hours absolutely under water, having for the purpose of taking air only a little tube which could not be perceived at a distance of 400 yards. The weather being bad I remained 35 days at Growan and seeing that no English vessel returned, and that winter approached, besides my _Nautilus_ not being constructed to resist bad weather, I resolved to return to Paris and place under the eyes of Government the result of my experiments. In the course of these experiments there has come to me a crowd of ideas infinitely more simple than the means that I have employed hitherto and in an enterprise so new and without precedent one ought to expect that new ideas should present themselves, tending to simplify the execution of the great object in view.