The _Argonaut,_ Mr. Lake's second vessel, had the regular submarine look, except that she was equipped with two great, rough tread-wheels forward, and to the underside of her rudder was pivoted another. She was really an under-water tricycle, a diving-bell, a wrecking-craft, and a surface gasoline-boat all rolled into one. When floating on the surface she looked not unlike an ordinary sailing craft; two long spars, each about thirty feet above the deck, forming the letter A--these were the pipes that admitted fresh air and discharged the burnt gases of the gasoline motor and the vitiated air that had been breathed. A low deck gave a ship-shape appearance when floating, but below she was shaped like a very fat cigar. Under the deck and outside of the hull proper were placed her gasoline tanks, safe from any possible danger of ignition from the interior. From her nose protruded a spar that looked like a bowsprit but which was in reality a derrick; below the derrick-boom were several glazed openings that resembled eyes and a mouth: these were the lookout windows for the under-water observer and the submarine searchlight. The _Argonaut_ was built to run on the surface or on the bottom; she was not designed to navigate half-way between. When in search of a wreck or made ready for a cruise along the bottom, the trap door or hatch in her turret-like pilot house was tightly closed; the water was let into her ballast tanks, and two heavy weights to which were attached strong cables that could be wound or unwound from the inside were lowered from their recesses in the fore and after part of the keel of the boat to the bottom; then the motor was started connected to the winding mechanism, and, the buoyancy of the boat being greatly reduced, she was drawn to the bottom by the winding of the anchor cables. As she sank, more and more water was taken into her tanks until she weighed slightly more than the water she displaced. When her wheels rested on the bottom her anchor-weights were pulled completely into their wells, so that they would not interfere with her movements.