It was off Bridgeport, Connecticut, that the new _Argonaut_ did her first practical wrecking. A barge loaded with coal had sunk in a gale and could not be located with the ordinary means. The _Argonaut_, however, with the aid of a device called the "wreck-detector," also invented by Mr. Lake, speedily found it, sank near it, and also submerged a new kind of freight-boat built for the purpose by the inventor. A diver quickly explored the hulk, opened the hatches of the freight-boat, which was cigar-shaped like the _Argonaut_ and supplied with wheels so it could be drawn over the bottom, and placed the suction-tube in position. Seven minutes later eight tons of coal had been transferred from the wreck to the submarine freight-boat. The hatches were then closed and compressed air admitted, forcing out the water, and five minutes later the freight-boat was floating on the surface with eight tons of coal from a wreck which could not even be located by the ordinary means. It is possible that in the future these modern "argonauts" will be seeking the golden fleeces of the sea in wrecks, in golden sands like the beaches of Nome, and that these amphibious boats will be ready along all the dangerous coasts to rush to the rescue of noble ships and wrest them from the clutches of the cruel sea. Mr. Lake has also designed and built a submarine torpedo-boat that will travel on the surface, under the waves, or on the bottom; provided with both gasoline and electric power, and, fitted with torpedo discharge tubes, she will be able to throw a submarine torpedo; her diver could attach a charge of dynamite to the keel of an anchored warship, or she could do great damage by hooking up cables through her diver's trap door and cutting them, and by setting adrift anchored torpedoes and submarine mines. Thus have Jules Verne's imaginings come true, and the dream _Nautilus,_ whose adventures so many of us have breathlessly followed, has been succeeded by actual "Hollands" and practical "Argonauts" designed by American inventors and manned by American crews. LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHONY What Happens When You Talk into a Telephone Receiver In Omaha, Nebraska, half-way across the continent and about forty hours from Boston by fast train, a man sits comfortably in his office chair and, with no more exertion than is required to lift a portable receiver off his desk, talks every day to his representative in the chief New England city. The man in Boston hears his chief's voice and can recognise the peculiarities in it just as if he stood in the same room with him. The man in Nebraska, speaking in an ordinary conversational tone, can be heard perfectly well in Boston, 1,400 miles away. This is the longest talk on record--that is, it is the longest continuous telephone line in steady and constant use, though the human voice has been carried even greater distances with the aid of this wonderful instrument.