After the sinking of the _Housatonic_ the Federals again turned their attention to submarine warfare, and in October, 1864, some trials were made on the Hudson with a boat named the _Stromboli_, constructed at Fairhaven from the designs of an engineer, one Wood. It was not, properly speaking, either a submarine or a diving boat, but by letting in a certain quantity of water into the reservoirs it could be brought flush with the surface, leaving only the conning tower, the chimney and the ventilator above the waves. A steam engine propelled the _Stromboli_ at a speed of ten miles an hour, while a spar torpedo formed the armament. On the 16th of November, 1864, the _Stromboli_ was under the command of John Lay, and was ordered to proceed to Hampton Roads to attack the Confederate cruisers. It appears to have arrived on the 6th of December, but its subsequent doings are not to be discovered. Another semi-submarine which figured in the American Civil War was the _Sputyen Duyvil_, built by Messrs. Mallory & Co., from the plans of Messrs. William Wood and John Lay. She was made of wood, and her dimensions were, length 74 feet, beam 20 feet, draught 7½ feet. On going into action she could be immersed to a depth of 9 feet in order to put her armoured side below water, she was to fight with her deck, which was placed with 3–in. armour, flush with the water. Amidships, and standing about 3 feet above the deck, was a pilot house from which the boat could be steered. The _Sputyen Duyvil_ was attached to James River’s squadron during the year 1865, but there is no evidence that she was ever brought into use; her torpedoes were fired on contact, and were worked through a hollow iron boom projecting from the bow, and having inside it a rod to which the torpedo was to be attached. [Illustration: THE “SPUTYEN DUYVIL.” ] CHAPTER XIV THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO—“THE MOST WONDERFUL MACHINE IN THE WORLD” “When you have been shown lovingly over a torpedo by an artificer skilled in the working of its tricky bowels, torpedoes have a meaning and a reality for you to the end of your days.”—RUDYARD KIPLING. “The next great naval war will bestow upon the torpedo and its users a halo of romance which will eclipse entirely that surrounding the gun and the ram.” “The arts of shipbuilders and steel-workers stand for nothing when a Whitehead torpedo succeeds in striking a ship’s bottom and tears and rends it with the explosion of 200 lbs. of gun-cotton. In the hands of ignorant or careless people the Whitehead is nearly as dangerous to its friends as to its foes, but in the hands of skilful and resolute men it is the most terrible engine of warfare which the world has ever seen.”—Lieut. G. E. ARMSTRONG, in _Torpedoes and Torpedo Vessels_.