This first appropriation was brought about by a recommendation to Congress, made by Commander Folger, Chief of Ordnance, who had been much impressed with the possibilities of submarines after witnessing a test of the Baker boat in Lake Michigan. Commander G. A. Converse, president of the Torpedo Board, also made a report certifying that it was his belief that a larger vessel operating on the Baker principles would, with some modifications, prove valuable for defensive and offensive purposes. France at this date was the only other country which was giving official encouragement to the development of the submarine. She was conducting experiments with the _Gymnote_, a small vessel of the diving type, and had under construction a much larger vessel to be operated on the same principle. This vessel was afterward called the _Gustave Zédé_, but she did not go into commission for some time, as her submerged control was found to be bad. One report of her trials states that, "with the committee of engineers on board, her performance in attempting to keep an even depth line was most erratic, and frequently a thirty-degree inclination was reached before the boat could be brought up. On one occasion she hit the bottom in ten fathoms with sufficient force to unseat the engineering experts." The _Gymnote_ was five feet ten inches in diameter amidships and fifty-nine feet ten inches in length. The _Gustave Zédé_ was ten feet nine inches in diameter and one hundred forty-eight feet long. It is very difficult to secure sufficient metacentric height in a boat of the above proportions, which probably accounted largely for their erratic behavior when submerged. In response to the United States Government's advertisement for designs of submarine boats, only three inventors submitted plans and specifications. These were Mr. George C. Baker, Mr. J. P. Holland, and myself. Mr. Baker submitted designs of a boat sixty feet in length and of about one hundred and twenty tons displacement. This vessel was expected to have a speed of about eight miles per hour. The method of submerged control and known characteristics were the same as have already been described in connection with his boat as built in 1892. Mr. Holland proposed to build a vessel eighty-five feet in length, eleven and one-half feet in diameter, of one hundred and sixty-eight tons submerged displacement, and of one hundred and fifty-four tons light displacement. This gave a surface "reserve of buoyancy" of only fourteen tons, or less than ten per cent. The method of control was by the use of vertical and horizontal rudders on the same principle as was used in his _Fenian Ram_, described above.