This vessel, while holding to the same general principles of construction and method of control as used in the "Plunger," was much better proportioned and had a much better distribution of weights. It was her performance that led the House Naval Committee in 1900 to authorize the construction of additional submarines of the Holland type. Her armament consisted of one torpedo tube forward and an aerial torpedo gun for firing aerial torpedoes, designed to be used somewhat on the same principles as used on the gunboat "Vesuvius."] The heat was so intense that the trial crew found it impossible to live in the boat, so for their full power dock trials valve stems were run up through the deck to enable the engines to be started from there. Arrangements were made also to take the indicator cards from the deck. She was also fitted with a heavy armored conning tower, as per Mr. Holland's description previously quoted. This, combined with the high position of the boiler and engines, together with her cigar-shaped form, which gives a diminishing water plane, reduced her stability almost to zero. I was informed that when the attempt was first made to start up one of her engines her stability was so little that the turning effort on her propeller shaft nearly caused her to "turn turtle," and that she rolled over on her side to such an extent that the conning tower struck the dock stringer. The constructor at the Columbian Iron Works then put heavy chains on her so that she could not turn over. Every inducement was made to the Holland Company to enable it to make this vessel satisfactory, as Congress, in 1896, authorized the Secretary of the Navy to contract for two more "submarine torpedo boats of the Holland type, _provided_ that the Holland boat now being built for the Department shall be accepted by the Department as fulfilling all the requirements of the Contract." She was finally abandoned in 1900 without ever making a submerged run or fulfilling any of her guarantees of performance under which the award was secured. Mr. Holland as early as 1897 must have concluded that the _Plunger_ was destined to failure. In fact, no submarine, even up to the present day, has ever equalled the performance guaranteed under the _Plunger's_ contract. He therefore built a much smaller boat, called the _Holland_. This vessel was fitted with internal-combustion engines instead of steam, and was finally accepted by the United States Government in lieu of the _Plunger_, and placed in commission in 1900. She was the first submarine torpedo boat to go into commission in the United States Navy. Her characteristics were: Length, fifty-three feet four inches; beam, ten feet three inches; displacement, sixty-four tons surface, seventy-five tons submerged; power, internal-combustion engines, fifty horsepower; surface speed, six to seven knots claimed; submerged speed, five knots claimed. The only official report I have seen gave her a surface speed of five and two-thirds knots.