catch sight of one of the lightships off the entrance to the channel leading to the harbor of Cronstadt, sufficient to set our course for port. By this time it was blowing a gale; in fact, it was the north storm which preceded the close of navigation, which followed a day or two later. Finally it set in to sleet and rain, and shut off our view of the light. We had nothing to guide us, but took a chance on the general direction. Fortunately we had no mines to fear, as the war had closed and they had been removed. Finally it "cleared up" sufficiently for us to make out the lights again, and we got into Cronstadt in the early hours of the morning. On our arrival at the dock we found the commandant of the port and a number of officers who had been informed of our arrival when we came through the war harbor gateway. We found the officers and men of the tender which had escorted us, all under arrest, and the commandant of the port asked me with very great seriousness if I would like to have them sent to Siberia. It seems that they had waited about an hour after they saw us disappear, and had come to the conclusion that we were lost. The commander of the tender said that if he had remained out any longer he thought that he himself would have been lost, as the storm was so severe. It broke loose nearly everything he had in the boat, washed all of his portable deck fittings overboard, and he feared his vessel would founder. I explained to the commandant of the port that under the circumstances, and from my observations of the way the boat had jumped around when we submerged, as well as from the fact that the commander of the tender could not see us, he was justified in coming into port. I also said that I would be very greatly obliged to him--the commandant of the port--if he would release the captain and crew from arrest, with my compliments; and this, I am glad to say, was done. A number of submarine vessels with their crews have been lost in peace-time manoeuvres. The cause of loss has not always been easy to determine. In numerous cases it was undoubtedly due to faulty design, especially in boats of the diving type, where they lacked sufficient static stability and plunged headfirst into the bottom. Numerous lives have been lost by the explosion of either gasolene fumes or hydrogen gas given off by the batteries, and some by asphyxiation, caused by the escape of the products of combustion from the engines, the accumulation of carbonic acid gas or chlorine gas generated by salt water getting into the batteries. These accidents are usually brought about by the carelessness of some member or members of the crew. I had been fortunate in not having any loss of life on any of my boats up to the beginning of the war, but ignorance and carelessness have, in several instances, caused injuries, and might as readily have caused loss of life.