The result was, that after spending six months and all of my savings I had not raised a dollar. I then decided that it was necessary to get some engineer of national prominence to endorse my project, so I went to Charles H. Haswell, author of "Haswell's Handbook," and former chief engineer of the United States Navy, and explained to him that I wanted him to give me a professional opinion on the practicability of my boat. I offered to submit him my plans of the boat--of which I also had a model in the tank of water in the Cheeseborough Building which I would like him to see, as I thus would be better able to explain to him its method of navigating on the surface and submerging beneath the surface and on the bottom itself. And I then asked him how much he would charge me. He stated that he should want $1500 for the investigation and opinion. By this time I had expended my savings and hardly had $15--let alone $1500. I explained the situation frankly to him, and he said, "Well, I will go down and look it over and give you a report anyhow, and you can repay me at some future time when you are able." He did so, and gave me a very excellent endorsement, but I found that even his endorsement was not sufficient to induce capitalists to invest their hard-earned money in any such crazy scheme as mine appeared to them. I finally decided to build a small experimental boat myself to demonstrate the two principal features over which almost every one seemed to be sceptical. These were the ability to navigate over the bottom of the ocean and the ability to enter and leave the boat while submerged without any water coming in and foundering her. I therefore gave up my office and moved down to Atlantic Highlands, where, with the financial assistance of my uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Champion, I was able to build the _Argonaut, Jr._ She was built of yellow pine planking, double thick, lined with canvas laid between the double layers of planking, the outer seams caulked and payed. She was a flat-sided affair and would not stand great external pressure. She was propelled when on the bottom by a man turning a crank on the inside. Our compressed-air reservoir was a soda-water fountain tank. The compressed-air pump was a plumber's hand-pump, by which means we were able to compress the air in the tanks to a pressure of about one hundred pounds per square inch.