Originally Germany was by no means enamoured of the new craft. Her first two submarines did not appear until 1905–6; Great Britain’s initial venture was launched at Barrow-in-Furness in 1901. The latter, the first of a batch of five, was ordered on the advice of Lord Goschen. Even then the official attitude was sceptical, not altogether without reason. Mr H. O. Arnold-Forster, speaking in the House of Commons on the 18th March, 1901, after admitting that “there is no disguising the fact that if you can add speed to the other qualities of the submarine boat, it might in certain circumstances become a very formidable vessel,” adopted what one might call a misery-loves-company attitude. “We are comforted,” he averred, “by the judgment of the United States and Germany, which is hostile to these inventions, which I confess I desire shall never prosper.” Dr Flamm, Professor of Ship Construction at the Technical High School at Charlottenburg, who should and probably does know better, has aided and abetted certain other publicists in foisting on the public of the Fatherland the presumption that the submarine is a German invention. This is not the place for a full history of the underwater craft from its early to its latest stages, but perhaps it is permissible to give a few particulars regarding the toilsome growth of this most formidable type of vessel. The first underwater craft of which there is anything approaching authentic record was the invention of Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman who forsook his own country for England. According to one C. van der Woude, writing in 1645, Drebbel rowed in his submerged boat from Westminster to Greenwich. Legend or truth has it that this “Famous Mechanician and Chymist” managed to keep the air more or less sweet in his craft by means of a secret “Chymical liquor,” and that the structure was covered with skin of some kind to make it watertight. Drebbel, who also professed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, is stated to have hit upon the idea of his invention by the simple process of keeping his eyes open. He noticed some fishermen towing behind their smacks a number of baskets heavily laden with their staple commodity. When the ropes were not taut the vessels naturally rose a little in the water. He came to the conclusion that a boat could be weighted in much the same way to remain entirely below the surface, and propelled by means similar to a rowing-boat. It is even said that King James travelled at a depth of from twelve to fifteen feet in one of the two vessels constructed by Drebbel, whose invention is referred to in Ben Jonson’s _Staple of News_.