Thanks to the fact that nowadays more and more books are digitized we are able to read books that are some times for decades no longer available for the public for several reasons. That’s quite a pity while these books contains useful information while the archives are destroyed, incomplete or nor accessible.
P. 141: “The great invention of the day, the submarine navigation of Dr. Payerne, is about to be put in practice at Cherbourg, the company purchasing the invention having volunteered to cleanse that harbor free of expense to the government. The secret consists in the discovery of a means whereby artificial air may be produced in sufficient quantity to enable a crew of fourteen men to breathe freely beneath the water for the space of four hours. A curious experiment has been already made at Marseilles, where Dr. Payerne, in company with three sailors, went to the bottom in presence of hundreds of spectators, and rose at a considerable distance, and climbed the port-holes of a man-of-war without being perceived by the crew. Many experiments are about to be tried of the efficacy of this novel means of attack. A submarine fleet of small boats, each to contain a crew of twenty men, is already talked of as being about to be organized for the Black Sea. It seems that no intimation whatever is given by the slightest ruffle on the surface of the approach of one of these vessels. The apparatus invented by Dr. Payerne enables the wearer, moreover, to move about with perfect ease at the bottom of the sea, and great anticipations are formed of the immense benefit to be derived in submarine history from the adoption of this new method of becoming acquainted with the hitherto unknown mystery of the ocean. However, it is not a bad reflection on the spirit of the age in which we live, to remark that the first application of this tremendous power, which should take rank with the electric telegraph, as a proof of the wondrous perseverance and ingenuity of man, has been made use of for the supply of oysters from Granville for the halles of Paris. Paris letter, March 23.”
Source
Harry Houdini. The eclectic magazine of foreign literature, science, and art, volume 32. New York, 1854.
