d riddle it before it can get far enough
below the surface of the water to make the attack upon it futile.

EFFICIENCY OF THE SUBMARINE.

The enormous inroads on the world's shipping made by German submarines
during the war shows the efficiency of this diabolical device. In the
first two years and a half of the war statistics were compiled to show
that more than 10 per cent of the world's merchant marine was destroyed
by Germany's underseas craft of the U-boat type. Incidentally, the name
U-boat as applied to submarines developed because Germany, instead of
naming these slinking boats, as is the custom with surface-cruising
vessels, painted upon the conning tower or nose of the craft the letter
U, representing the word "underseas," coupled with the numeral denoting
the number of the boat. Thus those who sail the ocean highways came to
recognize the fact that a conning tower or low, sharp-nosed craft
bearing the mystic characters U-9 was a German underseas boat No. 9.

The statistical records at the end of April, 1917, showed that nearly
3000 vessels of almost 5,000,000 gross tons were destroyed by the
U-boats in the war. More than half of the vessels sunk belonged to
England. Norway and France were the next greatest sufferers from the
submarine warfare. In one week after Germany announced her intention to
give no quarter, but to sink any vessel which came within the range of
the U-boat torpedoes, the toll of ships lost was more than 400,000 tons.

At the beginning of the war the submarine was to all intents and
purposes a novelty--a boat of recognized possibilities, but existing
very largely in the experimental stage. Its use was very largely ignored
by naval men, although it was conceded that when properly developed it
would prove a wonderful agency of destruction. The proud commanders of
the great battleships, with their 10, 12 and 14 inch guns, which sent
great shells miles across the ocean, looked down upon the little
underseas boat, and applied to it the sobriquet of "tin sardine."

But the "tin sardine" has grown up, and the commander of the monster war
vessel is at the mercy of the little craft which he ridiculed. A short
time ago Holland, the American inventor of the modern submarine, died of
a broken heart. His type was necessarily an experimental one. He built
five boats before he was able to sell one to the United States
Government, and this latter one, after being bought by a junk dealer,
who intended