such a way that the guns themselves
disappear immediately after discharge and are not visible while not
in use. Though mounted on deck they are aimed and fired from below.
As part of the armament of the submarine we must also consider the
additional protection which they receive from having certain
essential parts protected by armour plate.

All these features have increased the safety of submarine navigation
to a great extent. In spite of the popular impression that submarine
navigation entailed a greater number of danger factors than
navigation on the surface of the water, this is not altogether so.
If we stop to consider this subject we can readily see why rather
the opposite should be true. Navigation under the surface of the
water greatly reduces the possibility of collision and also the
dangers arising from rough weather. For the results of the latter
are felt to a much lesser degree below than on the surface of the
water. Many other factors are responsible for the comparatively high
degree of safety inherent in submarines. Up to the outbreak of the
present war only about two hundred and fifty lives had been lost as
a result to accidents to modern submarines. Considering that up to
1910 a great deal of submarine navigation was more or less
experimental this is a record which can bear favourable comparison
with similar records established by overwater navigation or by
navigation in the air.

To the average man the thought of imprisonment in a steel tube
beneath the surface of the sea, and being suddenly deprived of all
means of bringing it up to air and light is a terrifying and nerve
shattering thing. It is probably the first consideration which
suggests itself to one asked to make a submarine trip. Always the
newspaper headlines dealing with a submarine disaster speak of those
lost as "drowned like rats in a trap." Men will admit that the
progress of invention has greatly lessened the danger of accident to
submarines, but nevertheless sturdily insist that when the accident
does happen the men inside have no chance of escape.

As a matter of fact many devices have been applied to the modern
submarine to meet exactly this contingency. Perhaps nothing is more
effective than the so-called telephone buoy installed in our Navy
and in some of those of Europe. This is a buoy lightly attached to
the outer surface of the boat, containing a telephone transmitter
and receiver connected by wire with a telephone within. In