The title tells most of the story.  The wrecks are from a British transport fleet that was sunk in an attempt to block a French bombardment.  Interesting.  The ships were discovered in 2005 and just announced now (spring 2006). 

Here's the article:

 livescience.com Article...

Dutch Submarines describes a very interesting BBC project - building a replica of the first known submarine.  Is the BBC documenting the history of a Dutch submarine?  Well the inventor was Cornelius Drebbel (Dutch) and he built and demonstrated it for King James I (British) on the Thames back in the 1620s.  

Anyway, the boat is effectively a wood underwater rowboat and the page linked below has some great photos and illustrations of the design and operation of the replica.  Good stuff!

  http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/specials/special_first_submarine.htm

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The Turtle was the first American submarine, invented in Connecticut in 1775 by David Bushnell as a means of attaching explosive charges to ships in a harbor. Named for its shape, the Turtle resembled a large clam as much as a turtle; it was 7.5 ft long, 6 ft tall, and about 3 ft wide, consisting of two wooden shells covered with tar...

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by Dr. Herbert Grove Dorsey The following talk was presented by Dr. Herbert Grove Dorsey, chief of the Coast and Geodetic Survey Radiosonic Laboratory, on September 16, 1932. Dr. Dorsey had worked for Submarine Signal Corporation prior to 1925 when he chose to make a career with the Coast and Geodetic Survey...

...His fathometers increased the efficiency of hydrographic surveying for the Coast and Geodetic Survey and also proved to be of great value to the maritime shipping industry.  His instruments helped delineate much of the continental shelf and slope of the United States and its territories as well as much of the deep sea, in particular the northeast Pacific Ocean, the mid-Atlantic shelf and slope, and Gulf of Mexico.

Through the Looking Glass is a great website on early submarine history from 1900 to 1940.  There is a lot of hard to find material here, many books worth, presented as collections of photographs and illustrations.  Here's the disclaimer from the site:
Be Warned! These pages now contain over 1300 photos and each page may take some time to load.

This warning gives you an idea of how good the site is.  And it gives you a reason to order that DSL or broadband cable connection for faster Internet access.
  Through the Looking Glass - Submarine Photo Essays

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by Edward C. Whitman

Although largely overshadowed by Irish-American submarine pioneer John Holland (ca. 1841-1914), U.S. inventor and entrepreneur Simon Lake was nonetheless responsible for a significant share of the key developments that made possible the modern submarine. Although some authorities have questioned the claims of Lake's proponents for his invention of the periscope, the double-hulled submarine, and the diver's lock-in/lock-out chamber, he was a genuine innovator in the field of undersea technology, and his Lake Torpedo Boat Company built a total of 33 submarines for the U.S. Navy between 1909 and 1922. Additionally, two of Lake's most characteristic design features - hull-mounted wheels for bottom crawling and "level diving" by means of amidships hydroplanes - became an intriguing "road not traveled" in the evolution of submarine design. During a long and varied technical career - which produced over 200 patents - Simon Lake's inventive genius also ranged over marine salvage, shipbuilding, Arctic exploration, and prefabricated housing. 

Electricity – A “Powerful Agent” With its imaginative technology, Nemo’s engineering plant for Nautilus is certainly the most extraordinary aspect of his design. On behalf of his nautical protagonist, Verne conceived what was essentially an “all-electric” ship at a time when the first practical applications of electricity were only a few decades old and a century before building any such ships became feasible. In Captain Nemo’s oft-quoted words, There is a powerful agent, obedient, rapid, facile, which can be put to any use and reigns supreme on board my ship. It does everything. It illuminates our ship, it warms us, it is the soul of our mechanical apparatus. This agent is – electricity.

by Edward C. Whitman

As an inspiration to the submarine pioneers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, no other literary figure loomed as large as Jules Verne, the “father of science-fiction” and the author in 1870 of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. American submarine inventor Simon Lake, for example, credited his life-long interest in undersea exploration to having read Verne’s novel as a boy – and in 1898, he was thrilled to receive a telegram of congratulations from the author himself when his own Argonaut completed its first substantial ocean-going voyage. Educated as a lawyer, Verne lacked formal training in science and engineering, but nonetheless chose so shrewdly from the speculative technologies of his day in creating a futuristic submarine for his protagonist, Captain Nemo, that the essentials of his undersea vision – examined here – have nearly all been realized.

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