by Thomas Holian

The evolution of the submarine, from its infancy through the American Civil War, enjoys a fairly well-documented, if perhaps not popularly well-known, place in history. The earliest description of how a diver might be supplied with air beneath the waves is found in the writings of Aristotle, who described what is essentially a diving bell. By submerging inside a weighted object shaped roughly like an upside-down bucket, the diver can breathe the air trapped inside. Legend has it that another famous ancient Greek, Alexander the Great, investigated Athens harbor in such a device. Interest in the depths then apparently submerged until the Renaissance. A fifteenth-century Venetian named Roberto Valtino may have invented a hand-propelled wooden submarine, about which little evidence remains, and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) claimed to have designed a military submarine, but refused to publicize it “on account of the evil nature of men who practice assassination at the bottom of the sea.” Da Vinci’s prejudicial view against submarines as tools of war seems to have been shared by many officials and navies even into the latter years of the nineteenth century.