Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake (West Texas A&M University Series) [Hardcover]

John J. Poluhowich (Author)

Book Description

Series: West Texas A&M University Series | Publication Date: September 1, 1999

"Without the efforts of Simon Lake, underwater navigation would be very different from what it is today. Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake illustrates the influence of Lake's creation and passion."--BOOK JACKET. "Simon Lake was the classic American inventor, complete with a rival, John Holland, who reaped most of history's praise for submarine design. However, it was Lake who launched his first working submarine in 1894 at the age of twenty-seven in the rivers of his native New Jersey. In 1898, his steel vessel, the Argonaut, completed a thousand-mile trek up the Atlantic coast. Despite the potential for government contracts, Lake remained private, using his invention to build a fortune from underwater salvage."--BOOK JACKET. "Questionable governmental trials resulted in navy contracts for submarines being awarded to Lake's rival, the Holland Torpedo Boat Company (later the Electric Boat Company), prompting Lake to build submarines for Russia and Austria. The United States would not request Lake's service until 1908 and would not recognize his contributions to underwater navigation until after his death in 1945. However, there is little doubt that Lake's work helped provide the basis for modern submarine design and construction."--BOOK JACKET. "John J. Poluhowich has prepared the most complete biography of Simon Lake, devoting chapters to Lake's early fascination with the idea of underwater navigation, his struggles with design, and his disappointment in the government."--BOOK JACKET.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John J. Poluhowich is professor of biology at West Texas A&M University. He has written numerous articles dealing with such topics as submarine history, backpacking, woodcarving, cooking, and natural history.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: TAMU Press; First Edition edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890968942
• ISBN-13: 978-0890968949
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,090,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Competent but hardly original, September 27, 2000

By 

Mike Dash (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake (West Texas A&M University Series) (Hardcover)

For the past 80 years or so, Simon Lake has stood in the shadow cast by John P Holland, the man now generally accorded the title 'Father of the Submarine'. But in the early 1900s, Connecticut yankee Lake seemed at least as likely to earn the soubriquet. Lake was Holland's equal as an inventor, and his submarines were the only ones constructed in the US which were as good as the Holland boats. Moreover, Lake was easily the better businessman and for a long time led the Electric Boat Company (which acquired Holland's patents) in export sales. Lake boats were supplied to Russia (the Lake Co. going to great lengths to smuggle them past US customs during the Russo-Japanese war) and Austria-Hungary, and - thanks to the anti-monopolist stance of the American government - they were also purchased by the US Navy for a few years before World War I. Lake's boats were technically as successful as the Holland types which eventually eclipsed them, though built on rather different principals. Their inventor retained faith in the idea of submerging vertically, rather than diving, and persisted in fitting his craft with wheels to allow them to run along the bottom. Unlike the Irish-American John Holland, whose designs were inspired by the idea of attacking British warships, Lake also believed in submarines for commercial purposes such as wrecking and pearl-diving, and his boats were fitted with diving chambers which also made them very suitable for mine-laying and mine-clearing operations. The story of how Lake built his first experimental boats of wood and, eventually, a large shipbuilding concern in Bridgport is a fascinating one, and Poluhowich tells is competently enough, if not in any great detail. But the book is marred by the lack of anything approaching enough original material. Although the author became acquainted with Lake's son and includes some new anecdotal information from this source, there is a disappointing dearth of worthwhile material from the US archives, much less anything from Austria or Russia. With Lake's somewhat mendacious autobiography, and his book on the development of the submarine, still fairly readily available through online second-hand book services, Argonaut is not the major contribution to the literature that it could have been. Solid, but a missed opportunity nonetheless.