In January, 1898 [says Mr. Lake], while the _Argonaut_ was submerged, telephone conversation was held from submerged stations with Baltimore, Washington, and New York.
In 1898, also, the _Argonaut_ made the trip from Norfolk to New York under her own power and unescorted. In her original form she was a cigar-shaped craft with only a small percentage of reserve buoyancy in her surface cruising condition. We were caught out in the severe November northeast storm of 1898 in which over 200 vessels were lost and we did not succeed in reaching a harbour in the "horseshoe" back of Sandy Hook until, of course, in the morning. The seas were so rough they would break over her conning tower in such masses I was obliged to lash myself fast to prevent being swept overboard. It was freezing weather and I was soaked and covered with ice on reaching harbour.
This experience caused me to apply to the _Argonaut_ a further improvement for which I had already applied for a patent. This was, doubled around the usual pressure resisting body of a submarine, a ship-shape form of light plating which would give greater seaworthiness, better surface speed, and make the vessel more habitable for surface navigation. It would, in other words, make a "sea-going submarine," which the usual form of cigar-shaped vessel was not, as it would not have sufficient surface buoyancy to enable it to rise with the seas and the seas would sweep over it as they would sweep over a partly submerged rock.
The _Argonaut_ was, therefore, taken to Brooklyn, twenty feet added to her length, and a light water-tight buoyancy superstructure of ship-shape form added. This superstructure was opened to the sea when it was desired to submerge the vessel, and water was permitted to enter the space between the light plating of the ship-shaped form and the heavy plating of the pressure resisting hull. This equalized pressure on the light plates and prevented their becoming deformed due to pressure. The superstructure increased her reserve of buoyancy in the surface cruising condition from about 10 per cent. to over 40 per cent. and lifted right up to the seas like any ordinary type of surface vessel, instead of being buried by them in rough weather.