But his enemies were getting reckless, and, as a last resource, to drive him from the country in disgust, they threatened to seize his model, then almost completed. The threat had its effect. Bauer sent in his resignation of official rank and duties, and begged leave to quit the country. No notice was taken of this nor of two subsequent applications,—instead came an order for him to raise the Le Fort, a vessel which had sunk with crew and cargo.
One-sixth of the value saved he was to receive as disbursement for expense and labour. He was now paid 10,000 roubles, one-half of the stipulated sum, for the hyponaut; the other half was refused, as the vessel had not attained the speed he had anticipated. With this sum he at once went on with the model of the corvette; but could come to no arrangement with the Minister of Marine regarding the Le Fort. No one seemed to know clearly where she had foundered. Then the Government would not allow any one appointed by Bauer to meddle in the valuation of the salvage. Besides, he was now told, that the Church, having burnt so many yards of candles, and chaunted no end of prayers for the drowned men in the ship, claimed for thus settling them in the other world, to be their sole executors and legatees in this. So he must get his problematical sixth in the teeth of all the popes of Muscovy.
In the meantime he had determined on a new apparatus for raising the wreck, adopting the main principles of the hyponaut to a diving-bell; he would have given it a sinking power of 500 feet, and capability of resisting sixteen times the weight of our atmosphere,—an impossibility to the open diving-bell. The men descended in it to take down the exhausted balloons which, when securely fastened to the wreck, were to be inflated by connecting tubes from above water, and then commence their ascent, unassisted, to the surface.
The Academy of Science (St. Petersburg) gave the inventor a mighty complimentary testimonial for his last application of atmospheric power; and, in fact, Bauer did not want for compliments, but an honest man thoroughly in earnest and determined to do his work, finds but poor comfort in them for intrigue, corruption, and falsehood awaiting his every step.
He could not proceed with the corvette—it was hopeless to attempt the Le Fort. He had escaped his civil and military enemies; but if the Church joined them, what hope had he?
He was offered the honorary rank of major, but he had not laboured and thought all these years to be paid with a tag of gold lace; and feeling he was too powerless, despite the generous aid of the Imperial Prince, to contend against the full strength of “system,” he obtained leave to return to his fatherland.
When he would have entered the army in Bavaria, he was informed he could not be admitted in any higher rank than that of sergeant! And this he declined.
Some time after he was engaged to raise a sunken steamer in the Lake Constance. He succeeded in raising her, though from very deep water, but his machinery, instead of the prepared linen and india-rubber balloons he had designed for the Le Fort, was now represented by small beer-barrels, which burst as they rose with their burden to the surface. Indeed, the funds placed at his disposal had been miserably insufficient, and obliged him to have recourse to this expedient. Had a vessel been near, the wreck might still have been saved; but before one could be brought it had sunk again.
We must not suppose Bauer’s whole ingenuity was occupied in the works we have particularised. The failure of the great Atlantic Telegraph especially directed his thoughts to some means for carrying out its objects with greater success. His plan would have hung the wire in mid-water, saving it from excessive pressure and any abrasion from the bottom, and held in its position by air-suspendants. He thought greater firmness would be given to the coil by applying a coating of mixed caoutchouc and gutta-percha to the wire, when heated, to prevent peeling by closer amalgamation, and by an increased firmness, diminishing the evils of friction.
He designed folding-boats for easy stowage on ship board, to be always ready for immediate use; these boats to be provided with compass and rudder, and furnished with a screw. The material to be employed for them remains their inventor’s secret, until a company, with a capital of 40,000 to 50,000 thalers undertakes to adopt the invention after he has proved to them its success.
As almost every mechanician has had his dream of aerial navigation, we cannot be surprised to find the designer of the hyponaut planned a machine to make us alike independent of land and water travel; but we must pass from this, the poetry of air-pumps and levers, to the stern prose to an invention, the prototypes of which furnish rhetoric to the “Times,” and subject of discourse of every one.
Here we will give Wilhelm Bauer’s own words: we quote from a private letter written from Lindau, Nov., 1859:
From observations I have made in England, France, and Russia, I would construct revolving batteries, which should unite all the principal advantages of floating and land defences, without, I believe, the disadvantages of the latter. Here I can give you but a rough sketch of my idea. I would have an iron, shot-proof, revolving battery, with from nine to twenty-four guns, anchored close to the shore, where the hull, scarce rising above water, would offer no mark to the enemy’s fire. For inland fortifications, these batteries, requiring as they would, no great depth of water, could be placed, in any given number, in moats, surrounding an inner citadel, which would supply room for stores and shelter for the men when required. * * *
In a subsequent letter from Berlin, Jan., 1860, he mentions having submitted this plan to Prince Adalbat of Prussia (head of the Marine Department), who, with other technical men who had considered it, expressed the highest approval of its principle.
That ultimate success will reward Wilhelm Bauer, we may yet hope. The press throughout Germany is at last energetically advocating his claims to the respect and attention of his countrymen. Meetings have been held, and societies are forming to carry out his ideas with all the necessary means to their full realisation.
