REVIEW: Monturiol's Dream by Stewart Matthew

Monturiol's Dream. By Matthew Stewart
Published by Profile Books and distributed in Australia by Allen and
Unwin
ISBN: 1 86147 470 1. Hardback 404 pages
Recommended Retail Price in Australia A$39.95

David Skea, Reviewer ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

The extraordinary story of the submarine inventor who wanted to save
the world.

In Barcelona, if you go to the end of Las Ramblas, cross the road by
the statue of Christopher Columbus and walk along to the new harbour,
you will come to a strange wooden structure.  And if you are curious
enough to stop to read the nearby commentary you discover that you
are looking at a full sized model of Ictineo II, the first real
submarine to be built. Sure, others had built and trialled
submersible vessels but here is a replica of the first real submarine
that dived, surfaced and proceeded underwater, on its own, at depths
of up to 20 metres; an event in 1867 as astounding as the landing of
men on the moon some 100 years later.  And it was invented and built
by an idealist with no formal engineering training who had spent the
first 37 years of his life publishing left wing journals (always
banned by the authorities) or organising a radical political party,
most of whose members were jailed or exiled. He was himself wanted by
the police. His name was Narcis Monturiol i Estarriol.

This book is his biography. Born in 1819, he was the second son of
an artisan family, and was destined from childhood for the
priesthood. At the age of eleven he was sent to university in Cervera
to study Latin, Greek and other subjects that would qualify him for
the church. However, he found science more to his liking and studied
medicine instead.  Not that he ever practiced as a doctor, for at
that time the first Spanish civil war broke out and Monturiol had no
difficulty in deciding which side to support. In a burst of
revolutionary fervour he switched from medicine to law and moved to
Barcelona. Not that he ever practiced law either.  In Barcelona he
put aside his law books and fell in with student demonstrators,
revolutionary journalists and communists all of whom coming his close
friends for the rest of his life. He was sixteen and for the next 20
years he was part of the left wing movement seeking a better life for
the workers. 

Suddenly at the age of 37, Monturiol, ignoring his day-to-day
involvement with the left wing, concentrated all of his energies into
designing and building a submarine.  And it was not to be any old
submarine. Monturiol made it clear in his first writings on the
subject that he imagined a craft that would take humankind to the
very bottom of the ocean (at least eventually) and would propel
itself in all directions, without any link to the land or surface and
remain underwater indefinitely.

Why did he design and build such a vessel? Not for the usual
reasons, such as a delivery system of weapons of war. No, he had been
motivated to find an easier way for the coral divers who worked off
the coast of Spain to harvest the coral after he had helped to save
the life of one such diver who had apparently drowned.  Also he
reasoned that by making a better life for the workers a new civil
(ideal) society would naturally develop.

He overcame many problems, raised finance and found a dockyard to
build the vessel. He became a master in the sciences such as they
existed at the time. He conducted his own experiments to test his
hypotheses about hydrodynamics, respiration, and so forth, that would
underpin the submarine's construction. In three years he designed,
had built and then, in 1859, launched his first submarine. Ictineo I
performed admirably as a prototype and was shown off to all until it
was crushed in dockside encounter with a freighter.

The story now takes on a familiar theme known to many inventors. 
Few in the establishment were keen to adopt the submarine concept or
to provide funding for the next, larger, version. However, new
funding did materialize and in 1867 a new larger submarine, Ictineo
II, was built and launched. It even had a steam engine (fired by a
revolutionary concept) that ran underwater.  In the end the project
ran out of money and ran up huge debts. Ictineo II was seized by the
major creditor, parts sold off, and the rest broken up for scrap.

The rest of Monturiol's life was a struggle for existence.  He had
no official position and no income. He scraped together a living by
taking odd jobs as a writer and editor. He lectured, translated works
from French and copy edited manuscripts.  At the age of 59 he took a
job in a brokerage house and a year later worked his way up to
cashier – a trade for which he had also trained 35 years previously
as a student.
 
In his lifetime, Monturiol invented many things. A cigarette rolling
machine, a method of preserving meat for export, a cheap food for
rabbits being raised for meat and a mechanism for copying letters as
they were written, are just a few mentioned in the book. None,
though, enriched the inventor. As Monturiol wrote about himself: 'I
do not know how to market anything. I do not know how to conquer the
hearts and minds of men so that they come to my aid …'

Had he had this ability who knows what other inventions he would
have developed. He had flying machines in mind once he had solved the
submarine problem.

The book is illustrated. However, as the illustrations are all
printed in black and white on the same paper as the text, the quality
of the reproductions is less than satisfactory, which is a pity. I
found the book well worth reading and would have liked to examine the
drawings of the submarine more closely.