Remora

As Simon Lake, modern submarine inventor, pondered ways of rescuing the crews of foundered submarines, he recalled the remora. The remora is an astute fish. It has on the top of its head a fin modified uniquely into a sucker organ. As everyone who has fished off the Bermudas or among the West Indies knows, when the remora wishes to locate food he attaches himself with his sucker to some larger form of marine life--sharks, turtles or the like, even boats.

The remora's sucker fin gave Inventor Lake his rescue idea. He built a large, long, flexible pipe with a contractile device at one end. This device, fitted over a submerged submarine's hatch, obtained a suction hold thereon. That permitted the hatch's safe opening, the pumping out of water or foul air, the pumping in of fresh air. Men could crawl through such a pipe to the surface and safety. Inventor Lake last week announced that his device had been tested sufficiently to warrant its wide use. He calls it the "Remora.''