The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-05 00:00:00

Steering Ships by Telegraph,

At the Royal United Service Institution yester-
day a highly interesting lecture was delivered by
Lieut. A. H. Gilmore, R.N., upon the application
of electric telegraphy to the steering and general
management of a man of war. The lecturer stated
that it was now seven years since his late brother
directed attention to the subject, and proposed an
apparatus for the purpose to the Admiralty, which
had then be tried with perfect success on hoard some
vessels of small size. The same system has recently
been acc2pted by the Admiralty, and is now in use,
with certain improvements, on board the Resist-
ance, the Hector, Prince Consort, Orlando, Orontes,
and the Queen's yacht, the Victoria and Albert,
having been first adopted in that ship on the occa-
sion of her voyage to bring the P►incess of Waled
to England. The great value of a system of per-
fect communication throughout any ship must be
evidence, as it is from tho want of this that so many
accidents happen. Ships come into fatal collision in
fogs and dark nights before it is possible to alter
the course by word of command, The man at the
look-out has first to give his signal, and this is taken
up by the next man, and' so the word is carried,
often in a gale of wind, throughout several men, to
the eteeramtin, who possibly gets an imperfect, or
even a directly contrary order, while, if he gets the
right one, it is often too late. Many hairbreadth
escapes in this way aro commonly to be heard re-
lated by seamen, and no doubt small craft are some-
times run down which tnight havebeen avoided had
it been possible for the man at the helm to act with
sufficient promptitude. The apparatus appears to be
extremely simple, and it is only surprising, now
that we are shown it, that it was not adopted long
ago. There is in front of the wheel at which the
helmsman is stationed, a neat stand, somewhat like
a sun-dial stand, with an upright dial-plate, upon
which works a hand or indicator, and this plate is
made transparent at night by a lamp. When the
ship is steering " steady," the hand is vertical,
or at rest, by its own gravity, chiefly, and
points to the word " steady ;" when the course is
signalled to " port" or "starboard" the hand moves
to the left or right hand, as required by the officer
in command, who of course directs the key-handle
upon a similar dial-plate before him. But by an in-
genious contrivance a sharp sounding gong is struck
with every signal, so that the man's attention is
called to thedial-plate before him. If he is ordered
to steer so many spokes of the wheel to port or
starboard, the officer gives three or any other num-
ber of strokes upon his dial, and the gong sounds
at the same time. If the order " hard down" or
" hard up" helm is to be given, it is only necessary
to repeat the strokes rapidly. Mr. Gilmore showed
the apparatus in action, and it worked in the most
exact and unmistakeable manner. For ships of war
and especially the cupola ships, it would seem to be
quite an indispensable means of working them effi •
ciently, as orders may be sent about the ship with
accuracy under any circumstances, and with a
rapidity quite impossible in the noise either of a
storm or a battle. Mr. Gilmore purposes to have a
kind of table with several dial-plates upon it, eaoh
of which is in communication with a certain part of
the ship, as the fighting quarters, the engine room,
the cupolas, and so on ; this would be placed in the
captain's pilot-house on deck, and thus the necessary
orders to fight the ship by manoeuvring in any way
to the magazines and to the broadside guns, pre-
pare to fire, to change or revolve cupolas for the
other tack, and in case of attacking as a ram, to
charge or to back off as needed. The immense ad-
vantages of all this need not be dwelt upon, but the
lecturer pointed out especially that in modern war•
fare by steam it would be of great importance to be
able to manoeuvre the ship rapidly, and to fire in-
stantaneously at a ship moving with high speed.
The double screw propellers which are now coming
into use would net, he thought, be fully available
without this method of conveying orders instanta-
neously. As to the easo with which sailors would
learn the meaning of the signals and the working
of the system, Lieutenant Gilmore felt quite sure
that there was less difficulty in this method of
steering than in the old one of steering by the
compass.