Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1889-05-09
SCIENTIFIC WARFARE
A Short List of Some of the Most Marvel
Gus Attainments of Modern War
riOrs.
The Incredibly Quick Work Of Pho
tographing a CannonBall or
Bullet While in Motion.
Extent to Which Electricity is Used as a
Quick Agent Military Pyrotech-
nics---What we May Expect.

The present of the art of war is hard to
keep pace with, and it is impossible to
foretell the future. Military art has be-
come OmniveIOus of science. There is not
branch of science that is not now called
in to aid in the art Of war. In the days of
Captain Marryat, when younger son was
too stupid for the law, too bad for the pull
pit and couldn't be made a doctor of, he
was settled in the army by the purchase of
commission, hence the latter came to be
considered the profession of "the fool of
the family"
What would the author of 'Midshipman
Easy have said, if he had been told that
Stokeley Morgan had succeeded in photo
graphing projectile in flight? In Austria
last year Professor Anschuetz succeeded in
getting photograph Of a rifle bullet, the
projectile moving at the rate of 1900 feet
a second II the plate which he used
for the purpose being exposed for only
.000O76 of a second.
A SELF-RECORDING PROJECTILE.
A use of photography is to make a can
non ball take picture of its own wab-
blings. An arrangement something like q
camera is placed in the forward end of q
bolt proiectile, and when it is fired directly
at the sun the light traces lines upon the
exposed sensitive plate from the direction
of which experts can afterward tell
whether the projectile kept lend on" has
upset" or has kept in one position or
wavered to and fro during its flight.
PHOTOGRAPHY IN MILITARY SURVEYING.
Lieut.. Reade. q. S. A has on exhibition
al the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia,
his process of applying photography to
military or other surveying. He shows in
his exhibit map made by this method, in
forty hours, of an area of thirty seven
square miles.
FIRING BULLETS BY MACHINERY.
w. E. Hicks, of Brooklyn, proposes to
reproduce the experience of David with
Goliah and meet the giant ornaments of
our enemies-not precisely with sling and
q smooth stone from the brook, but with
an application of the same force that the
champion of Israel used when he smote
the Philistine. The centrifugal force that
bursts rapidly rotating fy-wheels Mr..
Hicks intends to reduce to subjectiOn and
use it to send flying upon an errand of de-
struction-not the fragments of the wheel
but dynamite projectiles to which the
force of its revolutions is communicated.
The idea was applied by Messrs. Winans
and Brunei years ago. Mr.. Hicks is the
son of the man who invented the percus-
sion cap.
CAPT. DAYS ELECTRIC RIFLE.
An electric rifle has been invented by
Capt. Seldom A. Day, U. s. A., who says
that he can transform almost any gun into
an electric arm. He places in the stock
small battery similar to the Leclanche 1t
is chlorate of silver battery. and there is
no consumption of material except when
the cartridge is in place and the finger on
the trigger. There is no cooking or un-
cooking. The electricity ignites the pow
der directly without any hammer or main
spring whatever. One of these little bat
teries has been fred $4,000 times without
rechanging. Capt. Day claims that the
only safe way in which to fire the higher
explosives is by electricity, and that none
of the Eliminates will do it satisfactorily,