The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-12
lomas COmmerford Martin.
A NETWORK OF DEADLY FORCES
Park Beninmin Explains the various
Methods OF Making EIcctricIty
Contribute to The Discomfort of a

""tEi"u'e 10 the Discomfort of
Foe.
Ihere is popular notion that we pos
sess in electricity a mysterious power
somehow able to destroy fleets and armies
and with this is coupled a complacent faith
that in event of war there will appear a
new Archimedes. who will in an instant
discover and give us an electric something
which will quickly annihilate the invader.
1t is an excellent thing TO believe in our
selves, (and the last war gives US good
reason for doing SOD but there is a big
9luerence between relying upon swhat we
nave done AMI upon what we suppose we
can do, especially when there is more ro-
nance than reality in the suppositfon
Irue, the workings of electricity have now
come home to US more than ever before
yet at the same time never have we been
so surfeited with tales of the wonders
OF II. Ordinarily this dwelling on myster-
les ana marvels is in a measure harmless
enough, even stimulating, but in the face
OF the present anxietics IL operates to keep
people IN FOOLS paradise with respect TO
potent factor in the national safeguards
whlch IS distinctly injurious.
IL IS time to put wonders present and
prospective, out of sight, and to deal with
Iacts. II IS necessary to understand that
we cannot make artificial thunderbots
that we cannot shake ships to pieces by in
duced vibrations in the cOsmic ether and
that we cannot send disintegrating cur
rents to them or even drag them upon
rocks or shoals by the attraction Of power
tul electromagnetic In short, we cannot
do with electricity anything that is won
dertul because occult or mysterious at all:
nor anything indeed of which the laws are
not just as certain and familiar to the peO-
pie whose bread. and butter depends on
their knowing them as are the rules for
making bread or weighing butter TO the
other people who keep bake shops or gro
ceries.
If electricity can help us to protect our
SeaDOHrU q know [
Is to do so and what we have TO do in
order fully to utilize it, and this without
any mudding OF 1t with wizards" or
neutrality-suspicious. it may be-is of
no use except through it's operation, and
the machines which ii drives or controls,
are what we depend upon.
These have TO be designated. built, and
tested and kept ready. just like all other
time. They cannot be suggested one day
and used the next. II has taken twenty
years TO bring the telephone TO its pres
ent imperfect state, and eighty years to
develop the still more imperfect electric
light, and one Of the most important of
al the military uses of electricity (the
firing of explosives) has been known and
practiced for a century and a half.
If, now, foreign fleet should appear
off harbor, say New York, what are the
known applications OF electricity which
We can use? That is the question which
| propose briefly here to answer. We
have some powerful guns which shoot
in nearly straight lines, over long dis
tances, and others which throw project
lies over still longer distances hlgn into
the air, and so drop them upon the enc
my. But IL is of no use to throw things
at a warship unless we know the distance
of the vessel from us and in what direc-
ton she is moving, or, in brief, where she
Is; otherwise we cannot train and elevate
the guns so as to make the shot and shell
go TO their target Hence, as soon as the
invading feet appears on the horizon, the
observers on the shores will direct upon
it their electric range and position find
ers, and the position finders will show the
location of the vessels upon a chart rep
resenting the harbor and outlying waters
and will indicate their direction and speed
of movement. Then the mortars can be
accurately placed and will begin to toss
skyward their hail Of shells. AS the ships
draw near Qheir bearings having been
goD the range finders will measure their
distance every few seconds, and the high
power guns Will open fire with their ar
piercing steel shells. If the great
armor-clads withstand this, unscathed,
and come still nearer, the curious coughs
of the dynamite guns will begin The
huge tubes will be trained by instantly
working electric motors; the odd cigar
shaped projectiles will soar slowly into
the air, carrying certain destruction to
any vessel which one of them may hit,
or, II failing to strike, hurting aloft great
geysers OF foam. There is no delay in
this firing; not only will the electric mo-
tors quickly move the guns responsive to
touch, but the propelling charges of the
powder guns Will be ignited by the press
ing of the button controlling the electric
primers, and the electric fuses in the
shells filled with nitro-gelatine or gun
cotton will detonate them the instant the
ship is struck or the moment after SUBJ
mersion.
But perhaps the attacking vessels are
pouring in a return fire. sileneing the
batteries, so that the long line of ships
begins to enter the channel. Now, a
dozen or more of lean, longpointed craft
moving under the water draw away from
the shore. No human being in on them.
Some are driven by electric engines. sup
Piled with current by wires leading to
dynamos on the land; others are pro-
PEELED by carbonic acid gas and are only
steered by electricity through cables
which they lay behind them as they move.
They will run at high speed for miles.
Any one of them touching a ship in
fallibly sinks her. for the head of each
is filled with dynamite.
Or perhaps column of black smoke
| (Which seems to rise out of the water it.
selO close to the land suddenly disappears,
and the sea is scarcely troubled by the
swift progress beneath it of the Holland
submarine boat, eighty feet in length a
warship in herself, driven by electric mo-
tors, rushing unseen to the attack, deliv-
! ering torpedo after torpedo or finally
crashing her ram into the enemy's I'M
| guarded ribs, far below the water line.
Meanwhile, the position finders on the
harbor forts are showing simultaneously
to the whole Gordon of fortihcations the
exact location of the ships upon which
the fire of all the batteries is now con-
| centrated. II smoke cuts off the view
! from one battery, another may have clear
sight, and the telegraph conveys knowl-
| edge of the exact position of the ships
! from those who can see to those who can
not
AS the vessels pentrate the outer har-
| Dor new difficulties confront them. The
whole roadstead is planted with subrna-
rine mines placed at exactly DESIGNATED
| places. \ system of electric wires con-
meets these with the governing SWITCH
board and electric batteries in the forts.
They are so placed that the ships going
through the channels must pass over
| them.
When the position finder shows that n
vessel is finally in the tolls, the observer
| in some far-distant bomb-proof touches
key, and the hidden volcano is set loose
Nor does the blackness of night serve q :
a shield. The powerful, beams of a dozen
| electric searchlights may be converged
upon the vessel. so that every mast ana
every rope stands out like silver.
If the position finder is wholly blinded IN,
| densely encompassing smoke. clouds ~
| fog, then the watchful electric buoy float
ing above the deadly magazine lust below
the surface of the water, upon the colIis-
| ion of the iron-clad with it operates a lei
icate circuit closer, and thus the victim
! herself sets free the current which fires
the blast and causes her own destrucfiou
All this presupposes that our own war
ships nave not been on the scene to pIay
/ their part as The first lime IF lafn.~r -.