Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1896-01-23
THE DEFENcEs OF NEW YORK.
The President Of the General Electric Tells Of
Some Arrangements.

There is popular notion that we
possess i'm electricity" a mysterious
power somehow able to destroy
fleets and armies. and with this is
coupled complacent faith that i'm
event of war there will appear a new
Archimedes, who will i'm an instant
discover and give us an electric some
thing which will quickly annihilate
the invader. 1t is an excellent thing to
believe in ourselves land the last war
gives us good reason for doing SO, }
but there is big difference between
relying upon what we have done and
upon what we suppose we can do,
especially when there is more romance
than reality i'm the supposition.
True. 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 "wanders" of it. Ordinarily
this dwelling on mysteries and mar
veIs is i'm a measure harmless enough
even stimulating, but in the face OF
the present anXieties it operates to
keep people i'm "a FOOLS paradise with
respect to potent factor in the
national safeguards, which is dis
tinctly injurious.
1t is time to put wonders, present
and prospective, out OF sight, and to
deal with facts. 1t is necessary to
understand that we cannot make
artificial thunderbolts, that we can
not shake ships to pieces by in
duced vibrations in the coSmic ether,
and that we cannot send disintegrat-
ing currents to them or even drag
them upon rocks or shoals by the
attraction OF powerful electromag-
nets. In short, we cannot do with
electricity anything that is wonder
full because occult or mysterious at
all: nor anything indeed of which
the laws are just as certain and
familiar to the people whose bread
and butter depends ON their know
| ing them as are the rules for making
bread or weighing butter to- the
other people who keep bake shops Oh
groceries.
Ii electricity can help us to protect
our seaboard cities, we want to know
how it is to do so and what we
have to do in order fully to utilize
it, and this without any muddlina
of it with wizards" or wonders. =
ctricity-whatever it may be
is OF no use except through its oper
alton. and the machines which il
pend upon.
These have to he designed, built
tested, and kept ready, just like al
other structures that men make
That requires time. They cannot
be suggested one day and used tn,
next. 1t has taken 20 years to bring
the telephone to its present imperfec1
state, and so years to develop tn,
still more imperfect electric light
and one of the most important o
all the military uses of electricity
1.-THE firing of eXplosives) has beer
known and practiced for "a centur,
and a half.
| Ii. now. a foreign fleet should
appear off a harbOr, say New York
what are the known applications o
electricity which we can use? Tha'
is the question which I propos'
briefly here to answer. We hav,
some powerful guns which shoot il
nearly straight lines, over long dis
tances. and Others which throw pro
ljectiles over still longer distance
high into the air. and so drop then
upon the enemy. But il is of no us
to throw things at a warship unles
we know the distance of the vesst
from us and i'm what direction she j
moving, or, in brief where she il
otherwise we cannot train an
elevate the guns so as to make til
shot and shell go to their target
Hence, as soon as the invading flee
appears on the horizon, the obseI
Yer on the shores will direct upon |
! their electric range and positio
finders, and the position finders wi
show the location of the vessels upo
"A chart representing the harbor an
outlying waters and will indicat