The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-11-13
ELECTRICITY IN WAR
EDISON TALKS OF ITS DEATH DEAL
ING POSSIBILITIES.
Water Highly Charged May he Used to
Repulss Assaults-A Torpedo Gable That
weuid Protect Now York Against Any

L "Ceso <<oW AOha HkahhSs ny
and All Navies-A Dog Quickly Killed.
Somew here Edison read once that some
firemen at work on building where there
were lot of electric wires overhead were
rather severely shocked. The stream from
| one of the lines of hose hit ono of the
wires. The heavy current leaked from
| the wires and ran down the stream, shock
ing the nozzle men.
II hadn't thought of that before" Edi-
son said to the Sun man, $50 tried it
with an induction coil and cat 1t
worked all right. That was tho last of
| the cat.
When Edison began to think about ap-
pliances useful in war, he thought of that
stream of water. The difficulty of throw
ing stream OF water any considerable
distance precludes the possibility of its use
as a means of attack, but for defensive
purposes, Edison says, 1t Is absolute
against certain forms of attack.
He has devised fluid which, because Of
Its greater viscosity can be propelled in a
solid stream through nozzle a much
greater distance than water.
Suppose you were defending an en-
trenchment, breastworks-any sort of
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. a charge. You take
q lot of little nozZles, throwing streams
less than half an inch In diameter. can
throw such n stream with "a fluid of my
own preparation at least 600 feet.
wouldn't stand in front of it at /, 900 feet
You can charge that fluid with 5000
volts, and it will kill on the instant of
contact. A one horsepower engine will
furnish all the power needed. 1t takes
power to produce amperage, but it's volt
age that kills, and that is easily produced.
The boiler and dynamo could DO logged
around in one horse wagon. All you
need besides is n powerful pump. Take
half dozen MOBILES, arranged on swivels,
and the attacking force couldn't get near
your Notifications. 1t would be perfectly
easy to place the dynamo and machinery
underground, where artillery couldn't
possibly injure them. Why, that thing is
absolute"
You apparently have no doubt what
ever about the killing properties of cleo
tricity," said The Sun man.
xiii? Why, killed dog out here in
one ten thousandth part of second"
How did you measure the timer
Edison laughed. Then, with jerk of
his thumb toward the ceiling he said:
"Rigged "a weight up there We know
how fast a weight falls by the simple at
traction of gravity. We put brass scale
beside the weight. The turning on of the
current that killed the dog released the
weight and it began to fall Shutting off
the current arrested the weight again.
The current was turned on and off as
quickly as possible. The dog was dead and
the weight had fallen two one-hundredths
on - Al Al.
of a second to do that. That's the time
it took to kill the dog
Then Mr. Edison talked about the pro-
lection of harbors by torpedoes. 1t would
be very simple, he said, to construct tor
pedo defonses for New York, or any other
harbor, for that matter 1t can be done
quickly and at little cost. Accurate and
careful surveys of all the important har-
bors on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
are in the possession of the government
engineers. They know the depth of water,
the location Of bars and the character of
the bottom. Taking New York harbor as
an illustration, he said:
Suppose you stretch an endless cable
from Rockaway over toward Long Branch.
Put it farther out If that doesn't keep the
enemy's ships far enough away. Make 1t
from Fire Island to Spring Lake If neces-
sary. Sink this cable to the bottom and
work it around wheels just as the bridge
cable Is worked, SO that it can be moved
forward and back. Insulate it so that 1t
can be charged with electricity Then at
tach torpedoes to it every 200 feet or So as
near together as Is necessary to make the
thing sure and effective These torpedoes
will stand on end in the water and can be
built so that they will rise to the surface
as soon as they are freed from the cable.
The pressure of the water ON the diaphragm
keeps the circuit broken. When the tor
pedo is released from the cable it rises to
the surface. AS it rises the pressure on the
diaphragm decreases. If the torpedo rises
under a ship, the force of the impact sets
1t off and blows the ship out Of water.
But If it misses the ship it goes off when
it reaches the surface, because, the pressure
on the diaphragm being removed, the cir
cult would be completed just as if by i'm
pact.
"Now, by having long string of these
torpedoes on a movable cable, it would be
possible to hit any ship that tried to get
in. The operator of the cable, at his in
land observatory, watches the ships cal
culate their position with his range finder.
He knows where his torpedoes are, and at
tHo piopoi oiiho hO PuohSs buo anu
frees two or three of them. The result Is
the destruction of the ship. If 1t should
be thought possible for ship to get by
one such cable it would be easy enough
to have more than one. The coast would
be lined with them, and the protection of
the city would be absolute. Torpedo catch
ers would not be effective against such a
defense, because IL they began graphing
for the cable the first touch of their Crap
ping irons would notify the operator.
All he would have to do would be to free
q couple of torpedoes. That would be the
end of the torpedo catcher. 1t wouldn't
be necessary to hit him with one of them.
They would be sure to explode somewhere
near him, and he couldn't stand the con-
cussion. New York Sun.
A Cute Negro.
A good story is told of an old negro who