The Portland daily press., 1898-06-30
yESUFIUS A DEATH SHIP.
Fearful Destruction LIKELY TO Be
Wrought by Her in Cuba,

High xplosivos-HJovite" to Be Sub
stitutcd for the Gunco;ton Used in Her
sheils-Frospcct That "Jovite" VIII
Replace Gnnpowder.
Ne shall soon have O chance to realize
that the dynamite cruiser Vesuvius repre-
sents new power il naval warfare, !"
said Professor Charles Z. Munroe, the
famous chemist to the Washington COR
respondent of the Boston Transcript
She is destined to wreak tremendous des-
traction at Porto Rico, Havana and else
where before tho conclusion of hostilities
Big guns may smash things seriously,
hut warshlp that can throw gun cotton
in chunks weighing a quarter of a ton to
q distance of over mile with reasonable
accuracy is able literally to batter down
the landscape. The inventive genius of
the Yankees is being stimulated to high
degree, and the present conflict will be
marked by many surprises Indee d.
quite revolution in the science of ex-
plosives is likely to be brought about
and wa may reasonably expect that the
next great international struggle will be
conducted on wholly new basIs through
the development OF novel chemical com
binations."
Professor Munroe is dean of the Colum.
bian University, and the foremost expert
in explosives in this country. He added:
Though the Vesuvius is called 'dyn-
amite cruiser, the explosive employed in
her projecties is wet guncotton. Before
long ! expect she will use sjovite' in
stead. This is new substance, with
which tbs United States Z avy is at pres
ert experimenting. 1t is high explo-
sive OF tremendous efficiency, and l am of
tie opinion that it is destined to take the
place nj eunPowder to a great extent.
Ard y,o? Safer than gunpowder, it
has an energy equal to that of dynamite.
Shells filled with it have bean put
through Il 1.2 inches of nickel steel ar
n,or. not exploding until they reached
the other side.
500 yon realize what this signifies? 1t
means that such shell would enter the
hull of the most heavily armored vessel
and exp ode On the inside. The result, Of
course, would he the total destruction of
the ship; not the mightiest battleship
could survive such a catastrophe. An
armor-piercing shell of the pattern now
in use contains no bursting charge; it is
made Of such tough material that gun
powder would not explode it. But such
proJectiles loaded with 'jovite, are able
not only to make holes in armor but to
create the most tremendous havoc after
piercing.
''Under present conditions the Vesuvius
is type of craft that carries within it.
self TIE clements Of its own destruction.
OF course this might be said of any ship
of war that contains powder magazine,
but the case of the dynamite cruiser is
somewhat peculiar. The charges packed
In her projeotiles are large masses of wet
guncottnn, and that substance is harm
less enough by reason of the 35 per cent
of moisture that it holds. But tho gun
cotton she'll has to re detoDated by a
small quantity of dry guncotton, which
is an extremely dangerous material to
handle. A she'll striking Ii quartity of
the dry guncotton would blow up the
vessel. If 'jovi5e were utilized as sub
stitute, it would be equally effective as
an explosive, and its use would involve
no risks whatever. Jovite cannot be SET
off by mere conclusion. TIE Navy De-
partment has been making trials with it
for some time past, and its adoption is
only question of q brief time.
--"Of course, | need not tell you of the
difficulties which experts have encoun-
tered in dealing with high explosives fer
war purposes 1t is not that the handling
ofeheu requires such delicacy of manipula-
tion, but that they go of SO quickly as to
be unavailable for ordinary uses. They
will not serve as charges for guns, be-
cause they burst the weapon before the
projectile has time to be eXpellsd. Ac-
cordingly, so far as ordnance is concerned,
they are seryiceable only as filing for
the shells. Indeed even in this W ay they
have been considered worthless hitherto
because of the danger.
"But 'joyite' has solved the problem.
Loaded in q shell, it is safer than gun
powder; only fuse or a detonator will
set it off. In other words it may be en-
ployed as if it were a harmless substance
from the point of view of the gunner.
though at determined period after it's
discharge it is transformed into an instru-
Dieat If hellish Gestruc5iyeness. During
the present conflict, for the first time in
history, bursting shells of tn armor-
PIERCING kind viii be employed; they will
mark u ness epoch IL the development Of
naval warfare. Perhaps l should explain
Chat tho Il l-2-inch armor Experimental
upon with such shells consisted Of Har-
vsyized plates like those which are being
PUG on the battleship Kentucky, now
building.
'Joyite is the invention of Swede
named Biomen. It is q mixture of GER
tain ccal-tar products with metallic nj
trate. Nothing possibly could BE- more
safe in the way OF an explosive. Though
It's energy is SD tremendous, it will not
exploce if struck by a rifle ball. Of
course dynamite will explode under such
circumstances and that is one reason
why the latter is such perilous stuff to
handle in war. Another objection to
dynamite is that it makes the soldiers
sick. Ii IA little of it be rubbed on the
hands, some of the nitro glycerine con-
tanned in it is absorbed, and hence the
unpleasant feelings. When dynamite has
been fired, the men have to wait fifteen
or twenty minutes for the sickening va.
pors to pass off. This means waste of
time that may be extremely valuable.
During he asst few weeks Washington
PEOPLE have been frequently alarmed By
loud and repeated explosions which the
timiG Mers Inclined to attrih to q hn1,,-