Omaha daily bee., 1898-06-05

20 a target fifteen or twenty feet under
water, especially when the gunner has not
the slightest idea where the target is or
whether It is in his vicinity ut oil. No
searehlight can reveal the presence OF a
craft which is wholly submerged, nor detect
even the little coming tower which may
protrudc above the surface only for suni-
cicntiy long to let the hclmsman get tho
bearings OF the doomed ship. The dcstruc-
tive possibilities of such a craft as this are
so great that everyone, save the inventor
and his friends, feels forced 10 doubt thom.
But the doubt has not prevented congress
from building the Plunger, which is at
Baltimore, and nearly ready to prove not
merely whether It is a formidable weapon
or not, but whether in the waters 1t pro-
tects a hostile fleet can exist at all. 1t
weighs 16S tons, is eighty-fve feet long
and it q cigar-shaped steel boat. Like the
Holland, a smaller vessel of the same type,
recently built and tried by its inventor, n
gas engine supplied with liquid fuel propels
1t when on the surface and an electric
motor driven from storage batteries fur
nishes the motive power when it dives. 1t
carries an air supply for its crew. 1t can
htNttliht L = ldlAhth' W q y VI ~
feet, and when submerged travels at the
rate OF ten knots per hour. It can throw a
1O0-pound gun-cotton projectile from one
of its tubes for a distance of three-quarters
Of a mile through the air, or a similar shell
from another tube over a range of 200 feet
under water. In addition it has another
under water tube from which it can launch
a Whitehead torpedo. Ordinarily it runs
with its deck awash at a speed of some
fifteen knots, and, getting as near to It's
quarry as possible, pitches it's aerial tor
pedo at It. If that does not end matters it
dives and from far below the surface sends
its submarine projectiles against the I'M
guarded bottom of the enemy.
Surprises in Prospect.
Whether we shall get a chance to find
out how formidable these experimental
weapons are during the present war is yet
to be determined. There are so many sur
prises about naval engagements that pos
sibly we may conclude that they are of
only speculative value. There never has
been a maritime war yet that did not bring
out a host of suggested contrivances, all of
a character so apparently deadly as 10 render
normal ships and guns harmless by COM
parison-and yet it is the ship and the gun,
modified, of course, as time brings Improve
ments, which always survives. The sub
marine boat which Fulton made in Brest. in
the beginning of the century, was going to
sink the towering three-deckers of Britain
with all the certainty with which the
Plunger is now going to annihilate the
battleships of Spain. And in the interval
there have been probably dozens of similar
craft contrived, and singularly enough the
best of them up to the time We adopted
the Plunger was that invented not long ago
by Lieutenant Peral of the Spanish navy
and successfully tested in Spanish harbors
1t may be an experiment yet to be tried, moi
by us, but on us. And as for the dynamite
projectiles, and all that is expected Of then
well, it was Fulton again who built here
in New York that deadly ship which was tt
project boiling water and red-hot shot ant
! mechanically work pixies and spears along
its bulwarks wherewith effectively to ''frigh
the souls of fearful adversaries," but neither
> that craft nor anything like her ever proved
a terror of the seas.
D The thing about these odd naval weapon!
which will strike the student of invention
as most peculiar Is their fewness. Out o
the scores of such special deadly devices
which have been patented-not to mention
the enormously greater number which neve
, found place on the patent records-onl,
; three have materlalized in practical shap
FOR test in actual war.