The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-04-10
TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW
Methods Of To-Day Will Be OBJ
solete Two Decades Hence.
UTILITY OF EXPLOSIVES
Gunpowder Ii U~seless-Likely That in
the Next Great War Shells That
Liberate Poisonous Gases
Will Be Employed.

VIII De a war OF physics and chemistry.
We are on the edge OF a great revolu-
ton I'm the art OF fighting and before
long the methods Of warfare most ap-
proved to-day will be regarded as Who'll
ly out of date. Twenty years from now,
reckoning at the very farthest. there
will be no floating fortresses of the
kin which we call battleships; they
will be considered as representing an
obsolete type of naval architecture and
their place will be taken by vessels
comparatively small, yet infinitely
more formidable and destructive BY
that time also electricity will have
made its appearance as an active agent
OF and military engines of
all sorts will have assumed forms as
yet undreamed Of"
The words above quoted were made
yesterday by a government official who
is N OF the foremost scientific men in
this country. Imposing the condition
that his name should not be mentioned,
he proceeded to develop the idea BY a
series of suggestions SO striking as to
excite the utmost interest. He said:
TO Illustrate the tendency Of the de-
velopment OF warfare at present I will
refer to the wiping cut of the battleship
Maine. According to my belief, 1t ooh
g.'t Altli W IU0
destruction of that gigantic fighting
machine. They had a large quantity
OF nitroglycerine or some such high ex-
plosive, packed in bags impervious to
water. In each bag was placed Just
enough cork to give the contents the
specific gravity Of water, approximate
ly. Dragging the bags, one or more of
the men swan out to within a short
distance of the ship, then Owed and
swan under water to escape observa-
ton and came up under the safe shell
ter of the side of the vessel. To attach
the bags to the bottom Of the ship was
easy. and a chemical time fuse could
be ignited readily enough, permitting
the assassins to swim away at their
leisure.
In some such way as this. I think,
the Maine was destroyed. 1 only cite
the case to Illustrate the ease with
which a mighty warship of this de-
scription can be destroyed by two or
three determined men at a minimum Of
cost. A few dollars worth Of high ex-
plosives will wipe out "a, 200, 900 worth of
lighting machinery and several hum
dred lives. If half a dozen hostile ves-
sells of war ventured into the harbor
of New York they would be annihilated
very quickly. not by our own warships.
but by small groups of courageous men
with so-called Internal machines of one
kind or another. When this sort of
thing can happen, and is always likely
to occur. IL means that the fighting
ship OF the type described is out of
date. The modern battleship is con-
structed, so to speak, on q gunpowder
basis: in the building OF them no more
account is taken OF high explosives
than If there were no such things. But
IT is perfectly certain that the wars of
the immediate future are to be prose-
cuted with high explosives.
AsVA.. .u..a ~
adequate test of the efficiency of battle-
ships has been made in practice; they
are built on theory. What does their
strength amount to-the thickness of
their armor and the weight of the pro-
~jectiles they can throw-if they can be
so Readily destroyed? They represent
a putting of matter i'm the wrong place.
In the museum of natural history you
will see the skeletons of many extinct
animals which have lived at various
epochs of the earth's history. You
can tell at a glance the very ancient
skeletons from those which belonged to
creatures of more recent times, because
the latter are so much lighter and more
graceful, representing improved types.
In one of these great warships o see
a massing of material, regardless of ex-
pense. n without regard to practical
conditions. Therefore this species of
vessel is doomed to early extinction, like
the huge and unwieldly mammals of
the pliocene.
The great warship and the great
guns are the naval deals of today.
Both OF them are based on what On
gunpowder. Modern forts, both on land
and on sea, are built on a gunpowder
basis, and without any consideration of
high explosives. The very brains of
army and navy men all over the world
are adjusted to gunpowder. as it were.
Military experts, generally speaking.
are unable to speak of wal except in
terms of gunpowder. Yet gunpowder
is practically out of date. The day of
high-power explosives has arrived; they
constitute the postulate to which ideas
of warfare must be adjusted. These
explosives have carried the art of war
beyond the stage when the battleship
can be useful. With their aid il Is as
easy to destroy the strongest armored
ship as to smash up a wooden schooner.
IL is not possible to predict with conf |
dence just what the character of the
fighting vessels of the future will be,
but a suggestion i'm that direction seems
to be afforded by the torpedo boat. A
torpedo boat costs SIS, 900, and you can
build a whole fleet OF such craft for
the cos of one battleship.
The advantage of high explosives il
that only a little power is required to
convey them to the place where they
are to do work. Their adoption as a
means of destruction is certain to intro
duce an entirely new series of inven-
lions for war. The development of the
art of war from this time on will be q
battle of invention. II hostilities should
break out between Spain and the United
states invention in this line would be
marvelously stimulated. Has IL ever
occurred TO you to think Of the fact
that during our civil war a greater
number of fighting machines were in
vented than in all the history of the
world up TO that time? The Franco
Prusstan conflict ave a great stimulus
TO military invention. We, of course. !
are a nation of inventors. A war with
spain would bring into existence many
co~ntrivances for destruction far sur
passing what IA hitherto been de-
vised. The Spaniards. themselves not
al all an inventive people. would think
that they a come up against a nation
OF devils.