The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-03-12
T0RPED0ES IN WARFARE
HOWTHEYA ARE OPERATED AND THE
 DESTRUCTION THEY CREATE.

LLO4N T IT TX Advance from Floating Keg of Gun powder to Perfect Engine of Demo- lition and Death.
 Torpedo warfare has been advanced to such scientific basis in these days that the destruction of the Maine would have been an easy undertaking for some treacherous Spaniard or some interruptions Cuban determined upon forcing crisis between the United States and Spain. The modern torpedo is as terrible an engine of destruction as the mind of man has conceived for the purpose of warfare. From the floating kegs loaded with charges of gunpowder which Captain David Bush- nell set adrift in New York harbor to the consternation of the British fleet, in Revolutionary days, the torpedo has advanced by rapid stages to the digni- tyi of a machine of the most perfect and skillful construction, capable of demol- ishing in an instant the largest and most powerful battle-ship. Once re- garded as experimental devices, the torpedoes have become recognized weapons of maritime warfare, admit ting of varied application.
 In a general way torpedoes may be divided into two classes. They are either contrivances propelled through the water so as to strike the enemy's ship or more or less stationary sub- merged mines, each so arranged as to be set off when ship is over 1t. The germ of the idea is found in the Greek of the ancients, from which the torpe- do has been developed since the intro duction of gunpowder into warfare The first demonstration upon a grand scale of the important part which the modern torpedo can be made to play in maritime warfare was given by American engineers during the war of the rebellion.
 During the last two years of that war the torpedo service of both forces was responsible for tremendous de- struction and the exertion of world wide influence upon naval operations. zkJCVcIl OIlISQ oldICS 1IOllOloIo, Siii teen wooden war vessels and seven army transports were destroyed by torpedoes, and eight more vessels were more or less injured. The Confede- rates lost four vessels by their own mines and fine ironclad the Abe marie, by the counter operations of the United States fleet.
 The Paraguayan war of 1S64-'6S fur nished the next occasion for the em- ployment of the torpedo in warfare. { Immediately after the Brazilian fleet entered the waters of that state a fine ironclad, the Rio de Janeiro, was sunk by two torpedoes against which she had struck. Subsequently a division of the fleet ran past the batteries of Curupaity, only to find itself entrapped between two lines of torpedoes, but the defective nature of the machines pre- vented serious disaster.
 < FIRST BAD DISASTER.
 In the Turkish war of 1S77-'7s the Russians made very decisive use of torpedoes. Through their agency the armored fleet on the Danube was held X in check without the aid of a single , Russian warship, and successful inva- ' sion was rendered impossible. Eight attacks were made by the Russians with torpedoes, two of which were sue cessful. In one a steamer was sunk al Batoum by Whitehead torpedo, the first triumph of the weapon on record
 Tn the war between Chilli and Peru 1T 1SS0-'81 both sides made use of torpe. does without noteworthy results. Dur. ing the Franco Chinese hostilities ir 18S4-'85 two naval vessels were sunk by the French by the use of spar torpe does, and in the Chilian revolution ot 1891 the battle-ship Blanco Encalads was sunk with crew of one hundred and fifty by torpedo. During thu war between China and Japan in 1894 '95 submarine operations played su bordinate part until the Japanese at tackled Veil -Hai-Wei with a torpedo f1otilla. Attacks were made on tw' successive nights, which resulted il sinking four vessels, two of which wer' Rrmored ships of war.
 Tn this country and some other coun tries possessing an extended seacoas the service of torpedoes has been divi Sled between the navy and the engi neers of the army--the former opera ting extensively afoat, and the latte Hefensively from the shore. While il general the line of demarcation be tween the two services is thus plainl, marked, some of the weapons, such a fish torpedoes steered by electricity may be operated either from land o from shipboard, and may be used il war either by army or navy, as occa sion might offer.
 One of the most successful types 0 torpedoes, and one which might hay caused the ruin of the Maine. is knowl as the Whitehead The right to us this torpedo has been purchased b, the United States and by most Euro pean nations. It consists of an irol and steel vessel in the shape of spin ale, and is driven by propeller move by compressed air. It can be projecte from a launching tube or started b. hand, and is capable of regulating an preserving it's depth and direction within narrow limits, in still water such as the Havana harbor offers The latest British pattern of tn Whitehead carries a charge of tw hundred and fifty pounds of gun-cot ton, enough to blow any ship out of tn water.
 THE FISH TORPEDO.
 The fish torpedo is essentially boa of the Whitehead class, which carrie