Smyrna times., 1898-04-20
SCIENTIFIC RIDDLES OF THE NEXT
WAR.

Whenever the next war with great
nations occurs its progress will be of
immense interest to the neutral pow
ers" because of the number of momen-
tous riddles that it will solve for them
at other people expenses. If, indeed,
any new reason were needed in favor
of our keeping peace at this time, pro-
vlded it can be done without loss of
national honor, to reinforce the old
reasons that belong to a pacific policy, it
would be found in the fact that some
very perilous and extremely expensive
doubts are w8iting to be settled by the
next war, and that all the risk and cost
Of settling will have to be borne by the
nations that make the first plunge.
Nobody is quite sure, for the experts
cannot agree, whether Germany, or
France, or Russia, or the United States
has the best rife. The best rifle IS, of
course, understood among Christian
nations to he the rife that will kill the
most number of men in the shortest
time. The Mauser rife, carried by the
German soldiers, fires twenty bullets
per minute, and every bullet will kill
four men if-but it is such an import
ant word. The ''if'' in the case is that
in order to kill the four man, the Maui
ser bullet must strike every one of
them in a fatal spot. Otherwise the
best expert opinion is that the Mauser
bullet is a failure; that it will slightly
wound many, but kill and severely
wound few. Whether our own Krag-
JOrgensen rife, or the British Lee
Metford, or the French Lebel is a
more killing success is something that
remains to be found out.
The death-dealing capabilities of the
rapid firing field guns is another rid
die. Every French army corps, so it is
reported, is equipped with two rapid
fire batteries, by which cannon balls
can be sent on their errands twice as
quickly as the old style cannon. But
there are experts who say that, being
built on the same principle as the
Mauser rifle, it has the same defect,
namely, it will not do actual execution
at all prOpOrtiOned to the rapidity of
its fire. The three allied nations form
ing the Dreibund--Germa Austria
and Italy-have invested over 5000, 900
900, however, in providing their artil-
larry with these rapid-fire machine
guns. Whether they will get the
worth of their money they cannot tell
until war puts them to the test.
For the American people, however,
the naval war riddles that await solu-
tion are the most interesting, because
our fighting, if we are forced to do
any, will be mostly on the open sea,
or else in our own or our enemy's har-
bors. In our civil war we gave the
rest of the world the benefit of our ex-
periments and opened a new era in sea
fighting. The metal clad monitor was
a great revelation. So was the ram.
We had the distinction, too, of intro
ducing the torpedo. But long time
has since elapsed, and the naval inven-
tors have been very busy in the inter
val. The battle ship has been devel-
Oped into a complicated machine, in
which novel electric apparatus, pneu-
matte guns, rapid-fring guns, dyna-
mite guns, tOrpedoes and new explO-
sives of terrific power are to be worked
in combination. And there are several
serious uncertainties as to how sue
cessfully they can be thus worked.
Very strange disasters have happened
to several of these battle ships in time
of peace, suggesting that in time Of
war they may prove very unsafe for
those on board of them and not sc
very formidable to their enemies on
shore, or to their enemies afoat il
smaller, swifter and more easily man
aged craft.