Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-01-01
OF

The British find themselves in a pecul-
lar position in their warfare with the
Beers. England at The Hague signed an
ageement not to use balloons for the
launching of projectiles and explosives.
The Beers not having been represented at
the peace conference, are not bound by
any such agreement, but If they should
resort to measures Of this kind Great
Britain has an ace up her sleeve that
would be highly effective in ending the
game. -
When the claus dealing with gases
came up for discussion the British repre-
SentatlveS agreed to their abolition in
war, but later on when the various arti-
cles came up for signature. Captain Ma
han, representing the United States. and
Sir John Fisher, Great Britain, refused to
sign.
In face Of the uses to which certain
deadly gases can be put, this decision is,
to say the least, curious. A chemist, well
known to some of the war Departments Of
the leading European nations. tells us
that the resources of modern chemistry
are quite equal to the abolition OF war
altogether.
Il could supply, lie says, "a fusee shell
made OF glass ,encased in oak, sheathed
in brittle steel. charged with carbolic acid
liquefled by 70 atmospheres of intense
pressure. 1t works as follows: The con-
cussion provokes the explosion of the var
lous ~cases-glass. oak n shetland the
return of the liquid to its natural gaseous
condition. An enormous volume of car
bonic gas PUSHES into the surrounding
space. Being much heavier than the at
mosphere, it displaces and drives the air
before 1t in every direction and Il fear
full cold of hundreds Of degrees below zero
Is produced within a radius of 40 TO 60
yards from the point of impact"
If the size of the shell be increased this
area becomes larger. Another feature of
this. hendish invention Is that the car
bonic acid gas, by reason Of it's great
weight, remains in the one spot for hours;
n attempting to pass through one
OF these frigid zones would not only he
killed instantly, but frozen into a solid
mass. Suppose that a town Of 2, 800 acres
in extent was to be taken. Instead of en-
gaging reference to this chemical explo-
sive. instead of engaging in a tedious and
ineffective bombardment, all that would
be necessary would be to direct against
the doomed city one h~undred-ton gun bat
teries of small range. 5.
These could be electrically synchroniz-
ed .and fired at precisely the same mo-
ment. In one minute after the discharge
there would not be one living thing, down
to the tiniest animalculae, in that city:
and any n entering it for a space of
IL our would be likewise instantly kill
ed. This invention has one great recon-
mendatlOn-no hospitals, no wounded, no
pain, no surgeons. A shell filled with MI
trate of amyl would, instead of killing by
intense cold at once, suffacate all within
the area of influence by increasing the
beats of the heart three and four fold. A
man with a so pulse would have the beats
from 80 to 240. AS a natural consequence
every blood vessel in the body would
break.
England did not wish to make use of
these inventions, but the records Of the
conference show that they retain the
right to use a gas which would put the
entire city to sleep. Just what this gas
is no one knows. but the inventor and
certain high officials of the war depart-
ment.
1t is difficult to see how an army could
be lulled into slumber without the oxy-