Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-02
places upon the advisory board are
Orv / / e
Wright and Lake Wright. the
Also Are Mentioned. nrad,.ad n,,,h

pieces upon tHe duNisoiy podiu al o
Wright and Lake Wright. tn
Also Are Mentioned. credited sa with
having brought the aeroplane to it's
present state of excellence and ease of
! control. and Simon Lake, whose work
with submarines has placed him at the
head of the list with respect to the
undersea craft. 1t is easily seen that,
| inasmuch as the naval battles of the
| future. according to military experts.
| will be fought largely under the waves
| and in the air, 1t behooves the United
States to take advantage of all the
natural talent she possesses to pre-
| pare for this kind of conflict. At pres
ent the American navy is rather de-
ficient with respect to submarines, and
its aero feet is smaller than that of
any first-class power in the world. But
this condition will probably not main
tain long after the naval advisory
| board gets under way. and it is almost
certain that the government will have
! the exclusive use of a number of re-
markable achievements in the science
| of warfare.
| Another function of the board will
| be to pass upon and to stimulate in
ventions by men who have never been
| heard of in the world of science. Since
the announcement of the appointment
! of the advisory board the Navy De-
partment has been deluged by Il flood
of inventions from all sections of the
country. The great majority of these,
of course will be worthless. but there
possibly will be some among them
which possess at least the germ of an
| important idea which may be devel-
the board. The old principle of two
| heads being better than one" will be
here exemplif1ed. only instead of there
being two heads there will be half a
dozen or more, for the Navy Depart.
ment hopes to obtain the services Of
at least six men of the highest rank
as inventors. The board will not only
work out it's own ideas, but it will en-
deavor to assist other inventors to per-
feet their plans. and it will make rec
concentrations for the Improvement of
machinery now in use. In brief, the
naval advisory board will try to apply
to the practice of warfare the great
supremacy of the American inventor,
position among the first-class powers
of the world
If this theory becomes an established
fact-and there appears to be no valid
reason why it
Leads in Perfection should fail
of War Machinery. it n wi, n h be sr only MY
stance of the repetition Of history.
America has not alone the steamboat.
the cotton gin, the electric lamp, the
telephone, the telegraph and many
other peaceful inventions to her credit;
she also leads the world in the perfec-
ton of new machines of war, as a
glance at history will show
Within the past century three epo-
chal transforms tons in the construction
of modern navy have taken place
the change from a sailing navy to one
whose motive power was steam, sub
stitution Of armored vessels for wood
en- ones and the Introduction of the
submarine. For all Of these the United
States may claim the credit. The in
vention of the steamboat belongs, of
course, to Robert Fulton, who also dali
lied with the submarine and made sew
eral important changes in the under
water craft as first designed by a Yale
undergraduate. Fulton's chief work.
however. was sending every sailing
ship of the navies of the world to the
discard and substituting for the hap
dependable motive power of steam.
The second great change in the fleets
of the world was accomplished by John
Ericsson. designer Of the Monitor
the Yankee cheese box on raft
but also for the screw propeller, the
first great improvement upon Fulton's
invention of the steamboat.
h
/ Wooden vessels of war had been In
vogue since the earliest days of his
tory up to the
Doom Of Wooden time of the
Warships Is Sealed. t a11s0ri Setw oa.,
the Monitor and the Merrimac, in
Hampton roads-a battle which sealed
the doom of this type of war craft,
According to many experts, among
them Sir Percy Scott, the English au-
thority on matters pertaining to the
navy. the submarine has sounded the
knell of the surface battleship as ef-
fectually as did the Monitor send all
the wooden ships to the scrap heap.
But here, again, the superiority of
American creative genius makes itself
seen, for the submarine Is quite as
much a product of American skill and
ingenuity as was the first steamboat