New Britain herald., 1915-07-24
AMERICAN INVENTORS.

l AMERICAN INVENTORS. Inventive genius was never lacking in the United States. From the time Fulton invented the first steamboat until last week when Thomas A. Edi- son, the King of Inventors, perfected search light to pierce through fog, way toward the goal of improvement.
 When Secretary of the Navy Dam iels bethought himself of the benefit to be derived from assembling the great American. inventors he had no dif1culty in searching for material. As homely way of illustrating it, ''The woods were full of then.' But when Secretary Daniels thought he would have to go outside his own de- partment for great American invent ors, he reckoned without making a thorough inventory of inventors in the Navy.
 As if to. gently remind the Secretary of the Navy of his erring ways, now ' with a series of patents from the United States Patent Office proclaim ing him as the inventor of an aerial torpedo which can be launched from an aeroplane and shot at any target within radius of six miles. Great is the joy of the Navy at this an 1 nouncement. Rear Admiral Fiske has taken his place in the ranks of great inventors, and the Navy Department l is proud. It has right to be jubilant over Admiral Fiske's accomplishment 1 Ever since the late Secretary Lang 1 ley of the Smithsonian Institute for mulated the idea for a heavier-than- 1 air craft, later developed by Wilbur ! and orville Wright, there have been l men at work trying to perfect firing l apparatus for aeroplanes. It re- l naained for a young army officer, Lieutenant Scott, to perfect the first bomb dropping device for aeroplanes. and, for his trouble, he was awarded a 1 prize of $1O, ,O0O by the French govern ment. Recent aerial raids on London 1 by the German and Karlsruhe by ] the French and English show to what advantage bomb dropping is in time I of war.
 I It must be remembered, however,
 that the raids on England and Ger
 many by aerial craft were perpe-
 trated, for the most part, by Zeppelin
 balloons, these great cigar shaped 1 vehicles carrying crews of twenty or
 thirty men. The invention of Admiral l Fiske will enable the heavier-than -air
 craft, the aeroplane, to accomplish in
 the future what Zeppilins are not
 able to do now. In the first place, the
 Zeppelin or the aeroplane now must
 ascend to point directly over the ob-
 ject of it's attack and then drop it's
 death dealing bomb. Because of the
 high altitude that must be obtained t for safety and the variance of air cur
 rents the attacks have been not over
 successful, With the torpeodoe in s vented by Admiral Fiske it will be pos
 sible for the aeroplane to sight it's vic-
 tim by attaining a high altitude. then x drop to earth some five or six miles
 away and level it's fire
 Coupled with Admiral Fisk's inven
 ton will be the invention of John
 Hays Hammond, Jr., Americas young est inventor. Young Hammond has
 perfected device for controlling sub-
 marines and torpedoes by wireless
 electricity. With the combination o1
 these two inventions the American Navy stands chance of leading the
 world in aerial attack. With the com pletion of the new advisory board o1 the Navy it is safe to say that none of these inventions will be shown te ! other countries first as have many o1
 our most valued inventions of the past.
 ] Tn Havana Cuba they call iitne,