The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-10-14
Revolutionizing Naval Construction
(Scientific American.)

its heavy guns as chaff is blown be-
fore the wind, The system had its
wartime trial at Santiago on one
dark night when the Vesuvius, arm
ed with three of these torpedo guns,
steamed in and threw her supposed
death dealing shells against the an
cient Notifications guarding the en-
trance TO Santiago harbor. The re-
suits were amusingly swaziland so
the torpedo gun went the way of all
previous revolutionizers.
Now the Submarine.
And then came the submarine, with
| its promise of absolute humiliation
for the fleets which float upon the
Surface. Even so great an authority
las Sir Percy Scott announced that
these craft marked the doom of the
batteship and indeed of the big ship
/ of any kind, Nevertheless, after IL
months of warfare, and In spite of the
fact that the most modern types of
submarines have swarmed the seas,
the fleets Of Great Britain and Ger
many are still intact and destroyers
and battle cruisers roam the high
seas with immunity. The officers and
men of the destroyer flotilas, indeed,
pronounce submarine hunting to be
the most celebrating sport imagin-
liable.
What the DirioibIe Has Done.
Greatest of all revolutionizers was
Ito be the dirigible. Reams of good
paper, gallons of printers ink have
been consumed in predicting the
havoc which would be wrought by
these ships of the air whenever the
accident of war gave them the me-
lcessary license. Well; the war has
come, the German dirigible has had
fair field and no favor, and the re-
suits have been what? The destruc-
ton of not a single fortress, the dis
mounting of not a single gun, the kill
ing so far as is known of not a single
military man, and---the. slaughter by
4 night and by stealth of helpless wo-
men and children and the setting up
on the military reputation of great
from the military standpoint, utterly
useless cruelty, which will remain
there as long as the page of history
endures.
revolutionizing of naval construction
The law of naval growth Is the law Of
an orderly technical development In
the hands of intelligent men, proceed
ing from the lessons and facts of the
past to the new and successful ac-
complishments of the future.
Ford's Plan Will Fail.
The latest destroyer of destroyers
and revolutionizer of naval construc-
ton is to be gas driven submarine
of markedly attenuated proportions
which its inventor, Henry Ford, or
Prof. Parker believes will do away
with the battleships and relegate ex-
listing navies to the scrap heap. May
be; but it must be remembered that a
submarine which, In the submerged
condition, exhausts the products OF
combustion into the water, will leave
behind it at the surface a foaming
trail of bubbles much larger and there
fore much more conspicuous than that
which marks the track of torpedo
and enables any swift ship to avoid Il
by quick turn of the helm. Unless
Mr.. Ford has devised some way o.
causing his gas driven submarine t.
run without leaving a foaming streal
of bubbles at the surface to indicate
It's presence, he has sacrificed tina
very invisibility which makes the cleo
} trio driven submarine such a terrible
} menace to any slow moving merchant
! craft that comes within it's radius OF
action.