The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1917-06-16

Ing apparatus and an increased supply of fuel and
food which would make 1t possible for her to per-
form her service for longer periods and over
wider zones of action.
The whole subject of submarine mines, offensive
and defensive, and the subaqueous protection
against enemy submarines is one with which our
naval and military authorities are deeply engaged.
1t is safe to say that we are going to see some re-
markable developments, and largely because our
allies are going to give us the benefit of their own
experience so that native ingenuity can start to
improve upon the fruits of the labors Of others.
Indeed, our subaqueous defenses must Of necessity
be of the best types possible because of the extent
of our seaboard and the comparatively limited
number of vessels that the navy has for patrol
work.
The recent presidential order prescribing de-
tense zones at the approaches of certain ports and
waterways had to do with the army's part pri-
marily In this matter Of subaqueous safeguards.
The mine fields controlled by the military authori-
ties, those of the Coast Artillery corps, are as a
rule protected by observation mines or electric
contact mines that are made active or inactive by
the operation of a switch. That is to say, the vita
lizing current comes from a central station ashore,
and neither of these types of mines will explode
unless the electric current reaches them by way
of a submerged cable.
In the case of the contact mine with the current
turned on the mine will explode when bumped
and tilted over to a prescribed angle. The obser-
walton mine, on the other hand, does not have
to be touched by the enemy craft, but is subject
to the will of an observer on shore.
Observation mines are planted in groups and
are laid out in definite checkerboard areas, and
each group is set off separately and simultane-
ously. The observer, by means of range marks
or bearings, knows just when the approaching foe
reaches any one of these squares, and accordingly
the one within which the enemy lies at the mo-
ment determines the group of mines to be deto-
mated.
The contact mine, as may easily be understood,
does its work where an observer might fail, after
dark, and for that reason the electric current is
turned on with set of sun and the whole area so
sown becomes instantly a menace to friend or foe.
It Is quite likely that observation mines were
employed by the Turks at the Dardanelles, and
therefore by approaching from under water 1t was
possible for the British submarine Bill to dive
beneath five rows of mines, probably showing
their cables aside and fitting the weapons, and
then pushing on so that she could rise to the sur
face and torpedo the Turkish battlsship Messu-
diyeh, which was stationed to guard that very
mine field.
Had those mines been of the contact sort, the
displacement of their cables would probably have
caused their defamation and likewise the destruc-
ton of the Bill. Other British submarines sue
ceeded in passing submerged through those Turk
fish defenses, the enemy observers being unable to
see the underwater boats. 1t was the exploits of
the submarines at the Dardanelles that disclosed
to the British the weak spot in their own mine
defenses and led a short while afterward to the
development of other protective agencies in deal
ing with the German underwater boats.
Unquestionably the most spectacular part of
submarine mining Is that in which the weapons
are resorted to in open waters, especially in those
offshore areas where a defense of that sort Is not
ordinarily employed. The Italians were the pio-
neers in this order of subaqueous warfare, and
they developed the art In peace to such a point
that other nations realized that the mine was no
longer limited in its potential usefulness either to
the defense of a port or for blockading the ships
In an enemy harbor.
The Italians showed that the submarine mines
could be used extensively, so to speak, if planted
secretly and placed where by strategy the unsus-
pecting foe could be lured over and into them.
The Japanese during their war with Russia made
good use of what the Italians had taught them,
and when the present conflict began Germany
was fully prepared to carry the practice still fur
ther.
German mine layers were ready and numerous
on August 1 three years ago and as we now know
the kaiser's navy lost no time in mining the marine
approaches to the fatherland. Not only that, but
these craft, in various guises, planted mines over
wide areas In the North sea and in the waters Of
the British isles.
The Hague convention of 1907 among other
things provided that at is forbidden to lay an.
chored automatic contact mines which do not
become harmless as soon as they have broken loose
from their moorings = and It was also prescribed