YOUNG MAN'S MARVELLOUS INVENTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 160, 8 July 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

YOUNG MAN'S MARVELLOUS INVENTION.

A young man, only nineteen years of age, has invented a deadly, noiseless, smokeless, electrical gun, and, it is stated, has refused to take for his invention £75,000 offered him by the Admiralty. The inventor.is the son of Mr J. H. Newman, a Portland grocer. At present he is an apprentice at Whitehead's torpedo works. The idea is at present represented by a model weighing 7lb. A consideration of the effects produced by this tiny instrument is enough to impress one with the possibilities of the new arm when it is thoroughly and effectually developed. This thin metal tube is open at both ends. The shot consists of the most deadly explosives. The tube is useless without the shot. The shot is useless without the tube, attached to which is the case containing the electrical" force. An iron target, at a recent test, was placed a mile seaward. The 71b gun discharged its explosive contents several times. Each time A SHATTERED TARGET demonstrated its deadliness. The fivemiles trial was not so successful. So great was the heat generated by the high velocity that the charge was not equal to it. The explosion was premature some yards from the target, which, however, was overthrown. The velocity of the shot is estimated at 5_ miles in two seconds. Eepresentatives of the Admiralty have seen what this electric gun can do and marvelled —as much as Admiralty representatives allow themselves to marvel. They imade the £75,000 offer which has been referred to, and which, it is said, has been refused. They have gone further. They have asked the young man to build a larger gun. Bis spare time is being devoted to this work, which proceeds in a special workshop, which Mr Newman has built on his own premises for his clever son. Here the inventor makes all the mechanical part himself, and in that way safeguards his secret. When completed the larger gun will weigh about lewt, and, WITHOUT NOISE OR SMOKE, it is expected that it will prove equal in power to a 100-ton gun. Opportunity • has, moreover, been afforded to the inventor to carefully examine the workings of machine-guns on the men-of-war lying in the Portland Roads. As a consequence he is now able to discharge his gun as quickly as those on board, and this without any infringement of patent. The new gun possesses a sighting arrangement, also devised by its inventor, that is said to be unaffected by the mirage on the water. Neither by day nor by night will the locality of this deadly weapon be determinable by its explosive charge—there will be no sound to indicate it, no smoke to betray it. The larger model is expected to be ready in July, and the development of this sensational invention will doubtless be followed with ke-eoi interest.