BLINDING LIGHT RAYS FROM A ZEPPELIN

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2757, 28 April 1916, Page 6

BLINDING LIGHT RAYS FROM A ZEPPELIN

FRENCH INVENTION USED BY • ■ GERMAN AIRMEN:

Genera] Gallieni (Fiench Minister for War) has ordered experiments to be made with the Duseaud cold rays with ■a/'view."to. their' employment against Zeppelins. .M. Dussaud's invention was mentioned at the Academy- of Science four years' ago.'Briefly it means the! utilising in an electric 'lamp of almost the entire current as light, instead of allowing 80 per cent, to 90 per cent, to be lost as heat. Shortly after the war broke out M. Dussaud offered his service to the Ministry of War,, but in spite of the instructions ■of the-then Minister, M. Millerand, red tape blocked the way. M. Dussaud was referred from • bureau to bureau until after four months' vain effort to obtain a hearing he abandoned tho task in despair. '

A year before the war—in 1913—tho German rights had been purchased by a Berlin firm. It is a curious fact that on July 17, 1914, a fortnight before war was declared, the • German Ambassador

in Paris called on M. Dussaud to inquire whether the latter-had effected any improvements in his apparatus. Four days later the Austrian Ambassador followed euitl

Now the, French aviators who pur- | sued the Zeppelin which raided Paris : at the end of last month declare that I they, were literally blinded bv tho stream of light from the Zeppelin. "At .certain moments," says one of the watchers, ."an extraordinarily intense ray of light proceeded 1 from the Zeppelin, so that the street was lighted as though by the sun." It is supposed that the German military authorities have already applied the Dussaud invention to their aircraft. Bo this as it may, General Gallieni has now ordered experiments to be mado with this light with a view to proving whether it is capable as a searchlight of_ piercing the clouds and banks of mist bohind which the Zeppelin loves -to hide.—"Daily News."