ELECTRICITY IN WAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 47

ELECTRICITY IN WAR.

EDISON TALES OF ITS DEATHDEALING POSSIBILITIES. Edison is distinctly a man of peaoa. War b not numbered among even the least of hla desires. "War to insanity," he cays. "Men who make war are orazr. There is never need for it any more. No question can arise co great that it cannot be settled peaceably and honourably by arbitration. War is insanity." That is unquestionably Edison's heartfelt belief. Nevertheless, since President Cleveland's special message to Ooogress sounded the"toOßin on December 17, there have been floating around vague statements of what Edfson would do for the defences of hie country in case England and the United States actually got to fighting. There was talk of wonderful engines of destruction of the like of which no man ever heard before, and of a contrivance of submarine cables for torpedo use, and even of streams of water charged With electricity. These things jead like bold, glaring fakes, the work of some chap with a particularly vivid imagination who had been reading about the adventures of Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court. Now it is always-wise, when you hear talk of each preposterous impossibilities, as you ars likely to call these tbirg* at first thought, to suspend judgment of disbelief until yon have had time for investigation. The time ban gone by when it is safe to deny recklessly the possibility of what Edison says he oan accomplish. He has a way of comiog up smiling after the unbelievers have demonstrated to their complete satisfaction the foolishness of higv-propositions, and knocking them down and out with the ice-covered fact of accomplishment. Considering these things, the writer went oat to Edison's laboratory at Mcnlo Park the other day to talk about war and warlike machines with the ingenious electrician. • Somewhere Edison read once that some firemen at work on a building where there were a lot of electric wires overhead - were rather severely " shocked." The stream from one of the lines of hosa hit one of the wires. The heavy current leaked from the wires and ran down the stream, " shocking " the nc,z»'e, men. " I hadn't thought of that before," Kdison said, "bo I tried it with an induction coil and a cat. It worktd all right. That was the last of the cat." When E'liaon began to think about appliances useful in war he' thought of that stream of w»rer. The difficulty of throwing a stream of water any considerable distance precludes the possibility of its use a» a means of attack, hut for defensive purposes, Edison Bays, it is absolute against certain forms of attack. Ha has devised a flaid whisb, because of itfi greater vteco»ity, can be propelled in a solid stream- through a nozz'e a ranch greater -lis'ance than water. 11 Suppose you were defending an entrenchment, breastworks, any gort of fortifioiMons, Bg»innt a charge. You take a lot of little nozzle*, throwing streams less than in

I diameter. I can throw snob a stream with a I fluid of my own preparation at least 600 ft. : I wouldn't stand in front of it at 1000 ft. i You can charge that fluid with 5000 volts, j and it will kill on the instant of contact. A one-horse power engine will furnish all the power needed. It takes power to produce amperage, but it's voltage that kills, and that |is easily produced. The boiler and dynamo could be lugged around in a one-horse waggon> All you need besides is a powerful pump. Take half a dozen nozzles arranged on swivels, and the attacking force couldn't get near your forfcifioafcions. It would be . perfectly ea3y to place the dynamo and ' maohinery underground, where artillery couldn't posßibly injure them. Why, that thing is absolute." I "You apparently have no doubt whatever about the killing properties of electricity." j " Kill 1 Why, I killed a dog out here in one ton-thousandth part of a second." " How did you measure the time 7" Edison laughed; Then, with a jerk of his ' thumb tovmrds the ceiling, he said : ! "Rigged a weight op there. We know how fast a weight falls by the simple attraction of gravity. We put a brass scale beside the weig'-tt. The taming on of the ourrent that killed the dog released the weight and it beg«n to fall. Shutting off the current arrested the weight again. The current was turned on and off as quickly as possible. The dog was dead, and the weight had fallen two one-hundred ths of an in oh. It took a ten-thonsandtb part of a second to do that. That's the time it took to kill the dog." Then Mr Edition switched off from means of defence and talked* about ways of destroy- | ing the enemy. " Did you ever see a life-saving crew shoot ' a life line ?" he asked. " Well, juat enlarge the application of that idea. I outfitted an Arctic expedition odes with telephones. They had 26 miles of wire, and one man Could carry it Now, even a wire as small as that can be charged with such a current that it will kill on contact. It would take 200 miles of such wire to equal the weight of one of the projeofilea fired from a modern gun. Just think how *ff-ctive Bach a projectile would be. It would be incalculably more desi motive than an ordinary projeofile, and it is jusb as simple. It would ba parfeotly feasible to fire such a cord of wire. It would nncoil as it travelled, and from the end connected with the dynamo it could bo kept highly charged. Every man it struck would be killed. There wouldn't be any wounded in an engag ment where such ordnance was used. Flash and blood couldn't »tand up against such daughter as that woulr make. The adoption of that sort of war engines would be one of the most effective arguments for universal arbitration that could be devised." Ba' fh JO'ing 200 miles of deidly wire at an sdv-ncfng army is not fche rno*s terrible of Ert s ; »'s fancies. The heavy ooii of wire oould no dou^t be hurled several miifl«. When it struck, the myriad folds of the ■ oil v Oild spread over an enormous area, •ws» ing and turning in and out and catohi < scores of m»«< where a shell woul 1 pasti . rmleasly by. But there is som thing vorse and thi« is one or' w»iioh E<t»on i-

surest. It involves aerial navigation, but that is not considered a hindrance by him. " All the' other fellowa who are trying that," he says, " are working on the wrong track. Maxim has tried it and can't make it work. He haß the wrong notion. I'm not going to tell you what I thiak the right idea is, but I think I know. I have mado a good many experiments, and I'm sure I have got my base principle. After you get that it is only a question of development of details." This terrible instrument of destrustion which Mr Edison contemplates is an aerial torpedo. It oan be made to rise by its own energy, and it will propel itself through the air. It will travel at the height of about a mile, and for 10 miles at least. Mr Edison thinks he oan control its flight. It is possible that in a developed stage he can control its flight for a greater distance. Ir can be bo arranged before it ig started that it shall descend after travelling any desired distance not greater than 10 mile*, and it can be so contrived that the charge of gelatine, dynamise, or whatever high explosive is used can be exploded by the impact of collision or by a time fuse. It can carry an enormous charge of high explosive and would* do tremendous ex-cat-ion. Mr Edison cites the inability of the Germans to hit the French balloons in the FrancoPmssiH.n war as an evidence that his terial torpedo could not be destroyed when in me on land by the guns of the enemy. When in use on the sea it would be equally sofe, owing to the inability of the gunners to elevate their heavy ordnance enough to | throw shells a mile into the air. Besides, it would require a. higher development of the | gunner's art than has yet baen attained, even by the crack marksmen of the Royal Arthur, to hit one of these torpedoes with a aboil while it was Bailing through the air. I For use in coast defenoo work these torI pedoes would supplement every other known device. Their great advantage over the big pneumatic gans or the mortar batteries at San^y Hook lies in their very much greater range. They oould be set off in fleets, if necessary or advisable, and In that manner would cover more territory by one discharge than several mortar batteries, beoanso of the greater effrct of the explosion. It would not be neoQxs&ry actually to hit a ship to destroy it. If the torpedo struck the w^ter within a hundred feet or so of the objeot at which it web aimed the concussion would blow it out of the sea. Fired by a system of charts, such as the army officers have arranged for the gunners of the mortar battery at Sandy Hook, these aerial torpedoes would ba terribly effeotiva The observers up on the highlands, constantly plotting the coarse of the advancing shipa of the enemy, could notify the torpedo gunners of the position on the ohart whioh any ship would occupy at any given instant. The exact time of flight of the torpedo would be known to the gunner, and he could let go a flock of torpedoes at such time that one of them would sorely end ths career of the ship. For work on land, in the bombardment of a city or fortifications, or against an encamped or intrenched engmy, these torpedoes would be destructive beyond the capability of man to determine. But, besides these torpedoes, Edison has another device, which, although not bo deadly In its operation, in yat

a terrible engine of war. It is a gan that will use dynamite as a propulsive force. All efforts heretofore to build such a big gun have failed because the dynamite explodes so rapidly and liberates ita tremendous bursting energy in so little time that no gun has been able to withstand the shock of the explosion. Edison thinks he can get around this. " Suppose," he says, " that the explosion of a charge of dynamite in the ohamber of an ordinary gun produces a pressure of 50,0001b to the square inch. The gun cannot stand it, and as a result it blows up. Now suppose you shrink around the big gun another with a ohamber which extends clear around the inside gun. In this ohamber place a charge which, when exploded, will produce a pressure of 26,0001b to the square inch. Explode both charges simultaneously. The lateral pressure of the 25,0001b charge, acting against the outside of the chamber of the big inside gun, neutralises half of the 50,00C1b lateral pressure of the charge of .the big inside gun. Then if a third gun is constructed outside of the second one, built to fire a charge producing 12 5001b pressure per square inch, that will take up half the outward pressure on the middle gun. By continuing the operation you make a gun which 1» absolutely safe, and which will use a charge of dynamite in the propulsion of ordinary projectiles which will be of tremendous force. It is possible for such a gan to throw such projsctiles as those now in use 20 miles or more. Before such gun«, mounted at S<*ndyHook as tbe^ pneumatic guns and the disappearing "guns are mounted now, the most powerful fleet all the navies of the world could get .together in combination could not maka a demonstration against New York. Suoh gan* are practical possibilities, and they make the question of our sea-onast defences very Bimple." Then Mr Edieion got back to the defensive again, and he talked about the protection of harbours by toi pedoes. — Detroit Free Press.