THE SATAN SOCKET.

Colonist, Volume XIV, Issue 1383, 27 December 1870, Page 3

THE SATAN SOCKET.

We give the following detailed account of this invention from La France: — M. L , the distinguished civil engineer and chemist, of the Eve de Londres, Paris, has invented a rocket which will be a formidable engine of defence. He has christened it the fusee Satan. We have seen this rocket made, and we will endeavour to describe it to our readers. To the end of an ordinary rocket is attached a very slight receptacle of tin, having exactly the shape of a conical bullet, In this receptacle is arranged a chamber filled with a composition based, we believe, upon sulphuret of carbon, which composition, once lighted, gives out considerable heat. A fusee, communicates from this chamber with the top of the rocket., The tin bullet is filled, just before being used, with petroleum oil. The lighted rocket rises in the air and traverses the space necessary to arrive over a certain Bpot. Arrived above its object, the rocket sets fire to the fusee, the composition in the chamber of the bullet takes light, bursts its envelope, and at the same time fires the petroleum, which falls like a sheet of flame and continues burning. This sheat of flame fills a space of 16 to 24 square meters, according to the size of the rocket. No. 1 throws one litre of petroleum, No. 2 two litres and No. 3 three litres. They can be thrown a distance of six kilometres, and aimed with great precision, being balanced by means of a long stick attached to each rocket, which maintains the elevation given to it at the same time of discharge. Some interesting experiments were made with this weapon at St, Cloud, on the 10th of last month. In less than ten minutes a considerable space of ground was covered with a sea of fire. A committee, composed of superior officers of artillery; presided over the experiments, and the general at their head was appalled at the terrible nature of this engine of destruction.

Just imagine this sea of fire falling upon the Prussian masses, burning everything, setting light to the cartridges in the soldiers pouches and the ammunition vans of the artillery. Their rout would be complete. The committee in its report, has declared in its opinion no civilised nation could make use of these rockets except for reprisals; and it only would be in case of the Prussians firing upon us with petroleum bombs, such as they used with Strasbourg, that we should be entitled to retaliate with the new rocket. However this may be, the committee of the National Defence has given the inventor a large building on the Bagtignolle (formerly a girls school) and has ordered the immediate manufacture, on a large scale, of Satan rockets. From day to day 200 workmen will be actively employed, and within a few days we shall have a sufficient stock to enable us to repay the Prussians in their own coin, if, as at Strasbourg, they use unlawful weapons.