BURIED SHELLS.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 March 1916, Page 7

BURIED SHELLS.

BATTLEFIELD DANGERS AFTER THE WAR IS OVER. ■ An odd problem, which will lie encountered all through the fighting territory after the war, is that of guarding against the exploding of shells which buried themselves in the ground without having exploded. In the section of France along the Maine, where fighting, was sharp early in the war, and from which the Germans retreated, the peasant farmers already have found this danger to be real. A ploughman at any moment jnay strike a shell that will explode with sufficient force to kill him and his team. Various solutions have been suggested, but the most promising is one worked' out by a French scientist and considered by the Academy of Science. The plan is to go all over the farms with an electrical instrument that will give warning when a mass of metal is near. Such an instrument is an old American invention frequently used in laboratory work. Some modifications of it were adopted by the French scientist to fit it for field use, and his apparatus requires the services of tw# men. In practical tests on the old battlefields lie found that it is possible for two men to explore an acre thoroughly in about one hour, and locate every buried shell near enough to the surface to do any harm.