NOISELESS GAS GUN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10770, 16 May 1913, Page 2

NOISELESS GAS GUN.

REMARKABLE INVENTION BY A CHEMIST. Deadly properties are claimed for a remarkable machine-gun invented by Mr Ernest Welsh, a Hull chemist. The gun, weighing about 3cW't, is discharged by explosive gases, and it is claimed that it will send projectiles a distance of five miles, which will then ignite whatever they hit. The gun is not unlike a Maxim in appearance, and the mechanism; consists in part of three generators which manufacture three distinct gases. In the stopper there is a small sponge saturated with a certain fluid, which also gives off a gas. there is further, a supply of oxygen and hydrogen inside the cylinder. The cylinder rests on a plate, and by the setting into motion of a small electric motor ou the right-hand side of the gun the gases are exploded, and the projectile is propelled through the muzzle. There is no report when the gun is fired. Mr Welsh states that there is no recoil, and there is no pressure on the outside of the cylinder. All pressure is felt forward.

The nature of the gases is a secret which Mr Welsh would not divulge, but he stated that the gun had been tested with satisfactory results to himself and all who witnessed the demonstration. "It has taken me thirteen years to find out the different gases," he said. "The projectiles will ignite on water, and although I have made the stuff 1 have not found out as yet what will extinguish the flames they cause." "When tests were made on wooden buildings, within thirty seconds of the projectiles striking the buildings," says the inventor, "they were in flames and were quickly destroyed." While experimenting with the gun Mr Welsh had a narrow escape. He had placed several graius of his secret explosive chemical compound in a test tube and was putting it into an box, when an explosion occurred. Fortunately, the explosion, was outward and not upward, and Mr Welsh escaped with injuries to his face and right hand. He stated that he was misled as to the temperature he was working in. Mr Welsh has suffered serious injury on previous occasions, once spending three weeks in the hospital as a result of an explosion Mr Welsh states that _ he has also perfected a shot for bringing down aeroplanes. He stated that in using it it was not necessary to aim accurately at the machine, but simply to lire the projectile into the air so that it got within measurable distance of the aeroplane, and noxious gases were given off which would suffocate anybody within the area of their escape Amongst other inventions, Mr Welsh has tried his hand at an aeroplane, has devised means for lighting rivers, and at the time of the coal strike lie announced the discovery of a chemical substitute for coal, which he offered to give for the benefit of poor people.