A WONDERFUL TORPEDO BOAT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9642, 14 January 1899, Page 2

A WONDERFUL TORPEDO BOAT.

So Destructive That War Will Be

Impossible.

The following additional details have been published (says the Washington correspondent of the London Daily Chroniole) of the new submarine torpedo boat, which is to " make war impossible !" M. Nikol Tesla announces that ho has secured American patents on the invention. The boat is simply an enlarged torpedo equipped with six 14-foot Whitehead torpedoes discharged through a single tube ' at the bow. The complete boat costs £10,000. It carries no crew, and is full of delicate electrical and suppressed air maohinery entirely under the control of a single operator on shore or ship. No wires are necessary to connect the . boat with tho operator. M. Tesla usqs earth and atmosphere as his double wire, and thus secures a complete electrical oircttit. AH tltat is necessary, ho Bays, is to attach, to tho steering gear tho firing mechanism, and sfcftlng that tho instruments are oa<Jh attuned to a certain-electro-maghetio synchronism. A similar set of synchronistic instruments are all connected to one Bmall switohboard in the hands of tbo operator. By simply tnrning a lever on the switohboard, the'boat is steored, submerged, raised, and the torpedoes fired. The boat, M. Testa claims, can be operated at any distance, tho operator direoting the @ou?se through a telescope. He says he will run tho maohinery at tho Pans Exposition by oleptrioity sent across tho ocean without wire, Niagara being used to generate the power. ' His specifications filed in the Patent Office describing the invention ooveu 8000 words.

Referring to, this discovery, tho Daily News says : — " Tosla, has certainly made electricity his obedient, hnmble servant, if the reports are true. He can make it harmful or harmless, at will. Ho has not only passed a tremendous current of it through his own body without its doing him any harm in the world, but with the same ourrent, or with another, stronger still, he says he can destroy whole navies, at any distance from an operating base. And he works as completely without apparatus as any other^modern conjuror. At any rate, ho needs no wires. His miracle, according to the N.Y. Herald, enables one man to control and direct with absolute exactitude the movements of any type of vessel, balloon or land vehicle, at any distance. Thus a ship may send out a torpedo boat, may submerge it if desired, and steer it without cable or wire against a hostile vessel's Bide. Unerring certitude of aim is not required. It is not necessary to touch the spot. There or thereabouts will do. 1 There is no reason,' ho says, • why wo should not load a vessel with 200 or 300 tons, or even more of dyuamito whioh, exploded even a mile or so away, would raise fy wave that would overwhelm the biggest ship ever built.' His discovery, ho thiuks, comes in the vory nick of time to put France on an equalitywith Eng land on the seas." Commenting on Tesla's invention, the Electrical Review says: — "If successful on a large scale it will provo of astounding consequences, for it will open up unlimited resources of practically costless power. Tesla now proposes to transmit, without the use of any wires, through the natural media— the earth and tho air — great amounts of power to distances of thousands of milps. This will appear a dream — a ( tale from the 'Arabian Nights. 1 .But the extraordinary discoveries Tesla has made during a numbor of years of incossant labor make it evident that his work in this field has passed the stage of mere laboratory experiment, and is ready for a practical test on an industrial scale, Tho success of his efforts meant that power from such resources as Niagara will become available in any part of the world regardless of distance."