Electricity and Warships.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 7, 1 May 1907, Page 263

Electricity and Warships.

Of the development of electricity, the well-known engineer M. S F Walker ot Bath recently said — (looking through rose - coloured spectacles) — " What electricity will do, is to enable every source of power to be used at great distances from the source where necessary, and it is here that it will have such an important bearing upon the future of navigation. At present a steamship's radius of action is strictly limited by its coal canying capacity. Without coal it is absolutely helpless The idea of a battleship in a gale of wind on the lee shore without coal is pitiable. On the other hand if a ship be driven by electricity, stored in accumulators, by a proper arrangement of windengines, every puff of wind can be made use of. On the supposition that ships are driven by electricity, every wind swept island, such as St. Helena, becomes the equivalent of a coaling station, without the necessity of carrying the coals there ; while the power could be stored on the island, when not requirei, just as easily as coal is at present. In stead of coaling, the time will come when ships will go alongside a wharf, or m certain cases, where cables can be laid with safety, will moor to a buoy, and connect to a source of electricity, filling up their accumulators quietly and without the dust an ' general annoyance incidental to the opeiation of coaling