OCR Text |
Show WAR INVENTIONS. It is interesting to note the nationality na-tionality of those to whom credit belongs for the inventions now being used in the European war. It is a remarkable fact that the war is Don- being carried on for the most part with American in ventions. Among them are tho steamship, steam-ship, the telegraph, the telephone, the armored ship, the aeroplane and the automobile, not to mention many of the rapid fire guns and pieces of artillery. Bv ail odds the submarine has made ' the most notable record as a destructive destruc-tive engine of war. Those who have not investigated the history of the sub- 1 marine imagine that it is only within . the last generation that it has been used, but 'William Bourne, an English i mathematician, is said to hive built a ' - submarine boat in 15S0. and Magnus Pegclius is credited with building one ,- in 1605. Other vessels of a submarine ' type were constructed during the eighteenth century- Between 1773 and 1776 David Bushnell, an American, built the first submarine boat to be used in actual warfare. The motive power was a screw propeller on a fore-and-aft shaft projecting out of the forward for-ward side. This could be operated by the hand or foot, and it would give a speed of two or three knots ahead or astern. The air in the boat was sufficient suffi-cient for half an hour, but, bv coming to the surface, air pipes in the crown opened for the admission of fresh air and the expulsion of that wnich had become be-come vitiated. When the operator wished to descend be placed his foot on a brass valve which admitted water at any desired speed. The magazine was built of two heavy pieces of'oak bolted together and hollowed hol-lowed out to contain IjO pounds of gunpowder and the clockwork mechanism mechan-ism for igniting it. The magazine was detachable and rested upon the upper after-part of the hull. A short stout line connected it to a screw capable cap-able of being turned from -the inside in-side of the boat and arranged so that the outer end could be released after being driven into a vessel's bottom. , The operator, Sergeant I.ee, ran the submarine under the English man-of-war riamillcs off New London, Connecticut, Con-necticut, and was only preveuted from blowing her up by his inability to drive the attacking screw through ber copper sheathing. Between 1706 and 1310 Robert Ful- . . ton built several submarine boats which seemed to be more efficient and which bad greater speed' than those constructed by Busbnell. During the next half century attempts were made in Germany, Austria and Tiussia to con-struct con-struct submarines, but none of the vessels ves-sels were successful. During our Civil war the confederates built several bo:.ts deiigi.od to rut: awa-h with only a ventilaf i;ig funnel alio-, e the surface. One of these boats, the David, sank the I. . Huusatonic with a spar torpedo, tor-pedo, hut foundered with all her crew. Many mi l.niari lies v, ere, built in the ,. a ;":ot'.-. Kuropean countries during the l-'Htei- half of the nineteenth century. The first submarine owned bv the Cruted States govf-rnm'"'rit was a bfat eaib-d the Midland, v.hi.h had Ijwn constructed f'rorii the design.-, of J. P. Hollaed tif l'ateroij, Xc.v Jersey. It v.kr, the su'-re: r'ttl performance of this boat winch induced t'ac Ktigli-h go', c rnjiiont to beicn fhc construction of s ibmarincs. .Since 1h"n the sub-u.riii'i'' sub-u.riii'i'' lias he'd developed into the terrible ter-rible encine of v.ar whi-h if has nor be oino. |