Show WEAPONS OF WARFARE the british find themselves in a cc cullar position in their warfare with the boers england at the hague signed an agreement not to use balloons for the launching of projectiles and explosives the boers not having been represented at the conference are not bound by any such agreement but if they should resort to measures of this kind great britain has an ace up her sleeve that would be highly effective in ending the game when the clause dealing gassa came up for discussion the british representatives agreed to their abolition in war but later on when the various articles came up tor signature captain mahan representing the united states and sir john fisher great britain refused to sign in face of tho uses to which certain deadly gasses can be put this becis ion is to say the least curious A chemist well known to some of the war departments of the leading european nations tells us that the resources of modern chemistry are quite equal to the abolition of war altogether 1 I could supply he says a tusse shell made of glass encased in oak sheathed in brittle steel charged with carbolic acid liquefied by TO atmospheres of pressure it works as follows the concussion provokes the explosion of iho aises glass oak and rc olind the murn af the liquid to its gaseous condition an volum of carbonic gas rushes ant space being healir inan the atmosphere it and drics the air before it in bwy aid i tearful cold of of acy acs re low zero is produce ilhan of 40 to 60 yards jiin ilio irvint j iho impacts it th e eize of 1 ii alieu lc this area becomes larger another feature of this invention 13 that the carbonic acid gas by reason of its great weight remains in one spot tor hours and anyone attempting to pass through one of these frigid zones would not only be killed instantly but frozen birto a mass suppose that a town of 2500 acres in extent was to b taken instead of engaging reference to this chemical explosive instead of engaging in a tedious and in affective affect lve bombardment all that would be necessary would be to direct against the doomed city one hundred ton gun batteries of small range i these could be electrically synchronized and fired at precisely the same moment in one minute after the discharge there would not be a living thing down to the tiniest lao in that city and any one entering it for a space of 12 hours would be likewise killed this invention has one i no hospitals no wounded no pain no surgeons A shell ailed with nitrate of amyl would instead of killing by intense cold BU all within the area of influence by increasing the beats ot the heart tl ce and tour fold A man with a GO pulse would have the beats from 80 to As a natural consequence every biond vessel in the body would break england did not wish to make use of these inventions but the records of the conference show that they retain the right to use a gas which would put the entire city to sleep just what this gas la no ono knows but the inventor and certain high officials of the war department it is difficult to see how an army could be lulled into slumber without the oxygen in tho atmosphere being destroyed but the resources of tho chemist are so vast that it would be idle to indulge in any guesses on the subject another tiling which appears curious is that as the object of this gas was not to kill but to render un conscious what possible objection could be offered to its use if its introduction had been generally sanctioned the aholo art of war would soon be revolutionized disputes could then be decided by battles in which the loss of lifo would be small 11 iho implements of war would remain practically the same but the object of cither side would be to hurl shells which exploding would immediately plunge the entire army in insensibility if both succeeded operations havo to be suspended itell the warriors ame to and this might be repeated again till one side failed whichever irmy eventually won the result could w secured without the loss of life when 24 power out of 26 should have agreed at the hague not to to asphyxiating asphyxia ting gases and yet decline to interdict submarine boats is if they argued for the exclusion 0 asphyxiating asphyxia ting gas on the grounds that its uso would injure tho martial spirit at the army something although not might be said for euch an but the members of a peace could not decently say any liang in favor of martial spirit and hat being so it does not seem incont that the very body that voted the use of asphyxiating asphyxia ting gases should yet legalle i submarine beats able to sink in an instant the strongest ironclad ever made |