A NEW LIFE-SAVING APPARATUS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1762, 13 October 1879, Page 4

A NEW LIFE-SAVING APPARATUS.

A now projectile, intended to be fired across wrecks for the purpose of establishing connection with tho shore, has been experimented on lately by the War Office authorities at Shoeburyness. We take the following description of the new invention from the “New York Maritime Register":—“Tho projectile weighed, when filled ready for firing, 12ilbe. It is an elongated shell, carrying a line tightly coiled within, which it pays out without the smallest risk of breaking as it travels through tho air. It is put into the gun, as it were, the wrong or conical end first, and leaving the muzzle, at once reverses, the front end becoming the rear end, and maintaining, due to four wings on the principle of the arrow, an accurate and distant range, with none of the wobbling and swinging, and consequent loss of power, so common to shot fired from existing rifled ordnance. In make up, the projectile is a tin tube 20in. long, 3 J r in. in diameter, having wings at one end, and a leaden shot weighing 61bs. at the other. Within the tube is a compact coil of line 17iin. long, and the diameter of the tube. This line is from 200 to 400 yards in length, with a breaking strain of from 2501b5. to 4001ba. The shot is attached to a second or short coil lying alongside the gun, so arranged that on the shock of the discharge the line runs freely from both coils. At a range of 22ideg., an elevation which the inventor has found by continued practice best suited to surely throw the line over any wreck with the smallest strain to it and the projectile, tho distances obtained and measured on the official range coarse were 589, 448, and 507 yards ; the deviation of the shot and line from the target being four, two-fifths, nine, and eight yards respectively. Three shots fired at 30deg. and 35deg. elevation, traversing a line of flight some 400 ft. in the air, ranged 478, 489, and 386 yards, with deviations of the shot and line from targets of two, six, and six yards respectively. It is in contemplation to replace the line by some five pounds of rocket composition, so that the shot, when it has nearly reached its greatest range of, say, 2000 yards, may have a fresh energy imparted to it, which combination of gun and rocket powder will not unlikely give an effective and accurate range of about two miles. Another idea is to fill the case with inflammable material and compressed gun cotton powder, for setting fire to and destroying villages, and for general savage warfare ; while a third idea, without enumerating others, which readily suggest themselves to the inventive minds of diabolical gunners, is to fill the large space now occupied by line with material somewhat after the nature of the shrapnel shell, thus producing the most murderous missile ever fired from light ordnance. The cost of each projectile, including the wear and tear of line and purposely light charge of from 3£ozs. to 4iozs. of powder, was less than 7s, or less than one-half the cost of the Boxer rocket. This last element of cost enters materially into the question of the introduction of any new system, whether for saving life or for purposes of war ; and it may be asserted that no projectile, both from an economical and varied use standpoint, has ever entered the arena of competition with European field ordnance with such recommendations as the toy gun and projectile recently presented to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Two brass guns, perfect toys to look at, weighing 561bs. and 691bs. respectively, each 2ft. in length, were used to fire the projectile, tho charge of powder varying from 3|ozs. to 4iozs.