WONDER WORKING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 55, 26 August 1911, Page 9

WONDER WORKING.

?OAT CONTROLLED BY WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. Berlin, July 6. Tests of the efficiency of an unmanned boat steered and controlled by wireless telegraphy from the shore, took place today on tlio Wannsee Lake, near Berlin, in the presence of a large number of military naval officers, engineering experts, and foreign naval and military attaches. The inventor, Herr Christian Wirth, conducted the experiments with Captain van Meerschedit, a prominent member of the German Navy League, which issued invitation for this interesting sight. The unmanned motor-boat was towed to the middle of the lake, about a mile from the shore, and then Captain von Meerscheidt gave a succession of orders, which Herr Wirth carried out by transmitting electric waves from the apparatus ashore to the receiver on board. In this way ho started the motor, then stopped it, drove the boat ahead or astern, to starboard or port, and caused it to describe such intricate figures on the water such as the letter "S" and the figure "8." The boat, which cruised backwards and forwards for a distance varying from one to two miles from the apparatus whereby it was controlled, executed each order given by Captain von Meerscheidt with absolute precision. The Taglischo Rundschau's special naval correspondent writes:—"A group of experts watched with astonishment the movements of this phantom ship, and drew conclusions regarding marine battles of the future, in which torpedoboats, controlled by wireless telegraph, may be hurled with forty-knot speed at battleships and sink them. It is still too early to prophesy how far this invention will take us, because it has only just emerged from the laboratory, and has not undergone many practical tests, but sooner or later capitalists will finance Herr Wirth's discovery, and then unmanned vessels of various sizes will be constructed in large numbers."