TORPEDOES.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2878, 7 May 1878, Page 2

TORPEDOES.

The usual Monday lecture was given at the London Institution on Monday night by Lieut. F. Ingram Palmer, R.N., on the history of the torpedo. Although it apSears that these submarine explosives were evised by the Chinese as far back as the time of their invention of gunpowder, it is to America that Europe owes the torpedo. The first three names connected with its earlier history are Americans— Bushnell, Foulton, and Colonel Colt, of revolver fame. In 1777 Bushnell arranged an apparatus for exploding gunpowder under water, but when it was practically tried against Lord Howe's ship Lion it proved a failure. In 1797 Robert Foulton took the subject up, and showed to Napoleon in 1801 the first success of which there is record. In 1804 he brought his invention under the notice of Pitt, who favored him with warm support, until a naval authority gave utterance to the opinion that " Pitt was the greatest fool tnat ever lived to encourage a mode of war which they who commanded the seas did , not need, and, if successful,- would deprive them of it." Foulton received £15,000 with an expression of thanks, and a suggestion

that his services were no further needed* He went back to America, and by 1810 worked out two torpedo schemes, both of which depended on the mechanical ignition of the fuse. .Colonel Colt ia 1841 first suggested the employment of galvanism to fire a charge of explosives, but nothing in the way of actual warfare was done till the Russian war of 1854, when both mechanical and electrical torpedoes were used in the Black Sea and the Baltic. Her Majesty's ships Firefly and Merlin were both damaged, and on June 21, 1855, a torpedo fished up exploded on the poop of Her Majesty's ship Exmouth. In the American war torpedoes came to be recognised on both sides as instruments of warfare quite as important as rams, ironclads, and big guns. In 1866, Captain McJEvoy invented a buoyant torpedo so arranged that when struck by a ship the cover, on being tilted ' off, fired a chemical fuse and exploded the charge. In December last he also invented and patented a torpedo which could be fired either at will bj electricity or could be left to act mechanically.. Gunpowder, gun-cotton, and dynamite are now all used as explosives. The latest improvement is the arrangement for steering a torpedo boat by electricity from a ship or fort, and exploding it when desired. The protections against torpedoes are networks around a ship to -prevent approach, fishing thenf*^" up, or counter-mining and explodingthem. One of the latest developments is for the torpedo boats to carry an apparatus for pumping crude petroleum on to ships and igniting it by a special rocket. The, mixture of fire and smoke drives the men from the guns, the torpedo boat can then approach closely without being fired on, can'with one torpedo breakaway any _' surrounding protections there may be; and then can explode a torpedo under the ship. This crude petroleum or " Greek fire," the lecturer stated he knew on good authority had been experimentally tried by the Russians, and he thought it was a ' matter calling for serious consideration that 142 powerful torpedo boats, to cost about £5,000 each, had been just ordered by Russia. Some of machinery was contracted for in England, and the whole were to be ready in the course of a few weeks.—Times, Feb. 15.