The Torpedo | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 3, 1877

The Torpedo.

The following interesting item we clip from the San Francisco Chronicle of April 28:—

“In the war which has just begun, and the end of which no mortal wisdom can foresee, new engines of death and destruction which have heretofore been unknown to maritime warfare, will probably play a prominent part. The great iron-clads, carrying 81-ton guns and throwing projectiles of the weight of four or five hundred pounds, will be called upon to meet new and mysterious forms of danger. The Turkish waters are said to be full of torpedoes, constructed by English skill, which are capable of destroying in an instant the most powerful war vessels that were ever launched.”

“It is reported that the British Admiralty have been making experiments with a terrible engine of destruction known as a ‘rocket float,’ which can be driven by the propelling power of a prodigious rocket for the distance of three or four miles in less than half a minute. In the bow of the float a quantity of gun-cotton is arranged with a percussion cap in such a manner that a powerful explosion ensues the instant that it comes into collision with any obstacle. If the float is accurately directed toward a ship, and started on its devastating errand at the distance of several miles, it will reach the objective point before any change in its position can be made. Another torpedo which moves beneath the surface at the rate of twenty miles per hour, has been invented. The French naval authorities have tested still another submarine torpedo, moving at about the same rate, and pronounced it a success. The probability is, a new era in naval warfare will take its date from the present European struggle.”