A New Torpedo | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 30, 1878

A New Torpedo.

John Ericsson, who built the first steam fire engine and the first wooden armed steam vessel; who spent years and $100,000 upon models of engines to be driven solely by the power of solar heat, and in the last fifty years has perfected over 1,000 patents for various mechanical inventions, is now in New York. While he is preserving his health and strength by proper diet, he is at work on many inventions, among which is a new torpedo of irresistible power and a conductor to carry it almost to the very sides of a vessel with deadly effect and accuracy. Capt. Ericsson, with the enthusiasm of a successful inventor, confidently predicts that this torpedo will keep the sea clear for peaceable commerce, and discontinue iron-clads and coast fortifications, and perhaps we should concede that the inventor of iron-clads can wipe them out. In experiments last December in the Hudson, a torpedo 22 feet 6 inches long, weighing 1,400 pounds, was propelled horizontally under water by means of compressed air, at the rate of 53 nautical miles an hour for the first 250 feet, and the inventor says no iron clad has been built fast or strong enough to escape this new engine of destruction. The conductor that is to carry it is now building, and is a vessel 130 feet long, 12 feet beam, wedge-shaped at the bow, sharp at both ends, covered with heavy inclined plating, and intended to show but about one foot above water when in fighting trim. It is to be propelled by peculiarly fashioned engines of 1,000 horse-power, designed by Capt. Ericsson, and is to run swiftly, end on, with a torpedo in its mouth to shoot out at the unprotected surface of the iron-clad below water. The conductor, presenting but small surface to an enemy's fire, will be rendered as impregnable as any iron ship by its iron plates, and, if it meets the expectations of its author, it will revolutionize the present clumsy methods of naval warfare.—Sel.