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ELECTRICITY IN WARFARE.

[Footnote: From a recent lecture before the Franklin Institute,
Philadelphia.]

By Lieut. B.A. FISKE, U.S.N.


Lieutenant Fiske began by paying a tribute to the remarkable pioneer
efforts of Colonel Samuel Colt, who more than forty years ago blew up
several old vessels, including the gunboat Boxer and the Volta, by the
use of electricity. Congress voted Colt $17,000 for continuing his
experiments, which at that day seemed almost magical; and he then blew up
a vessel in motion at a distance of five miles. Lieut. Fiske next
referred briefly to the electrical torpedoes employed in the Crimean war
and our civil war.

At the present day, an electrical torpedo may be described as consisting
of a strong, water-tight vessel of iron or steel, which contains a large
amount of some explosive, usually gun-cotton, and a device for detonating
this explosive by electricity. The old mechanical mine used in our civil
war did not know a friendly ship from a hostile one, and would sink
either with absolute impartiality. But the electrical submarine mine,
being exploded only when a current of electricity is sent through it from