Page:Brief Sketch of Work of Matthew Fontaine Maury 1861-65.pdf/9

 Works, and at the works of Talbott and Son on Cary Street; the batteries were loaned by the Richmond Medical College which also freely tendered the use of its laboratory. In the early summer of 1861 the Secretary of the Navy, the Governor of Virginia, the chairman of the Committee of Naval Affairs, and other prominent officials were asked by him to witness a trial and an explosion of torpedoes in James River at Rocketts.

The torpedo were composed of two small kegs of rifle powder, weighted to sink a few feet below the surface. They were fitted with hair triggers and friction primers, and thirty feet of lanyard attached to the triggers connected the keys. When set afloat in the channel way as near as possible to a vessel and to drift down with the current until the connecting lanyard fouled the anchor chain, or the the vessel and the kegs when swung around the tightened lanyard would fire bow of against her side the trigger and cause the torpedo to explode. So the Patrick Henry's gig was borrowed, with a couple of sailors to pull, and the torpedo having been embarked, with the trigger at half-cock, Captain Maury and the writer got on board and were rowed out to the buoy just opposite where the James River Steamboat Company's wharf now is, where the invited spectators stood to witness the explosion. The triggers were then set, the kegs carefully lowered into the water, taking great care not to strain the lanyard was cast off, the boat pulled clear, and we waited to see the torpedo float down until the buoy was reached, the lanyard foul strain and explode the torpedo. But there was delay, the lanyard fouled the buoy all right, the kegs floated past and strained the lanyard, but there was no explosion. Impatient we back water to the buoy and the writer leaned over the stern and caught the