Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/620

602 A torpedo of this sort striking the sides of an iron-clad would almost infallibly send her to the bottom, and although it has been proved that a network or crinoline around the ship is capable of retarding the progress of a "fish" of this nature, and exploding the same harmlessly in its toils, it is obviously a very difficult matter thus to protect one's craft. Against heavy torpedoes, indeed, there seems no way of defense at all (the Whitehead generally carries a charge of seventy or eighty pounds, but moored torpedoes may contain a 500-pound charge), and therefore Turkish vessels will have to give Russian ports a wide berth. All must remember how the magnificent fleet of the French was kept at bay by the torpedoes of the Germans in the North Sea in 1870, and the Black Sea ports are no doubt similarly protected. So demoralizing is the dread of the torpedo with sailors apparently, that they will dare anything rather than venture into waters which conceal these cruel foes.

At no other time has there been so much want of unanimity among the great powers of Europe on the subject of ordnance. There are to be found at the present moment cannon of a dozen different descriptions in the gun-parks of European nations, differing from each other not only in respect to their construction, but in the metal of which they are made. So far as small-arms are concerned, we know there is but one opinion; some nations prefer one breech-loader to another, but all agree in the employment of breech-loaders. In the case of cannon, however, it is different. Germany relies upon breech-loading ordnance, while Great Britain has forsaken the system and gone back to muzzle-loaders; Austria makes her guns of bronze, Germany of steel, Russia favors steel and brass, America cast-iron, while England has cannon of steel encompassed with iron, and France weapons of iron girt with steel.

The balance of favor is beyond question with the breech-loader at the present moment. All the new artillery of the Russians and the Turks is of this kind, while the field-guns both of the Germans and Austrians are upon the same system. France has done nothing lately for the regeneration of its ordnance, and there remain but Great Britain and Italy to represent muzzle-loading artillery. But Italy, although she has adopted the British system for very heavy guns, is by no means a confirmed believer in it, and will doubtless hesitate before following our example very far, beset, as she is, with neighbors armed with breech-loaders.

Of all the powers, it is, curiously enough, steady-going Austria which has taken the boldest and most independent course in the matter of artillery. It was but at the end of 1875 that the Austrian War Office decided to adopt the Uchatius cannon for field-artillery, and yet at this moment every artillery regiment of the vast Austro-Hungarian army is armed with the new weapon. Within eighteen months no less than 2,000 of these cannon have been cast and finished, and now