Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/721

 A Floating Invitation to Suicide

It's a mine with an imitation periscope projecting from the water

��PERISCOPE in sight!" calls one of the lookouts on the starboard side, excitedly pointing to a small object a few hundred yards away, which his keen and well-trained eye has just dis- cerned. A dozen glasses are trained upon that object a moment later and as many ob- servers, firmly con- \'inced by what they see, that they have the periscope of a hostile sub- marine before them, begin to fid- get in anticipation of the coming events. The first impulse of the offi- cers of the ship is to head straight for the periscope and to ram the submarine to which it belongs.

The captain, knowing that in the early months of the war eighty British ships were sunk because their impetu- ous commanders thought that periscopes are always associated with submarines, does not jdeld to the rash impulse of his officers, but decides to try a shot at the periscope first. The second shot hits it squarely and there is a terrific explosion.

It was a mine — not a sub- marine — a mine, equipped with a seductive imitation of a periscope designed to lure on overbold vessels. An at- tempt to ram the supposed submarine would have been fatal to the ship. The mine

���Ships will do well to steer clear of this imita- tion of a periscope; to ram it means exit

��Imitation periscope Exploder arms

Sulphviricacid Priming cKarge

Explosive

��Fir\ to prevent rotdtion — *

��Submersion ueight - Cable eye- Charged with T. N.T., wet giin-cotton or dynamite

��is the invention of a foreign officer now working for the United States Govern- ment and proved to be highly effective in the early part of the war, until the com- manders of vessels had learned to curb their impetu- ous impulse to ram everything that looked like a peri- scope.

A large metal cylinder holds a firing charge of five hundred pounds of tri-nitro- toluol, wet gun- cotton or dyna- mite. Bolted to the lower end of the cylinder is a weight to keep the mine upright and so far submerged that only the tubu- lar firing device, simulating a peri- scope, s h o.w s above the surface. The trigger ends are in the top of the periscope-like device. The trig- ger is so arranged that any pressure upom it causes it to break a bottle filled with sulphuric acid. The acid sets oflf the priming charge in the lower part of the tube, and this causes the explosion of the main charge of the mine. Of great importance is the vertical fin attached to the outside of the mine. It acts like the rudder of a ship and prevents the mine from spinning around under the influence of wind and wave action, which adds in a large measure to the value of the invention.

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