Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/833

 TORPEDO 803 lo against the frigate Cerberus, lying off New London, and it destroyed a schooner moored alongside. Similar torpedoes were set adrift on the Delaware, but did no harm. (See BUSHNELL, DAVID.) Twenty years later Robert Fulton made vigorous attempts to bring the new weapon into notice, under the name of "torpedo," then first applied by him. Unsuc- cessful in France, he went to England in 1804, and in 1805 was authorized to make an attempt to destroy the French fleet at Boulogne, which proved unsuccessful. In the same year he blew up the brig Dorothea, assigned to him for experimental trial, in the harbor of Deal. This was accomplished by two drifting torpedoes, which, connected by a rope, fouled the haw- ser ; and one of them, charged with 170 Ibs. of powder, exploding by clockwork under her bottom, utterly destroyed her. Notwithstand- ing this triumph, motives of policy, resulting from their sovereignty of the sea, caused Ful- ton and his new weapon to be rejected by the English government; and he returned to America to encounter ultimately a like re- pulse, although in 1807 he repeated his experi- ment successfully in the harbor of New York. Fulton's system included four classes of torpe- does : buoyant mines, held in place by anchors, and provided with a mechanical device by which explosion ensued when they were struck by a vessel ; line torpedoes, of the kind used in the destruction of the Dorothea; harpoon torpedoes, to be attached to the enemy's ves- sel by a harpoon shot from a gun, and then to be exploded by clockwork ; and lastly " block- ship " torpedoes, to be carried on spars pro- jecting from a peculiar kind of vessel, and ex- ploded by contact with the enemy. Just be- fore the close of the war of 1812 prepara- tions were made for an extended use of tor- pedoes in the defence of our harbors. Col. Samuel Colt first practically applied electri- city to the ignition of torpedoes. After ex- perimenting for 14 years, and blowing up sev- eral vessels at anchor, he finally, on April 13, 1843, destroyed a brig under full sail on the Potomac, operating by electricity from a station in Alexandria, 5 m. distant. He elabo- rated a complete system of buoyant submarine mines, which were to be planted in groups quincuncially in the channel to be defended. To connect them with the shore he devised one of the very first insulated cables ever at- tempted, which was connected with a platinum wire fuse imbedded in a priming of gunpowder. He proposed to arrange a reflector to throw the image of the ship upon a map of the mines at the operator's station. This project, bearing the date of 1836, was discovered among Colt's pa- pers after his death. Although much progress was made in submarine blasting, and an elabo- rate system of electrical submarine mines was prepared by Capt. Hennebert of the French engi- neers, no opportunity offered for the further use of torpedoes until the Anglo-French war with Russia. In 1855 a new kind of contact mine, de- vised by Jacobi, was planted off Cronstadt and at Sebastopol ; explosions occurred under the frigates Merlin and Firefly, but did no serious damage. The Jacobi fuse consisted of a little bottle of sulphuric acid bedded in a mixture of potassium chlorate and sugar. This bottle being broken by the shock, an explosion en- sued, which communicated with the charge and ignited the mine. Had not this engineer employed too small charges of powder (8 or 9 Ibs.), his success would probably have been more marked. His system included electrical mines as well as mechanical. The destruction of the docks at Sebastopol was effected by the French engineers through the agency of sub- marine explosions, and the attention of all nations was thus again called to the subject. The result appeared in the defence of Ven- ice in 1859 by Col. Von Ebner of the Aus- trian engineers, who originated a system more complete than any which had preceded it. During the civil war in the United States, when the confederates had no fleet, the southern ports and rivers were much exposed to attack, and this method of defence was largely used. The first torpedoes in position were discovered in Mud river, near Fort Pulaski, in February, 1862 ; they belonged to the simple contact class, and occasioned no damage. In October, 1862, the service was formally legalized by the confederate congress, and a' torpedo bureau was soon established at Richmond. A special corps of officers and men was raised and trained for submarine warfare ; inventions multiplied, and agents were sent to Europe to provide material and get the latest ideas. The southern waters soon became so dangerous as to inter- fere seriously with naval operations. The first vessel actually blown up by the new machines was an ironclad, the Cairo, which was totally destroyed on Yazoo river in December, 1862. During the remainder of the war seven United States ironclads, eleven wooden war vessels, and six army transports were destroyed by torpedoes, and many others were temporarily disabled. The confederates lost a fine iron- clad, the Albemarle (see PLYMOUTH, N. C.), two steamers in Charleston harbor, a^d a flag- of -truce boat on James river, in the same man- ner, the last three accidentally by their own torpedoes. This great destruction chiefly oc- curred in the last two years of the war. In the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864, Denmark resorted to ingenious gtationary submarine mines, and one of the invading vessels was destroyed. Paraguay employed torpedoes in defending its river coast against Brazil and her allies in 1865-'8. By these the ironclad Rio de Janeiro was destroyed and the Taman- dare disabled, although the engineers were crippled by the want of supplies. During the Franco-German war of 1870-'71 the coasts of the Baltic and North seas were effectively pro- tected against the French fleet by torpedoes; and various attempts were made to defend the French rivers in a similar manner. The recent