Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 203, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1918 — WAR DEVELOPS WEIRD SCHEMES [ARTICLE]

WAR DEVELOPS WEIRD SCHEMES

One Inventor Would Snatch Enemy Rifles by Means of Magnets. FLEA SHELL IS OFFERED Then There Is the Scissors Plane, the Tally-Ho Cannon, and the Moon Veil—Aeronautics Favored by* Inventors. London. —Pushing the war on is the latest popular hobby. It’s a great amusement. Perhaps you have a tame balloon to snatch the rifles from the enemy’s hands by means of suspended magnets; or, maybe, a few spare snakes to hurl into the trenches by pneumatic propulsion; or, perhaps, a shell'with a man inside it to steer it at the target. If so, pack in brown paper and dispatch to Inventions Department, British Ministry of Munitions. Some months later you will receive a polite notification Informing you that your invention is receiving their collective and “earnest attention.” Meanwhile your competitors have supplied suggestions for: A shell to contain fleas or other vermin Inoculated with disease. The spraying of cement over soldiers so as to petrify them. The throwing of live wire cables carrying a high voltage among advancing bodies of Infantry by means of rockets. Germany should be attacked in one case by making a “tube” all the way, and In another by employing trained cormorants to fly to Essen and pick out the mortar from Krupp’s chimneys. One Inventor proposes a machine of the nature of a lawn mower as*large as a tank to make mincemeat of them. The Scissors Plane a New Idea. The clouds are to be frozen artificially and guns mounted on them; heavy guns are to be suspended from captive balloons; the moon is to be covered with a big black balloon; airplanes are to be armed with scissors or scythes like Boadicea’s chariot, or to trail bombs behind them on a long cord; heat rays are to be projected for the purpose -of setting Zeppelins on fire; electric waves to paralyze tin magnetos. i

One of the most popular suggestions of all is to attach a searchlight to an antiaircraft gun, get the light on the object and shoot along the beam; but, unfortunately, the path of a shell is quite different from that of the ray of light. Most elaborate “decoy” schemes are sometimes worked out for the confusion of the enemy, comprising in at least one case sham factories with chimneys and hooters complete. Not, unnaturally aeronautics have been favored by the inventors. Many seem to have thought that the lifting power of hydrogen is unlimited, for they have suggested armor-plated bal-. loons, the tranrport of artillery by airplane and of troops by balloon. Shells and projectiles have received not a little attention. Proposals Include a shell containing gravel to lay a pathway over mud; another containing irritant powder or sticky substance to hamper machine guns, and another for holding many thousand feet of wire, weights and a clock motor. Many inventors of a device requiring a knowledge of ballistics betray no knowledge that such a science exists. By one scheme two guns are to be fired simultaneously; the shot being connected by a chain to which bombs and incendiary devices, etc., are to be attached. It is clear that. variations in powder or differences in wear would make it impossible to predict which direction the device would take. Then There Is the Relay Shell. Another favorite subject, mechanically unsound, Is the “relay shell,” a shell acting as a small gun discharged in mid-air and expelling a small inner shell, the object being to obtain an increased range. The fact Is that a shell In flight does not point directly along its trajectory, but makes an uncertain angle with It, so that accuracy of alm would be impossible. In the group of inventions coming

under the head of motive power the majority are of the “overbalancing wheel” type, which dates from the thirteenth century. Power is to be obtained from other schemes of people walking about floors and up and down stairs;' passenger lifts are to be used as power hammers, and power is to be generated from the flow of rain water from the rooms of houses. Suggestions are also frequently received in connection with colored searchlights. The most remarkable proposition of all in connection with searchlights is perhaps that of a “black beam," whatever that may mean, for obscuring the moon. / Many inventors are absolutely impervious to argument or. explanation and are always-dissatisfied with the treatment they receive. In this respect they contrast unfavorably with a foreigner who submitted an engine which" would not work, and concluded the correspondence with thanks and the admission that he was “completely cured” of the idea.