Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1899 — How Mines Are Destroyed. [ARTICLE]

How Mines Are Destroyed.

There are several ways in which submarine mines, guarding an enemy’s harbor, are destroyed b& a fleet intending to make an entrance. One method is by catching the electric cables running to the mines by “creeping,” as It is termed. This Is done by towing two grapnels, one containing an explosive charge of gun cotton, and the other, a simple grapnel, coming on behind at a distance of thirty or forty feet The explosive grapnel first picks up the cable, and when a tug is felt on the line the charge Is electrically exploded from the vessel. > As this may not completely sever the cable, the other grapnel Is used to pick up the frayed line, and the whole thing fas dragged into the boat and severed or under-run till a junction box to a number of mines Is reached, when the whole lot is cut off. To meet this possibility it fas a common thing for dummy mines and dead cables to be planted to deceive an enemy, and it is a common plan to strew the neighboring bottom with chains and steel ropes to catch an enemy’s creeps. False buoys are also placed so that they may mislead a countermining attack.