Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1880 — Wasp and Leristhan. [ARTICLE]

Wasp and Leristhan.

. - N*w York Tribune. Tiie torpedo boat has been from the beginning a peculiarly American idea. A century ago an • army engineer launched in New Y'ork harbor the first device of the kind, and now, after several of our greatest inventors, Robert Fulton and Samuel Colt among them, have made a close study of torpedo mechanism, Captain John Ericsson is experimenting in the same harbor with the most formidable engine of death known in naval warm re. The inventor of the Monitor is one of most modest and unpretentious mechanicians of the age, and is not likely to exaggerate the merits of his own work. He is entirely satisfied with the results of Che recent experiments with his torpede boat, ana some of the most experienced naval officers In the United States service do not hesitate to pronounce it an unequivocal success. For the first complete accouut of this wonderful piece of marine mechanism we refer our readers to the news columns of this issue. It will be seen that Captain Ericsson has invented three things—a boat, a gun and a projectile. The boat la subnie rged like a Monitor, with all the machinery below ail intermediate deck of plate iron.jwhieh is strongly ribbed, and supports inclined armor plates. The deck-house above water hss no ports at the sides, and can be shot aw*ay without the vessel’s being disabled. Heavy wood backing gives additional protection to the wheel and the electric batten*, and the steering gear is ten feet below tiie water line. Attacking bows on find defying with her armor the heaviest ordnance, the i Destroyer is practically invulnerable | and at the same time » most terrible antagonist. Her armament consists of a single breech-loader of wrought

iron hooped wite steel and a t»orc « 18 inches. Thin gun lies seven feet under water and discharges a projectile containing 250 pounds, of dynamite. When the boat with its crew of ten men is within ■'-00 or 400 feet of the enemy, the gun la Hired by electricity and the projectile explodes by concussion. If the first shot fells, another follows in a few minutes and the torpedo bombardment proceeds with extraordinary* rapidity, no time being wasted in charging the gun. The substitution of gunpowder for compressed air In the opeiatlon| of charging the gun, vastly increases the efficiency of the armament. It may not be too much to say that it leaves the mightiest iron ships of the world completely at her mercy. Lest this may be regarded os an extravagant statement, we call attention to the feet the British Admiralty have thus far devised no adequate means of repelling the attacks of an ordinary torpedo fleet. The use of powerful electric lights, by which the approach of a torpedo boat may be discerned at uight, has been proposed, and the expeoieocy of encasing Ironclads with a defensive network, or species of naval crinoline, has been seriously discussed; but such an antagonist as the Destroyer would be invulnerable even In daylight, and her projectilj would pierce any chain network that might be forged. Her superiority to the torpedo launches brought into play iu the sham fights on the English coast is too apparent to require proof. A wasp with such a sting as this one hAs would send a leviathan like the Invincible to the bottom of the sea, unless it could be beaten back by a swarm of wasps like itself.

The subjeot Is one of great Importance to Americans. For flftteen years the European Powers have been building enormous war ships, protected by the thickest armor and armed with the heaviest guns known in the armaments of the world. Our own government has made no attempt to vie with the war fleets of the world. It has not built floating carriages for 100-ton guns at a cost of millions upon millions. Bucli a wicked waste of national resources would have been condemned by our people. Yet the insecurity of our harbors and coasts has caused not a little appreheusioii, since it haa been plain that in an emergency our ironclads would be powerless to resist the fleets of even the second-rate European nations. If Gaptain Ericsson’s torpedo boat be all that it seems to be, the problem of coast defence will be very simple. Nay, more; the millions that have been invested abroad in the construction of floating lotteries that can be sunk by toy monitors will seem “like water poured upon the plain.” Not to lie “gathered up again.”