South Bend News-Times, Volume 32, Number 41, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 10 February 1915 — Page 9

- . t It Hudson Maxim, the Distinguished American Inventor. By Hudson Maxim I T has been a subject of much wonder that the Germans should have been nhlo to build in Pocret and keen a

secret their big howitzers until the present warships, still the size and expense of warwar broke out. It Is truly wonderful that ship targets would be also vastly greater, the Germans could have secretly made and It will be seen by referring to the accomtested these b'g guns and learned that an panying illustrations taken from my lecarmy equipped with them could laugh at ture above referred to, tuat T anticipated forts. Certain It Is that the Germans did this very plan of the Germans more than have these guns, and that they knew be- seventeen years ago. forehand that the forts of Liege and Namur The relative efficiency of the howitzer and the fortifications of Antwerp could boat versus the dreadnought may be estlnot hold against them. mated as follows: The destruction which such projectiles The dreadnought costs $10,000,000, in adare capable of doing when exploding In any dition to the cost ot the ammunition and kind of fortification Is something colossal. These projectiles are veritable aerial torpedoes.

Germany's exclusive accomplishment of the great achievement was not due to the fact that the idea originated with the Germans. nir to the fact that they kept tho idea a secret, for tho Idea did not originate with the Germans, and it was no secret when they utilized it. In 1S07 I delivered a lecture before the Itoyal United Service Institution of Great Britain, where I exhibited the design of a cannon having a calibre of twenty-four Inches and a length of sixteen calibres. This gun was Just half an inch larger than the biggest German howitzer. The weight of the- gun designed by me was forty-three tons. Tho weight of tho twenty-three-and-a-halMnch German howitzer is forty-five tons. The weight of my torpedo projectile Tra9 2,700 pounds, and it was designed to carry ha!f a ton of high explosive. It was also provided Tvlth a delay-action fuse, which would enable it to penetrate deep In earthworks or through armorplate of Considerable thickness before exploding. Tho range of the big German howitzer h tald to be nine miles at maximum elevation. The calculated raRge of the gun of my design was also nine miles at maximum elevation. The fact that my gun was designed for tho use of multi-perforated progressiveburning smokeless powder, whereby higher velocities could be had with lower pressures than with other powder, enabled mo to make my gun somewhat lighter, although longer, than the German howitzer. The greater length of my gun increased materially the accuracy of Are. Therefore, It will be seen that the big torpedo gun designed by me and exhibited in 1S97 seventeen years ago resembles very closely In weight, calibre and performance the big German twenty-three-and-a-half-inch howitzer. It has been rumored that the Germans

Why

There Is Danger in

WHEN we realize the grave dangers to which we aro continually exposed, we may begin to think it nseles? to try to escape certain diseases and disasters, a3 we are certain sooner or later to be overcome by them. Such Is not the right conclusion. We hould at least try to dodge the many little avenues that are apt to lead to trouble, and we should be willing to remove all Buch opportunities from our children who, of course, aro ns watchful as not we expected to be cnaro In thl3 lightened age. Even such an Insignificant thing as tho common broom straw curries the gravest of dangers with It to adults as well &3 children. The broom Is used on the carpets and rugs, and on the bare floor to collect various kinds of filth in which many disease ccrms may be lurking. Very frequently the broom is moistened, making it moro liable to rick up and retain the germs, and then It is ret up in a corner near a stove, or hung up to dry, and the heat waves and evaporation process carry the germs through the atmosphere to the subjects of their prey. Broom splints are sometimes used as toothpicks by adults and children, and when placed in the mouth, or pushed into the cavity of a hollow tooth, tho germs are cuoved from the straw, ant1 come deep-

Hudson Maxim, the Distinguished

Inventor,

Seventeen Years Ago a Howitzer of Greater Range and Power Than the Marvelous Guns of the Germans

That Battered Down Liege

jnienu xo mount met i a j a. big howitzers on inexpensive, but comparatively small, staunch gunboats, and with these to attack the big warships of the English. These big howitzers, having a range almost largo enough to compass everything within the horizon, would be able to shoot almost a3 far as the eye could reach, and although their high angle fire would not be a3 accurate as the direct fire of the British it : .v? A '.:-V. .' ' the value of the crew, whereas the cost of the howitzer boat need not exceed $250,000, in addition to the ammunition and the crew, so that four of them could be built for $1,000,000, forty of them for $10,000,000 the cost of a dreadnought. As these boats would always fight head Iv seated in the human system in a few moments. Children will pick up broom straws from the floor and place them In their mouths. This is very dangerous, even if there wa3 no danger from germs. The straw is apt to be broken ?nd a piece of it lodge in the windpipe of the child. Rabies have frequently been known to stick a broom straw In their nose or ear and seriously injure the organ. All such dangers and that arising from coloring matter used to give the broom a OTANISTS have Ions declared that plants as well as animals have nervous organizations and are capable of feeling, and demonstrating that they feel, pleasure and pain and even that they show appreciation for attention and droop under neglect. Scientific proof of the truth of these theories is now furnished in records of remarkable experiments conducted by Frofessor Jagadis Chandra Bose, of Cal cutta, India, with the aid of Ingenious mechanism invented by himself. This Instrument Is called a "Resonant Recorder." Writing about it in the Modern Review, of Calcutta, Professor Rose says:

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Making

Explains How

on, the size of the target would be the cross-section of the beam of tho vessel above water. This would be about 100 square feet for each howitzer boat, and for the forty of them it would be forty times 100 square feet, or 4,000 square feet; while the size of the target presented by tho dreadnought would be the area of the deck plus a twenty-five-foot zone around the vessel, making the total area of the target presented by the dreadnought 40,000 square feet. This is an area ten times as great as the total area of the target presented by all the forty howitzer boats; so that the howitzer boats would have not only the advantage in numbers over the dreadnought of forty to one, but also an advantage in area of target of ten to one, making a total advantage of 400 to one. This tremendous advantage certainly ought to balance the greater accuracy of fire of the guns of tho dreadnought. For surely the gunners of the dreadnought would hardly be able to score 400 hits for each one scored by the gunners on the howitzer boats. My lecture before the Royal United Service Institution of Great Britain above referred to was reprinted nearly in full with illustrations, not only in the journal of that society, but also in many scientific papers, newspapers and magazines all over the world, among which were the Engineer,

One of the Powerful German 16-Inch Howitzer Whose Invention Mr. Maxim Shows He Anticipated 17 Years Ago.

London, England; the Scientific American. Scientific American Supplement, and other papers. On the breaking out of the Spanish War in 1898 I returned to the United States and offered this gun to the United Stages Government, together with my safety delayor ft oom Diraws greenish tint, may be done away with by the use of the vacuum cleaner and oil mop, but the dangers may be greatly reduced by the use of a little thoughtful judgment on the part of parents and children. A person might as well gather up straws and sticks from the gutter and use them as toothpicks as to pluck a straw from a broom anJ uso it for such a purpose. And the same holds truo of the custom which prevails among some housewives of using broom straws to see how well done a loaf of bread or cake ta. Plants i ell "The principle of my 'resonant recorder' depends on the phenomenon known in music as resonance or sympathetic vibration. Wo may be so tuned a3 to thrill to certain notes and not to others. In the same manner, if the strings of different violins are exactly tuned together, then the note sounded on one will cause the others to vibrate in sympathy. "We may likewise tune a vibrating 'writer' with a musical reed. Suppose tho reed and the writer had both been tuned to vibrate a hundred times In a second. When the reed Is sounded the writer will also begin to vibrate in sympathy, in consequence of this, the writer will no

CoprrlgM. 1013. by the Star Company. Great Britain 'TIesprved.

He Invented

and Namur action detonating fuse and the secret of my high explosive, Maximite. The Government Immediately began experimenting with Maximite, with the result that in 1901 the Government bought from me Its secret. It was found that this explosive, although DO per cent more powerful than ordinary dynamite, was yet so Insensitive to shock that armor-piercing projectiles charged with it could be fired through the heaviest armorplate without exploding until set off by the delay-action fuse. The Government also Instituted a long series of exacting experiments with my fuse, which resulted In its adoption and purchase by the United States Government in 1910, and eleven applications for United States patents were consigned by the Government to the secret archives of the patent office. In the recent attacks upon me by Sir Hiram S. Maxim, of London, England, which are now doubtless familiar to the reader, it will be remembered that he said that I offered a gun to the United States Government during the Spanish War which I claimed to be 50,000 times as effective as any other gun and to be capable of wiping out the entire Spanish navy at a distance of nine miles, and that also these extravagant statements had caused him much trouble, owing to the fact that I had at that time changed my name from Isaac to Hudson in order to pose as II. Maxim, of gunmaking fame, of London, England. Sir Hiram Maxim is a genius of more than one kind of invention, and he has the Imagination of a poet. The fact3 on which he based these extravagant fancies were merely as follows: I changed my name from Isaac to Hudson forty years ago, when I was a young man in school in Maine, and seventeen years before the !Jaxim gun was invented. I did what Roscoe Conklin and General Grant both did. I changed my first name. General Grant's name was originally Hiram Ulysses Grant, and he changed it to Ulysses S. Grant, dropping the Hiram. The gun designed by me would have a striking energy of 50,000 foot tons and a range of nine miles at maximum elevation. There is where he got the 50,000 and the nine miles. The rest was the product of creative imagination. Sir Iliram also cialms that .the Spanish people at the time, thinking that he wa3 the Maxim referred to in the American newspapers who was offering the United States Government this big gun to be Us of Their longer remain In continuous contact with the recording plate, but will deliver a succession of taps, a hundred times In a second. The record will therefore consist of a series of dots, the distance between one dot and the next representing one hundredth part of a second. "The instrument Is so delicate that It may record a time Interval as short as the thousandth part of a single beat of the heart. "The plant has thus been made to exhibit many of the activities which we have been accustomed to associate oly with animal life. In the cne case, as in the other, stimulus cf any kind will Induce &

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1 I m I I

One of the Half-Ton Projectiles Which Mr. Maxim Planned in 1897 and Which Is Practically Identical with Those Discharged by the German 16-Inch Howitzer of To-day. Its Proportions as Compared to Those of a Man Are Shown Here. usd against Spain, were very angTy at him and threatened to demolish the Viewers Maxim works In Spain, but Hlrani says that he succeeded in stopping the

Joys and Sorrows

responsive thrill. There are rhythmic tissues In the plant wnich, like those in the animal, go on throbbing ceaselessly. These spontaneous pulsations in one case, as in the other, are affected by various drugs in an Identical manner. And In one case, as In the other, the tremor of excitation is transmitted with a definite and measured speed from point to point along fiber-like channels." A writer in The Nation, London, describes the results obtained in England by the use of Professor Dose's recording device: "One of his delicate machines records the exact rhythm of a leafs pulsations.

"J 1 . f iMU

(Above) Drawing Made by Hudson Maxim in 1897 in Which He Anticipated the Destruction of Armored Turrets Exactly as They Were Destroyed at Liege and Namur by German Guns in 1914. (Below) Diagram by Hudson Maxim Showing the Howitzer-Carrying Boat Planned by Him in 1897 Compared to a Dreadnought and the Relative Sizes of the Targets Offered by Each. trouble by assuring the Spaniards that h was not the tame Maxim, nd that he wa not working with or for the United Slates Government against Spair. ; but that It was hia brother who was the ?n?my of Spain. The smokle-ss powder u?ed by thf United States Government, which In multiperforated by mr Invention, i better adapted than any othsr smokeless poxdrr in the world for throwing larpe chnrj;ei of high explosives from puns. The big German torpedo howitzers hsvs been proven o efficient that this Govrrn ment should now hasten to equip i!F?!f with such weapons. Furthermore, this country should Immediately undertake and push to completion a system of hard, smooth highways crossing the country In all directions, which may be used as military roadg in case of vrar, and which will bear the hard tread of the heavy artillery of modern armies. A needle sets It down in dots on a pieCi of smoked glass. Tnea when the professor doses the prisoner with alcohol the curvo becomes one of exhillration. He gives it carbon dioxid; the plant grows ill, and signifies the same in Its Morse code. He poisons it, and the pulse ticks dolefully lower and lower till it finally stops. "Any farmer knows that his wheat can be overfed as well as underfed. Profe3or Bose reads the exact story cn his telltale, and it U one more argument that the lifa of the plant is the life of the animal ia almost all its Incidents, enly in lets i& gree."