HIGH EXPLOSIVES. 495 



sure gauges at different points along the whole length of the barrel, by 

 which it was possible to ascertain not only how much pressure was 

 exerted behind a projectile at the instant of firing, but how well the 

 pressure was maintained behind it all along the bore. From this 

 gun a torpedo shell, made thin and filled with Maximite and having 

 a very heavy base portion filled with lead to act as tamping, was fired 

 against an armor plate three and one-half inches thick and four feet 

 square, demolishing it completely. The quantity of high explosive 

 carried was only two pounds. 



After the completion of the experiments at Maxim, N. J., and the 

 successful testing of the Maxim-Schupphaus powder by the United 

 States Government, followed by its adoption, I went to England, with 

 a view to the disposition of the foreign patent rights. On the 24th of 

 June, 1897, I delivered a lecture before the Eoyal United Service In- 

 stitution of Great Britain, on 'A New System of Throwing High 

 Explosives from Ordnance.' 



I explained and illustrated how a torpedo gun could be constructed 

 which would weigh no more and cost no more than the ordinary 

 twelve-inch seacoast rifle, but which should have a caliber twice as 

 great, and which would stand a chamber pressure sufficiently high to 

 throw a projectile carrying half a ton of high explosive at as great a 

 velocity as that imparted to the usual 1,000-pound shell thrown from 

 the 12-inch gun, and which carries only 37 pounds of black rifle 

 powder. 



I showed diagrams giving the range of destructiveness of such 

 aerial torpedoes when striking in the water adjacent to a battleship, 

 and claimed that such a quantity striking on board or against the 

 armored side, under high velocity, would, without question, throw the 

 vessel out of action. 



This lecture was very widely commented upon in both the general 

 and the scientific press, and it was stated in the House of Parliament, 

 by one of the members who was opposing the appropriations for so 

 many large battleships, that it would be necessary, in the event of war, 

 and after the aerial torpedo was introduced, to keep battleships snugly 

 in harbor and roof the harbors over to protect them. 



THE GATHMANN GUN. 



The Gathmann Gun Company, last year, secured an appropriation 

 from Congress for a large torpedo gun, which was constructed by the 

 Bethlehem Ironworks, and now lies at the Sandy Hook Proving 

 Grounds, awaiting tests. 



This gun is very like that proposed by me in the above-mentioned 

 lecture, excepting that the caliber is not quite so large for the weight, 



