00 ANNUAL OF ^CilLNTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



destroyed, when the clockwork was set in motion and the torpedoes 

 floated down the tide and under the vessel. Another method was to 

 shoot a harpoon into the side of the vessel with a line made fast to the 

 torpedo, which burst at the moment of contact. All of these plans 

 were in a measure practicable at times, but there was not a sufficient 

 degree of certainty in their operation to warrant the patronage of 

 either Great Britain or the United States ; consequently the system was 

 neither perfected nor adopted. 



The present war, which has developed so many useful appliances of 

 naval and military science, has advanced the practice of torpedo war- 

 fare to an extent which does not yet seem to have found its limit. 

 The Confederates have used the stationary torpedo to a considerable 

 extent, and have destroyed or sunk some eight or ten naval vessels, 

 including two iron-clads. 



All of these casualties took place in shoal water, and most of the 

 torpedoes in question were fired by means of a galvanic battery, 

 worked by members of the " Confederate Torpedo Corps," located on 

 the banks of the rivers. 



The Rebels, have made several attempts to destroy our war ships by 

 means of torpedo vessels, but only one of these has ever thoroughly 

 accomplished her work, in the sinking of the sloop-of-war Housatonic, 

 off Charleston. The vessel which performed that deed, however, 

 never returned, but sank with all on board. Similar attempts have 

 been made upon the iron-clad frigate New Ironsides, and the wooden 

 frigates Wabash and Minnesota, the former at Charleston and the 

 latter at Hampton Roads. Only four known attempts have been made 

 with this kind of craft ; but there is reason to believe that numerous 

 experiments have been attempted, in which the Rebels were obliged to 

 abandon the plan as well as the unsafe vessels built for the purpose. 



After the capture of the forts in Mobile Bay, Admiral Farragut 

 discovered, high and dry upon the beach, one of the torpedo vessels 

 with which the Rebels designed to destroy the fleet blockading that 

 port ; but, like most of her predecessors, an accident befell her which 

 rendered her useless. While on a trial trip one of her boilers explod- 

 ed, killing nearly all of her crew, and the disaster threw a gloom 

 over the corps which had her in charge, which fact, coupled with the 

 difficulty of procuring another boiler, led them to abandon the project. 

 Until within the past year but little has been done by the United 

 States to perfect torpedo warfare. Captain Ericsson's "devil, 11 in- 

 tended to be attached to the prow of the monitors, was a large and 

 costly raft, to which was fixed an immense torpedo ; but this invention 

 was abandoned because its presence among a friendly fleet was of too 

 dangerous a character to be permitted, and after an expenditure of 

 many thousands of dollars upon the system it was cast aside. 



Within the last year, however, a torpedo boat, designed and mod- 

 elled bv Engineer Wood of the U. S. Navv, has been constructed, 



v ^D 



and found to work better in practice than in theory. The hull is of 

 wood, 75 feet in length, 20 feet beam, and seven feet deep, and con- 

 structed in the most substantial manner, with heavy deck beams 

 supported by hanging knees securely bolted and fastened. The deck, 

 two feet in thickness, is crowned two feet fore and aft, and about as 

 much athwartships, and is now receiving an iron armor of two inches 

 in thickness, to render it proof against shot and shell. 



