SCIENCE AND WAR. 601 



the Cossacks will have it in their power to inflict if accoutred as pio- 

 neers. These are selected from the smartest and most daring troop- 

 ers, lightly armed and well mounted. In a belt round their waists 

 they carry a few pounds of gun-cotton or dynamite, and with this 

 highly-destructive explosive they may work incalculable harm. A 

 small charge of gun-cotton placed simply upon a rail and fired with a 

 fuse suffices to blow several feet of the iron to a distance of many 

 yards, thus rendering the railway unserviceable on the instant. A 

 trooper may dismount, place a charge at the base of a telegraph pole, 

 fire it, and be in his saddle again within sixty seconds. Wires may 

 thus be cut and communication stopped in the heart of an enemy's 

 country by fearless riders, who have but to draw rein for an instant 

 to effect the mischief, while lines of railway in the neighborhood are 

 entirely at their mercy. Even light bridges and well-built stockades 

 may be thi'own down by the violent detonati<m of compressed gim- 

 cotton, and forest-roads considerably obstructed by trees thrown 

 across, which are never so rapidly felled as when a small charge of this 

 explosive is fired at their roots. 



The influence of the Whitehead torpedo, of which we have heard 

 so much of late, will likewise be felt for the first time during the pres- 

 ent war. An implement so ingenious in its character that, as Lord 

 Charles Beresford the other day happily remarked, it can do almost 

 anything but talk, is in the possession of both belligerents, and will 

 doubtless be heard of ere long on the Danube and in the Black Sea. 

 These torpedoes are manufactured at Fiume on the Mediterranean, 

 and, like Krupp guns, are to be purchased by any one vvhq chooses to 

 pay for them. 



The British Government manufactures its own Whitehead torpe- 

 does in this country, having paid several thousand pounds for the 

 privilege. The machinery inside this torpedo is still a secret, which 

 is strictly maintained by our Government, but the principle of the 

 invention is well known. It is a long, cigar-shaped machine measur- 

 ing a dozen feet and upward. In the head is a charge of some violent 

 explosive, such as gun-cotton, or dynamite, which explodes as soon as 

 the torpedo strikes an obstacle. The motive power is compressed air, 

 which is forced into the machine by powerful air-pixmps, immediately 

 before the torpedo is discharged into the sea, no less than 600 pounds 

 on the square inch being the pressure exerted. The Whitehead is 

 shot from a tube, and moves through the water as straight as a dart, 

 the compressed air working upon a screw in the tail of the machine. 

 The delicate machinery permits the torpedo to swim at any depth 

 below the surface that may be desirable, and it flies straight in the 

 direction it is aimed, at a speed of something like twenty miles an 

 hour. If it fails to strike the foe, then the intelligent apparatus at 

 once rises to the surface, becoming innocuous as it does so, and may 

 in this condition be captured without difficulty. 



