1 48 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



tions produce other and perhaps quite unlooked-for changes ? 

 Some time ago an Italian advertised an invention which he 

 claimed was able to explode shells, cartridges, and even 

 magazines at a distance by means of certain rays. We under- 

 stand that this claim proved to be unfounded when rigorous 

 tests were insisted upon ; but what a revolution in warfare it 

 would have made ! Unless some means could have been 

 devised to exclude the rays, we should have gone back 

 immediately to the conditions of the Middle Ages, and would 

 again have witnessed the spectacle of knights and men-at-arms 

 clad in mail and fighting with spears, swords, and " morning 

 stars." Certainly such warfare was more picturesque than the 

 miserable subterranean rat-like struggles of our soldiers to-day 

 — though, we believe, the mortality in the old times sometimes 

 reached 80 or 90 per cent, of the vanquished forces in one day ! 

 In those times there was no escape by hiding in holes, and the 

 man who got his adversary down generally finished him in 

 the heat of the combat, unless he could conveniently take 

 him a prisoner and hold him to ransom. At all events, the 

 old methods of fighting, plus the modern universal service, 

 would probably have decided the present war in a few weeks. 



We do not feel convinced that our Government is at present 

 doing all that it might do to stimulate such inventions. Is it 

 quite impossible for ships to be really protected against modern 

 torpedoes ? Is it quite impossible to construct submarines 

 for the purpose of hunting other submarines under the surface ? 

 Cannot men-of-war be provided with some large buoyant rafts 

 which will serve to save a larger proportion of their crews 

 when the ships are torpedoed? Some time ago we believe 

 that Sir Hiram Maxim suggested that solid bodies may emit 

 certain rays which could be detected from afar and which would 

 serve to notify ships of the presence of other ships, including 

 submarines, at a distance. Has this idea fallen through ? 

 Is it quite impossible for infantry to be provided with some 

 kind of metallic shield which, though penetrable by a rifle 

 bullet that impinges upon it at a right-angle, will serve to 

 deflect a proportion at least of the projectiles which strike 

 it at a lower angle, and could not such shields be made 

 light enough to be used in short rushes from trench to 

 trench ? And many more ideas of the same kind may be 

 mooted. 



