THJi] APPLICATIONS OF EXPLOSIVES. 



311 



Besides their use as ballistic agents, gun cotton, dynamite, and 

 explosive gelatin in their ordinary condition have found employ- 

 ment and been adopted as service explosives in military and naval 

 mining, as their great energy and the violence with which they 



Launching Patrick Torpedo from the Wats. 



explode, even when unconiined, especially adapt them for use in 

 the various kinds of torpedoes and mines which are in vogue in 

 the service. 



One form of these torpedoes was attached to the end of a spar 

 or pole which was rigged out from the bow of a launch or vessel 

 so that it could be thrust under the enemy's vessel, and the deto- 

 nators of such spar torpedoes were not only connected with elec- 

 tric generators, so that they could be fired at will, but they, in 

 common with mines, were frequently provided with a system of 

 levers so arranged that the enemy's vessel fired the torpedoes and 

 mines automatically as it came in contact with the levers. It 

 was with such a contact-spar torpedo, containing thirty-three 



Patrick Torpedo undek way. Movin<T at the rate of twenty-three knots per hour. 



pounds of gun cotton, that the schooner Joseph Henry was blown 

 up in Newport Harbor in 1884. 



There are many types of the automobile torpedo. Among 

 them the Hall, Patrick, -Whitehead, and Howell may be cited. 



