October 1, 1914.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



15 



quate on a fighting ship, but these cannot all In- detailed here. 

 In tlir strictly lighting end of the naval vessel, rubber meets 

 tin- needs .is nothing else will, and the wonderful prei ision of the 

 modern naval artillery is very largely due to the aid rendered 

 by this material. The gun pointer, or rather the gnu pointers, 

 for there are two of therri for each big gun, are the men that 



Making nit Rubber Capped "Eye" for the Gun Pointer. 



keep the muzzles "I the weapons pointing steadily at the target 

 anywhere from 10,000 to 16,000 yards away. No matter how 

 their ship may roll, it is their duty to swing the rifle to right 

 or left or up and down- one man controlling the horizontal 

 movement while the other controls the vertical — holding it al- 

 ways straight at the object far away. To do this, these pointers 

 must hold their eyes pressed against a telescopic sight, holding 

 them there even when the gun is fired and the sight jarred by 

 the shock of the explosion. But for the cushion of soft rubber 

 the men's brows would be cut to the bone and their expert use- 

 fulness destroyed in a few moments. Again, the small, rapid- 

 fire guns, those spit-tires that are designed to dest\oj submarines 

 and to keep other torpedo craft at hay, have a habit of jarring 

 their pointers in recoil something after the fashion of a kicking 

 mule. No human shoulder could stand this pounding but for 

 tin- intervening pad or tubular buffer of rubber provided. 



The latest mechanical device designed to help the man behind 

 the gun is a telescope that "floats" horizontally, no matter how 

 the ship may pitch and roll, because it is mounted upon a small 

 stabilizing gyroscope. This mechanism is placed in the so-called 

 "spotter tops" of the military masts, where crouch the men wdto 

 watch the splash of the range-finding shots and telephone below 

 how much "over" or "short" the gunners have estimated the 

 distance. The spotters trace the fall of the projectiles through 

 these telescopes, even though the mast tops are sweeping through 

 wide arcs like agitated whips. The stabilizing g that 



make this service possible are driven by wee electric motors, and 

 only the perfect insulation of rubber makes their performance 

 possible. This brings us to other uses of the gyroscope on ship- 

 board 'and. incidentally, to the employment of rubber insulation 

 The gyroscopic compass is rapidly displacing the old magnetic 

 compass aboard men-o'-war, and the gyroscope is now employed 

 to record at various places in a ship diagrammatically the way 



the craft is turning in relation to a fixed point which cannot be 

 'seen hut toward which the men of the torpedo tubes must set 

 their weapons ready for launching. Hut the most startling use 

 of the gyro is for stabilizing a vessel so that she will roll but 

 little even when the sea is very rough One of our illustrations 

 shows "iic i i two g\ ro S fitted to the United States torpedo boat 

 "Worden," ami the manner in which they performed has blazed 

 the way for their use on battleships. Apart from insulating the 

 electrical connections, rubber also serves to make air-tight the 

 casings in which the gyros are spun in a partial vacuum. 



We have heard much about the submarine mine and the tor- 

 pedo ot" late, but it is highly probable that many do not know 

 the ways in which rubber makes these weapons of destruction 

 the sinister instruments they are. In the automobile torpedo 

 rubber packing i- extensively used and necessary, but it is not 

 of that we want most to speak. The torpedo would not fulfil 



issi..n properly if it could not run at a uniform depth 

 low the surface of the sea— that depth being far enough down 

 i below the protecting belt of armor and to hit a ship where 

 she is least able to withstand such a blow. The depth-regulating 

 devici fundamentally of a diaphragm of soft rubber 



directly exposed to the pressure of tin- sea watei on the outside 

 and to the thrust of a spring on the inside, all the while keeping 

 the water from getting into the body of the torpedo and thus 

 altering its nicely adjusted buoyancy. The pulsing of this rub- 

 ber diaphragm is the means by which the rudders controlling 

 submergence are operated. In the submarine mine, the prime 

 service .if rubber is one of insulation, but there are forms of 

 these weapons that are likewise held at a predetermined depth 

 through the action of a rubber diaphragm akin to that in the 

 torpedo except that the actual buoyancy of the mine is juggled. 

 Of course, we are speaking of naval mines and not military 

 mines which are operated from a shore station. 



As must be recognized, every lighting ship today has a wide 

 and varied electrical installation, ami none of this service would 



One of the Big Stabilizing anb Rocking Gyros. The Spin- 

 ning Wheel is [nside of the Cylindrical Casing. Normally 

 It Rotates in a Fore-and-Aft Plane. Blt When Turned 

 from Side to Side It Exerts a Push Like the Shifting of 

 Tons of Weight Upon the Deck of a Vessel 



