Feb. 



1890J 



NATURE 



355 



compared with the great advantages which the provision of a 

 thoroughly efficient smokeless powder may secure to the possessor 

 of it, especially in naval warfare. 



That the opinions re-pecting the importance of such advantages 

 are founded upon a sound basis, one can hardly doubt, after the 

 views expressed by several of the highest military and naval 

 authorities, although opinions as to their extent may differ very 

 considerably even among such authorities. 



The accounts furnished from time to time from official and 

 private sources of the effects observed, at some considerable 

 distance, by witnesses of practice with the smokeless powders 

 successively adopted in France, have doubtless been regarded by 

 military authorities as warranting the belief that the employment 

 of such powders must effect a great revolution in the conduct of 

 campaigns. Not only have the absence of smoke and flame 

 been dwelt upon as important factors in such a rievolution, but 

 the recorders of the achievements of smokeless powder — whose 

 descriptions have doubtless been to some extent influenced by 

 the vivid pictures already presented to them of what they should 

 anticipate — have even been led to make such explicit assertions 

 as to the noiselessncss of theSe powders, that high military 

 authorities have actually been thereby rnisled to portray, by 

 vivid word-painting, the contrast between the battles of the 

 future and the past ; — to imagine the terrific din caused by the 

 discharge of several hundred field-guns and the roar of musketry 

 in the great battles of the past, giving place to noise so slight 

 that distant troops will no longer receive indications where their 

 comrades are engaged, while sentries and advanced posts will no 

 longer be able to warn the main body of the approach of an 

 enemy by the discharge of their rifles, and that battles might 

 possibly be raging within a few miles of columns on the march 

 without the fact becoming at once apparent to them. 



It is somewhat difficult to conceive that, in these comparatively 

 enlightened days — an acquaintance with the first principles of 

 physical science having for many years past constituted a pre- 

 liminary condition of admission to the training establishments of 

 the future warrior — the physical impossibility of such fairy tales 

 •is appear to be considered necessary in France for the delusion 

 of the ordinary public, would not at once have been obvious. 

 Yet, even in professional publications in Germany, where we 

 are led to expect that the judgment of experts would be com- 

 paratively unlikely to be led astray through lack of scientific 

 knowledge, we have, during the earlier part of last year, read, 

 in articles upon the influence of smokeless powder upon the art 

 of war (based evidently upon the reports received from France), 

 such passages as these : — " The art of war gains in no way as 

 far as simplicity is concerned ; on the contrary, it appears to us 

 that the absence of so important a mechanical means of help as 

 noise and smoke were to the commander, requires increased skill 

 and circumspection in addition to the qualities demanded by a 

 general. ..." " The course of a fight will certainly be 

 mysterious, on account of the relative stillness with which it will 

 be carried on." 



In an amusing article, in imitation of the account of the Battle 

 of Dorking, which appeared in the Deutsche Heeres Zeitung of 

 April last, the consternation is described with which a battalion 

 receives the information from a wounded fugitive from the out- 

 posts that the enemy's bullets have been playing havoc among 

 them, without any visible or audible indications as to the quarter 

 of attack. Later in the year, and especially since the manoeuvres 

 before the German and Austrian Emperors, when the employ- 

 ment of the new smokeless powder was the event of the day, 

 the absurdity of the assertions as to the noiselessncss of the new 

 powders became a theme for strong observations in the German 

 service papers ; the assumed existence of a noiseless powder was 

 ridiculed as a thing equally impossible with a recoil-less powder ; 

 the violence of the report, or explosion, produced upon the dis- 

 charge of a firearm being in direct relation to the volume and 

 tension of the gaseous matter projected into the surrounding 

 air. 



The circumstance that blank ammunition was alone used in 

 the smokeless powder exhibition at the German manoeuvres, 

 may have served to lend some support to the assertions as to 

 comparativfly little noise made by the powder — the report of 

 blank cartridges being slight, on account of the small and lightly 

 confined charges used. It is said that the sound of practice 

 with blank ammunition at the German manoeuvres, was scarcely 

 recognized at a distance of 100 metres. In a recently published 

 pamphlet on the results of employment of the latest German 

 smokeless powder in the manoeuvres, it is stated, on the other 



hand, that the difference between the violence of the report of 

 the new powder and of black powder is scarcely perceptible ; 

 that it is sharper and more ringing, but not of such long dura- 

 tion. This description accords exactly with our own experience 

 of the reports produced by different varieties of smokeless 

 powder, and of the lecturer's earlier experience with gun-cotton 

 charges fired from rifles and field guns. The noise produced by 

 the latter was decidedly more ringing and distressing to the ear 

 in close proximity to the gun, but also of decidedly less volume 

 than the report of a black-powder charge, when heard at a con- 

 siderable distance from the gun. 



As regards smokelessness, the present German service powder 

 is not actually smokeless, but produces a thin, almost trans- 

 parent, bluish cloud, which is immediately dissipated. Inde- 

 pendent rifle-firing was not rendered visible by the smoke 

 produced at a distance of 300 metres, and at shorter ranges 

 the smoke presented the appearance of a puff from a cigar. 

 The most rapid salvo-firing during the operations near Spandau 

 did not have the effect of obscuring tho>e firing from distant 

 observers. 



That, in future warfare, if smokeless or nearly smokeless 

 powders have maintained their position as safe and reliable 

 propelling agents for small arms and field artillery, belligerents 

 of both sides will be alike users of them, there can be no doubt. 

 The consequent absence of the screening effect of smoke — 

 which, on the one hand, removes an important protection and 

 the means of making rapid advances or sudden changes of posi- 

 tion in comparative safety, and, on the other hand, secures to 

 both sides the power of ensuring to the fullest extent accuracy 

 of shooting, and of making deadly attack by individual fire 

 through the medium of cover, with comparative immunity from 

 detection — can scarcely fail to change more or less radically 

 many of the existing conditions under which engagements are 

 fought. 



As regards the naval service, it is especially and, at present at 

 any rate, exclusively for the new machine and quick-firing guns 

 that a smokeless powder is wanted ; for such service the advan- 

 tages which would be secured by the provision of a reliable powder 

 of this kind can scarcely be over-estimated, and their realization 

 within no distant period may, it is believed, be anticipated with 

 confidence. 



NOTE ON MR. M ELBE'S VIBRATING STRINGS, 



'T'HE effect of Mr. Melde's pretty experiments with the 

 -*■ vibrating stretched thread attached to one of the prongs of 

 a tuning-fork is often spoiled to the spectators by the unfavour- 

 able plane of vibration assumed by the thread. A very simple 

 device removes this inconvenience, and enables the operator to 

 suit his own choice for the plane of vibration. The accom- 

 panying sketch sufficiently explains itself, and shows the arrange- 

 ment for restricting the vibrations to the vertical plane. 



d 



A,,-- 



-'^.C„~-'- 



-, B 



■Q 



m 



re^~^ 



Instead of attaching the end of the thread to the prong of the 

 tuning-fork, it is tied to the middle of a short thread dA.e, and 

 the ends d and e of this are attached to the prong in a vertical 

 line. It is clear that if the distance of A from the line de is an 

 appreciable part of the quarter wave-length of the vibration, and 

 AB is an integral multiple of the half wavelength, vibration is 

 possible only in the vertical plane. For in the horizontal plane 

 this rate of vibration is impossible, A being not a fixed point of 

 the thread for vibration in this plane, and the length from the 

 prong to the pulley being not an integral multiple of the half 

 wave-length of vibration. And in any other plane the vibration,^ 

 if possible, would be compounded of two, viz. of the vertical 

 which is possible and of the horizontal which is impossible. 



The most convenient form of fixture for the short thread dAe^ 

 is alight steel wire with an eye at each end, lashed to the prong 



