TOnPEDOES. 281 



ideas which illustrate the fraternity of men, and the 

 solidarity of their interests, without which we are 

 little superior to the brutes — how many instruments 

 of destruction have been converted from their 

 original design in the interests of our common 

 humanity, and applied to beneficent purposes! 

 Manby in England, and Delvigne in France, have 

 transformed the cannon into an instrument for the 

 salvation of life, so that the destructive missile is 

 hurled through the air as a messenger of hope to 

 the shipwrecked crew, by carrying the thread on 

 which depends their safety. In the same spirit, 

 Tixier has employed the torpedo as an instrument of 

 salvation. The Dunkirk PM mentions an opera- 

 tion, the perfect success of which leaves no doubt 

 of the happy results we may expect from the ser- 

 vices of this terrible yet docile auxiliary of man. 



The schooner Vir^ime, of St. Malo, sunk at the 

 entrance to that port by the steamboat Zingariy was 

 partly broken up by a torpedo exploded in its hold 

 by M. Franfois Tixier, who undertook this operation 

 and brought it to a successful termination. The 

 various phases of the explosion, up to the time which 

 would elapse between igniting the Bickford fuse 

 and the result itself, had been previously indicated 

 with remarkable precision, which the result fully 

 confirmed, and which was attested by numerous 



