Decembeb 11, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



827 



initial pressure need not be as great, so that 

 a gun, instead of losing accuracy very rap- 

 idly after only the sixtieth round or so, will 

 retain its accuracy up to several hundred 

 rounds. These are some innovations in the 

 right direction. 



High explosives are destined to play a 

 far more important part in future warfare 

 than they have played in the past. There 

 are three ways by which high explosives 

 may be brought to bear upon the warships 

 of an enemy for their destruction. One is 

 in the bursting charge of the high explosive 

 armor-piercing projectiles ; another is in the 

 submarine torpedo, either in the stationary 

 submarine mine or the self-propelled tor- 

 pedo, of which latter the Whitehead is 

 the principal type; and the other is in 

 aerial torpedoes, huge projectiles carrying 

 charges of half a ton of high explosives 

 dropped upon and about the warships of 

 an enemy. 



During the last decade the principal 

 progress in the use of high explosives has 

 been in the perfecting of bursting charges 

 for armor-piercing projectiles; and to-day 

 we are able to fire high explosive projectiles 

 from powder guns and to penetrate the 

 thickest armor plate, without explosion 

 until the projectile has passed through the 

 plate, to be exploded behind the plate with 

 a proper delay action fuze. 



In the land battles of the future, lines of 

 battle will circle sky line and opposing sky 

 line, and over the stupendous arena missiles 

 of death will shriek and roar, while sharp- 

 shooters with silent rifles will make ambush 

 in every copse and hedge and highway. 

 Aerial scouts will race across the sky, some 

 in high flight and others hovering low. 



In this age of marvels with which the 

 inventor is constantly surprising us, it does 

 not do to sleep too late in the morning, else 

 when we awake we may find ourselves lag- 

 gards in the abject rear. Achievement now 



runs on so fast that it often outpaces the 

 adjustment of our senses, and though we 

 pinch ourselves to prove our wakefulness, 

 still the sense of dreaming intrudes on con- 

 sciousness and harasses conviction. 



Many of us in still full life are able to go 

 back far enough in yesterday to view the 

 present through the wide eyes of wonder, 

 while M'e are so fortified with expectation 

 for the morrow that we look a second time 

 to be assured whether or not that flock of 

 clouds that skirts the sunset may be a fleet 

 of airships climbing up the sky. 



The flying machine is no longer confined 

 to the realm of fancy or imagination, but 

 the conquest of the air is already far ad- 

 vanced, and the era of practical utility is 

 near. The wonder of yesterday becomes 

 the commonplace of to-day, and the marvels 

 of to-day will be commonplace to-morrow. 



Now that the flying machine has become 

 an actuality, and as all that now remains 

 to be done is to perfect already existing 

 means and apparatus in order to complete 

 the conquest of the air, it is well for us to 

 forecast some of the adjustments that will 

 be necessary to meet the changed conditions 

 when we shall have our aerial navies of 

 commerce and of war. 



That the flying machine will find very 

 wide application in future warfare, there 

 can be no doubt. Furthermore, it will be 

 the demand for the flying machine as an 

 engine of war that will give to the industry 

 its greatest stimulus. 



Inventors will have to delve in the depths 

 of their genius in order to develop, perfect 

 and bring the flying machine to the very 

 high efficiency necessary to jieet the re- 

 quirements of government specifications. 



There is no other incentive to invention 

 so great as that which impels to the devel- 

 opment and perfection of implements of 

 war, for the very security of property, 

 country, home and life itself often depends 



