Popular Science Monthly

��425

���either of running toward the thing it sees, or of fleeing from it. That is the basic idea of the weapon here pictured. Its movements are absolutely controlled by the beam that comes from a searchlight

��less from shore now ; can be made to stop, start, stop and swerve to right and left. Nevertheless, the secret of a re- liable, light-controlled torpedo — for light-rays are more desiral)le tlian wire- less — has not yet been entirely solved.

John Hayes Hammond, Jr., who has been widely heralded for his wireless ex- periments, joined hands not long ago with B. F. Meissner, an electrical engi- neering student of Purdue University, and together they designed and con- structed an ingenious mechanism on wheels that would trail after a pocket lamp held before its selenium eyes in a most uncanny way. Using this same principle, a torpedo with selenium eyes that will follow the directions of light rays from shore, will eventually be de- veloped ; soon, it is to be hoped.

There have been two big obstacles to

��prevent the e\oiulion of a controllable torpedo :

One is the lack of a suitable appa- ratus for transmitting sufficient light to control the mechanism at useful dis- tances; the other is to accomplish the directing without interference from the enemy's ship. The solution of the prob- lem demands a more scientific knowledge of selenium and its chemical properties.

Suppose that day had come and a hos- tile ship was booming into the harbor of New York, grimly determined to scatter our fair buildings to the four winds.

"Sic!" says the man on shore.

Almost with human intelligence, the glistening steel cylinder darts out to- wards the enemy, at a forty-mile-an-hour clip. Though at present such an occur- rence is only a fancy, it may become a reality.

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