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many, we should certainly be assailed without warning, and such prompt advantage might be taken of our helplessness in this respect as to decide the issue of the conflict against us before we had a chance to strike an effective blow. Think, for example, of the distressing position. we should find ourselves in if half a dozen German battleships gained entrance to the harbor of New York! They might do hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of damage in a few hours, unless we chose surrender as the disgraceful alternative.

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VIEW OF PLOTTING ROOM, SHOWING THE "TRACKING" OF A TARGET SHIP.

According to the estimate of the War Department, only $3,466,322 would be required to provide mines and all incidental equipments for submarine defense for all of our harbors from Portland, Maine, to Puget Sound. But Congress, which usually does its cheeseparing in the wrong place, has shown at reluctance to put all of this money under water. Thus, for the sake of saving so small a sum, the country has been placed

RANGE-FINDING STATION.

in a perilous situation-the mischief lying in the circumstance that the requisite mines and other material demand a period of many months for their manufacture, while the men to handle them cannot be taught the art in less than a year. Are we to expect, forsooth! that the foe will give us a year to get ready before he swoops down upon us? Even of guns we yet lack one hundred and eighty-seven to complete the armament of our coast defenses.

Floating contact mines of the kind used by both belligerents at Port Arthur are, as shown by the experience of that campaign, dangerous alike to friend and foe. The sort we employ are submarine torpedoes, anchored usually in lines across a channel and connected by wire cables with the shore, from which they may be exploded by electricity. With such an arrangement, the infernal machines may be rendered entirely harmless when not in use, or at will may be utilized with frightful destructiveness against hostile warships trying to run by. The entire mine field.

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The men at work are the observer (looking through instrument), the reader, and the recorder (seated). The observer follows the target and the reader sends the range by telephone to plotting room.

obstructing a harbor entrance is by this. means controlled by a single operator through the medium of a series of pushbuttons.

One method adopted for such purposes consists in laying off the water surface of the mine fields, by careful survey, in a series of squares arranged like those of a checkerboard. Two telescopes on shore, a couple of miles apart perhaps, can together fix the exact position of a vessel floating anywhere in the channel. These telescopes are electrically connected with two brass pointers which, in an underground chamber within the fort, move upon a map. The map, which represents the mine field, is likewise checkerboard, each numbered square of which corresponds to a surveyed square of the channel. Obeying the telescopes, the pointers meet exactly where the ship in view happens to be at the moment, and to explode the submarine torpedo nearest to her is simply a matter of pushing the right button.

Happily, Congress at last shows signs of being persuaded that something really must be done to remedy the deficiencies already mentioned. It has provided $575,000 as a starter, for the purchase of mines and other apparatus for submarine defense. It has also created a new corps, to be called the Torpedo Artillery, which will attend to the business of operating such military contrivances. This corps is to consist of picked men, who shall have undergone a thorough course. of instruction in all matters relating to subaqueous warfare, including the chemistry of explosives, electricity, and the

management of automatic anchors, which last is a science in itself.

For some years past there has been in existence a well-equipped school of submarine warfare at Fort Totten, N. Y., where a limited number of graduates in these arts are turned out annually, both officers and enlisted men, the latter being thereupon assigned to various fortified posts along the seacoast. The method of training adopted is as practical as possible, small steamers being used for planting mines and connecting the cables. The automatic anchors aforesaid are ingenious contrivances whereby the mines. may be placed at any desired distance

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EXPLOSION OF SUBMARINE MINE.

below the surface of the water. Occasionally, to make the thing seem real, a miniature battleship, put together by the men for the purpose, is blown up and into everlasting smithereens.

Now, Congress, in establishing the Torpedo Artillery, has provided for five thousand and forty-three additional men, who, when they have obtained the requisite training, will be a sufficient number to operate all of the submarine defenses of our harbors. This will require some years, and in the meantime, it is hoped, the balance of the money required for. mines and other material will be appro

Speaking in accurate figures, only thirtythree per cent were in commission and available for employment against a foe. Congress within the last few weeks has augmented the force of coast artillery sufficiently to man thirty-eight per cent of the guns-leaving only sixty-two per cent unutilizable in case of emergency. This is an improvement, but one may well ask, "Where is the wisdom in economy of this kind?"

The number of artillerymen required to man our coast defenses is forty thousand. Including the new Torpedo Artillery and the other additional men above men

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priated. When these things have been accomplished, we shall have an effective first line of defense-a means of protection for our seaports so formidable that we shall have no reason to fear a sudden raid upon our coast by a powerful enemy. Within forty-eight hours after the first alarm of war every harbor will be completely mined-interposing an obstacle to invasion which no naval force, however strong, would attempt to pass.

There are now mounted in our seacoast fortifications eleven hundred and ninety-nine guns, including both great and small. Up to the first day of the present year two-thirds of these formidable weapons were practically useless, for lack of men to shoot them.

tioned, Congress has now provided for twenty thousand-that is to say, onehalf of the necessary force. But peace reigns at present, and under such circumstances it is hard to persuade the average legislator for the nation to vote money for military preparations. Efforts to educate him on the subject are not attended with flattering results, and he finds it difficult to realize what a complicated network of machinery a modern fortress is. To operate two of the great guns (occupying one emplacement) demands the services of eighty-six men, and an equal number are needed to work a group of six small-caliber, quick firers.

It has been said that the small-caliber guns are used to cover and protect the

mine fields-that is to say, to prevent an enemy from destroying the mines in a channel by grappling for them and cutting their cables, or by exploding them with torpedoes of their own. This is obviously a matter of utmost importance, and the watching of the channel must be kept up at night, as well as by day, with the help of powerful searchlights. To provide the searchlights requisite for this purpose, $2,897,000 is needed. In addition to which, large sums ought to be expended for the perfecting of rangefinding systems at various forts, and for

the plotting-room from the observers in charge of the telescopes, and the position of a ship off-shore is marked on a chartall of this being accomplished with such astonishing rapidity that information of the exact situation of the vessel is conveyed, by way of the plotting room, to the guns within ten seconds of time. Thus it is that accurate shooting can be done with both guns and mortars-the latter being fired in groups of four, so as to give a shotgun effect-at distances of over two miles.

In some places-particularly at the en

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BATTERY OUT OF COMMISSION FOR LACK OF MEN TO WORK IT.

the establishment of power plants to make electricity. In a modern fortress electricity is utilized for the searchlights, for illuminating the gun-pits at night, for telephone and telegraph connections covering all parts of the works, and for operating the ammunition hoists and the machinery of the disappearing gun-carriages.

The accuracy of the gun-fire directed from a seacoast fort depends mainly upon a system of range-finding and positionfinding for which telescopes are used. These telescopes are connected by telephone and telegraph with a "plotting room," which is a small underground chamber lined with concrete. At brief intervals reports are received by wire in

trances of Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay, in Puget Sound, and in the harbor of San Francisco-it is proposed to employ submarine boats as auxiliaries to the shore defenses. One such craft at each of these stations would serve the purpose-its function consisting in acting as scout or picket. Also, it would be extremely useful for repairing mine cables, being safe from attack while engaged in such work.

It may be added in this connection that experiments are now being made with a view to the utilization of automobile, otherwise known as "fish," torpedoes for attacking vessels from the shore-such torpedoes being made of exceptionally large size and capable of traveling four

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