fts, yet so effective had their use become, especially during
the last year of the war, that the Secretary of the American Navy, in
his annual report of December, 1865, to the President of the United
States, thus testifies to their efficiency: "Torpedoes always formidable
in harbours and internal waters, have been more destructive to our naval
vessels than all other means combined."

Since 1862, finding myself in reach of the facilities afforded in
England, I have made the study of Electrical torpedoes a specialty, and
the results are such, to say the least, as to show that it is capable of
doing quite as much for the defence as ironclads and rifled guns are
likely to do for the attack.

These results consist in improvements and discoveries which enable the
adept in that new department of military engineering to explode his
torpedoes whether buried on land or submerged in the water, singly or in
groups, instanteously and at any distance to transmit through them
without the risk of explosion, orders and commands, and as readily as
through the ordinary line of telegraph. To determine with unerring
certainty when the enemy is in the field of destruction of this or that
torpedo. To render its explosion impossible, unless he be in such field,
even though the igniting spark should be discharged; and so to set an
electrical current to watch it, as to make the injuring of it without
his knowledge impossible, and the removal of it by an enemy, if not
impossible, extremely difficult and dangerous.

Electrical torpedoes are also available for the defense of mountain
passes, roadways and fortified positions on land.

I am not aware that electricity was used at all in the Confederate war
for springing mines on land. Shell cast for this purpose should be used
but in an emergency, tin canisters, or other perfectly water-tight
cases, will answer. These shells should be one-fourth of an inch thick
to one inch, according to size and probable handling in transportation.
They should be spherical only instead of a hole for the fuse as in a
hollow shot they should have a neck like a bottle, with a cap to screw
over, not in the neck. The case should be charged through the neck, and
the wires let in through two holes counter sunk diametrically opposite,
the counter sinking being for the purpose of receiving pitch or other
resinous matter, to keep the water out. The fuse being adjusted to the
wires should be held in place by a string through